{"id":622,"date":"2011-10-26T23:58:59","date_gmt":"2011-10-27T04:58:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/?p=622"},"modified":"2011-10-27T00:18:33","modified_gmt":"2011-10-27T05:18:33","slug":"now-congress-gets-involved-in-realignment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/2011\/10\/now-congress-gets-involved-in-realignment\/","title":{"rendered":"Now Congress gets involved in realignment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cause and effect, chain of events<\/em>
\nAll of the chaos makes perfect sense<\/em>
\nWhen you’re spinning ’round, things come undone<\/em>
\nWelcome to Earth, third rock from the sun<\/em>
\n\u2014 Joe Diffie, “Third Rock From the Sun”<\/p>\n

When the Big 12 was being torn apart at the seams and universities in four states (two especially) were in deep trouble \u2014 TWICE \u2014 the affected states’ DC delegations stayed on the sidelines.<\/p>\n

In the Big East, though, the calculations are different. Charleston (WV) Daily Mail<\/a>:<\/p>\n

U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin is calling for a congressional investigation to see if political interference is to blame for West Virginia University’s now not-so-done deal to join the Big 12 Conference.<\/em><\/p>\n

The state’s congressional representatives — including Manchin, D-W.Va., Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va. — were all enraged by media reports that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., may have used his influence to at least temporarily block WVU’s move.<\/em><\/p>\n

Why McConnell? Louisville, of course.<\/a><\/p>\n

The obvious solution is to take both of them. Even if<\/del> when Missouri leaves, 11 teams are perfectly doable, even if as a stopgap. I seem to remember a conference that lived with that arrangement for quite a while.<\/p>\n

The problem is that about half a dozen things need to happen at the same time yet in a specific order. The Big 12 finally acts instead of reacts, and still manages to have the plan blow up in its face.<\/p>\n

UPDATE: Headline kudos to the Kansas City Star’s<\/a> “Now it’s political football in Big 12”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cause and effect, chain of events All of the chaos makes perfect sense When you’re spinning ’round, things come undone Welcome to Earth, third rock from the sun \u2014 Joe Diffie, “Third Rock From the Sun” When the Big 12 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=622"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":625,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622\/revisions\/625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}