Iowa Highway Ends (etc.)

Oklahoma and Oklahoma State are bound for the Pac-Integer. Probably. Unless they’re not. Texas is looking everywhere from the Big Ten to the ACC to independence. Unless they’re not. Florida State is setting up its own bunker. Missouri has plenty of options, says the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. A Kansas writer thinks the Jayhawks can look east or west.

An SI columnist wonders if everyone in the Big 12 has lost their minds, with a backhand at those who haven’t: “Iowa State and the Kansas schools would act out of self-interest, too, if they were allowed to act. Instead they are desperately putting frosting on cupcakes for their annual athletic department bake sales.”

Five Rivals.com writers were unanimous in kicking out Iowa State from the BCS, even in “blow it up and start over” mode. Three were quite frank about TV markets being the reason. One of the other two said of the remnants of the Big 12, “Kansas State’s the only team that has appeared in a BCS game. So the Wildcats survive, while Baylor and Iowa State are the last two cuts.”

I missed what Athlon Sports did a week ago – setting up a playoff through superconferences – but it was the same story: “Baylor, Kansas State, Iowa State, Boise State and BYU will all find themselves on the outside looking in.” Which is an interesting thing to say, considering that Boise State and BYU were never in in the first place. A more recent story from there focuses on the what-if scenarios.

ESPN’s Andy Katz focuses on the business angle, especially how it relates to the contract everyone thought the Big 8+4-2 was happy with last summer:

Iowa State went ahead with projects after the Fox contract was completed and took out $40 million in bonds based on the deal. Iowa State has invested $5 million in a new video board, $20 million in a football building and an estimated $15 million in a sports complex for track, soccer and softball. The video board project began in July for this football season and the other two projects are under construction.

“The taxpayers of Iowa can’t pay if those bonds fall through,” a source said Wednesday. “These are real questions, real situations. I’m not sure how (Iowa State) could waive those (legal) rights (to sue the SEC).”

This whole thing is so bad that a Texas fan is starting to have second thoughts.

“Imagine for a moment being an Iowa State fan,” the American-Statesman article starts out. Then it goes into the obvious: Currently 2-0, two stadium sellouts, and “viewed simply as one of the weak links of the Big 12.” Read the whole thing; it sums up the situation pretty well.

The Oklahoman reports, well, not much of anything from the Texas-Oklahoma meeting Sunday, but the American-Statesman says that Oklahoma was already intent on heading for the Pac-Number TBA.

Cyclone Fanatic interviewed Kristi Dosh of BusinessofCollegeSports.com about the situation. The short version: TV money means everything, and TV markets mean everything. Big money big money no whammies…

By the way, if you parse the SEC’s statement Monday, there was nothing in there that didn’t say “…but we will be more than willing to look at Missouri if and when the Big 12 collapses.”

Sigh. It was nice while it lasted. Back to scrambling for the lifeboats. Fort Worth Star-Telegram:

A statement by Southeastern Conference commissioner Mike Slive, acknowledging plans to have a 13-team league that includes Texas A&M in the 2012-13 school year, marked that league’s first indication that it will not sit still and let the Aggies’ desired move be stalled by the legal threats of Baylor and other Big 12 schools.

Also, Oklahoma regents have scheduled a Sept. 19 meeting in Claremore, Okla. The agenda will not be finalized until Friday but multiple Big 12 sources said Monday that a likely item will be realignment. One regent told the Tulsa World that “sensitive” negotiations are expected.

The official statement from the SEC is here. Notice the sentence “When Texas A&M joins our conference, we don’t have immediate plans for a 14th member.” But Google knows all and sees all:

Texas tried to talk to Oklahoma in an apparently fruitless effort. And where Oklahoma goes, Oklahoma State goes.

Andy Staples says this has escalated from a game of chicken to a Mexican standoff, and it’s all in Oklahoma’s hands:

But Oklahoma and the Pac-12 won’t make a move unless Texas A&M and the SEC make a move. Texas A&M and the SEC won’t make a move unless Oklahoma and the Pac-12 make a move. Either act would tip the domino that destroys the Big 12 as we know it, and neither side wants to be considered the responsible party and open itself to lawsuits from Baylor, Iowa State and any other school that stands to lose its seat at the financial grown-ups table.

Staples, if you’ve been following along, has already kicked Iowa State out once. (Alternate link here; I was having trouble with that one.) The Omaha World-Herald kicked Iowa State out in its version, too. So did Oklahoma’s KOTV. And the Macon Telegraph (“Any takers? No, not really. Didn’t think so.”).

CBS Sports’ Ray Ratto was a little more colorful in his language:

All I know is that every moment spent debating Iowa State’s legal rights not to be abandoned to the apparent hell of Conference USA, or to watch Baylor desperately trying not to be forcibly ram-rodded into a reconstituted Southwest Conference, is a moment not dedicated to the greater PR disasters at Miami and Ohio State and etc. etc. etc.

The Oklahoman’s Jenni Carlson says Oklahoma City shouldn’t be hitting the panic button yet in regards to the city losing conference tournaments, but “they’ve hit it in Ames, Iowa, where Iowa State could be left without a home.” The Kansas City Star, though, if not pressing the button for what it will do to Kansas City’s college sports scene, is really, really leaning on it.

The Star’s Blair Kerkhoff says the fact that Iowa State could be left hanging “borders on insulting” (read the whole thing):

Iowa State finds itself in the line of realignment fire. If the Big 12 dissolves, the Cyclones could end up outside of a major conference, the chatter goes. … Somehow, a program that just defeated Iowa — and one that is averaging more fans at home this season than eight schools in the Pac-12, seven in the ACC, five in the Big Ten, plus Oklahoma State and Texas Tech — doesn’t cut muster in the major-college football world.

But it’s not the Iowa State that just defeated Iowa that’s the subject here. It’s the Iowa State that lost 15 straight to Iowa and is singlehandedly responsible for more than 10% of Nebraska’s all-time wins. It’s the Iowa State that, from 1963 to 1999, only had more than six wins three times and then went 55-68 in the 2000s.

Oh, and by the way, a previously scheduled Missouri Board of Curators meeting Monday had a “mystery item” on the agenda.

This liveblog from the Lawrence Journal-World goes through Monday’s events.

Epic.

Sunday Update: The Cedar Rapids Gazette’s sports writer came awfully, awfully close in his prediction.

Mike Hlas – Frankly, I don’t see any way in the world that either team loses. Today or ever. And the two teams have the greatest fans in the world. Did I mention corn is the ideal food? Iowa 43, Iowa State 41 (3 OT)

Here’s what I originally saw in the RSS feed. I thought the link had vanished from the ether, but turns out it was later altered to this.

All 15 prognosticators in the article picked Iowa to win. Or maybe it’s 14. Beth Malicki and Bob Brooks both have the same line. Jeff Linder couldn’t get Conferencepocalypse II out of his mind: “Iowa State’s last year in Big 12 before moving to Mountain West/Big East/Conference USA/WAC/whatever. Iowa 20, Iowa State 10.”

The Salt Lake Tribune says the Texas and Oklahoma schools – i.e. the ones that could end up in a Pac-16 – won’t object to A&M leaving for the SEC. That report comes after conflicting reports Wednesday and Thursday. Not necessarily a surprise, not necessarily an indication of anything. Key paragraph:

The SEC said it would invite Texas A&M to join as its 13th member, so long as every school in the Big 12 waived its legal claims against it. Baylor has led a group of five other Big 12 schools — Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State and Missouri — that refuse to do that, fearing that another massive realignment will leave them out in the cold.

CBS Sports says Oklahoma State’s president is “focused on remaining in the Big 12.”

But A&M is so desperate to get out it may take the long way around (Houston Chronicle):

If the SEC agreement somehow falls through – and chances are great it won’t – the Aggies might go independent for a year. That’s how bad they don’t want to be in the Big 12. Multiple A&M insiders have said as much – the Aggies have gone too far to turn around now.

But at this point, how would you schedule games in anything – from football to softball – for 2011-12?

And Marc Hansen talks about what’s been in the back, or front, of every Cyclone fan’s mind: Without BCS money, we couldn’t even afford to pay Bill Fennelly.

Do you know what happens to Iowa State if the Big 12 goes kaput and ISU’s chunk of the TV swag disappears?

“They become Northern Iowa with a $5 million scoreboard,” says Michael Gartner, who recently left his position on the Board of Regents. “Without that money, they’re dead in the water. No way they can run an athletic department then without a subsidy. I bet it would be a $10 million subsidy, too.”

ISU is starting a search for a new university president. There’s a football game tomorrow that was supposed to be the talk of the state. Sunday is a very somber anniversary. Have I mentioned that this whole thing has been horribly, horribly timed?

(Clarification: I think Gartner is exaggerating about his quote. UNI is, after all, I-AA. However, the gist of the statement — that losing that TV money would be a nuclear bomb on ISU athletics — is not far off.)

The only things that seemed to happen Thursday were that a) time expired on the Big 12’s release of A&M, and b) this awesome animated GIF made the rounds. Watch for Cy.

Although the Kansas City Star did sense something:

…[O]ne idea seemed to form Thursday that should have every underdog wagging its tail: Baylor, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State and Missouri suddenly have leverage.

And then there was this from a St. Petersburg Times columnist who makes sense right until he says “Even with expanded conferences, no one else is talking about throwing teams out.”

Unless he was referring to the Big East specifically, this is absolutely incorrect. It’s the entire background of Baylor’s legal action (or so-far lack thereof). Start with the Oklahoman’s Berry Tramel, saying about the nicest thing anyone’s said about the Cyclones all week:

In all this conference realignment, I feel sorry for only one school. Iowa State. The Cyclones haven’t done anything except mind their own business, try to do things right and play decent football and basketball from time to time. And they might get left out in the cold.

ESPN Big Ten blogger Brian Bennett:

But I just don’t see Iowa State as a viable candidate. For one, it adds nothing in value to the league since the Big Ten already has those TV markets sewn up with Iowa and Nebraska. The Hawkeyes wouldn’t support the move, either. Iowa State is one of those teams that is in serious danger of being left out if the Big 12 crumbles.

Tom Keegan at KUSports.com:

The Big 12 stayed together, and the Big East added TCU, bringing to nine the number of football schools it will field in 2012. It would rather have 12. That’s why Kansas and Missouri need not worry about getting left out of the BCS musical-chairs game, with the Big East being a nice fall-back position. The New York Post reported that the Big East already has extended an offer to KU, K-State and MU. Iowa State will have to look for another home, probably not a BCS one.

A Charleston (WV) Gazette columnist, proposing a “dispersal draft” of sorts to put the Big 12 and Big East out of their misery:

Sorry, Iowa State and Cincinnati, but someone gets left out here.

ESPN’s Pat Forde calls ISU, KSU, and Kansas “undesirable commodities.”

Fox Sports’ Jennifer Floyd Engel, praising Baylor, sort of:

Trying to save the Big 12, a league that seemed doomed by geographical infighting, idiocy and greed since it was founded in the mid-90s, probably seems like a cause not worth fighting for. For Baylor, and their friends also on the wrong side of this situation in Ames, Manhattan (the miserable one in Kansas), Lawrence, Columbia and beyond, though, a sorry-ass joke of a conference run by an idiot is better than a big bag of nothing.

Hawkeye fans, of course, are overjoyed at the prospect of never setting foot in Jack Trice Stadium again because ISU would no longer be an equal – at least, until the Legislature stepped in, which they would.

(I’ll be honest. I have not given a single thought about the game this week. I don’t know how the coaching staff keeps focused, but hats off to them.)

The Orlando Sentinel’s Mike Bianchi still hates us (and the state of Mississippi, for good measure):

And this is the shame of the disgracefully inequitable BCS cartel: It is based on an affiliation of schools formed nearly a century ago – some of which have no business being in BCS leagues today. Do Mississippi, Mississippi State and Vanderbilt really belong in the SEC – the premier conference in the country? What do they really bring to the table? The same with Wake Forest in the ACC and Iowa State and Baylor in the Big 12.

The Des Moines Register has some cold, hard numbers about differences between the haves and the have-nots (hint: It’s a lot).

As a parting thought, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram says that this all started because of a few words said about a high school football game.

He’s upset about trying to stop the inevitable – and makes an SMU comparison in the process:

Instead of a giant leap toward further consolidation of power and money, major college football is getting there through with a series of agonizing half-steps and missteps.

Change isn’t coming too fast. The process of conference realignment is actually happening too slowly. The Big 12 is being whittled into extinction …

Baylor and the other ugly ducklings in the Big 12 such as Kansas, Kansas State and Iowa State are facing the possible downgrading of their athletic programs. What if there are no spots left in BCS automatic-qualifying conferences for them?

Just go ask SMU, which currently resides in Conference USA and has been practically begging for an invite to the Big 12, how important it is to live in the right neighborhood….

Nebraska and Oklahoma, once one of the great rivalries, has gone from dying to dead. The Texas-Texas A&M rivalry is heading down that road, too.

But at this point we’d all be better off if they just got there already — because this trip is excruciating.

Well, forgive us for not wanting to go gently into that good night. But really, Iowa State hasn’t done anything yet. In what may be the first public comment since Aug. 31, ISU hasn’t said it intends to sue, it just hasn’t waived its right to do so:

John McCarroll, an Iowa State spokesman, told the Des Moines Register on Wednesday that the school has not waived its rights to sue either the SEC or Texas A&M for the involvement in that university’s decision to leave the Big 12 Conference.

Buried in a column by SI’s George Schroeder about Baylor “tilting at windmills” is this:

Fifteen months ago, when it looked as though [Pac-10 Commissioner Larry] Scott was about to slice the Big 12 in half, I ran into an administrator from a Big 12 North school. He knew what was coming, and what it might mean. “We’re going to Conference USA,” he moaned. The Mountain West was more likely, but his point remained. I felt sorry for him. Even when it didn’t happen last summer, we all understood it would happen sometime, and that it would create a much wider chasm than already exists.

Let’s see. It’s definitely not Nebraska or Colorado and probably not Missouri. That leaves three likely suspects, and guess who’s still on the list.

Tulsa, 493 miles: Closest C-USA school to Iowa State, and only one of four 1-A football teams within 500 miles that’s not in the Big 10, Big 12, or named Notre Dame.

Today, we are also reminded that these sports teams have academic institutions attached to them:

Iowa State University enrolled a record number of students this fall. … A total of 29,887 students enrolled this fall, a 4.2 percent rise over last fall’s record of 28,682. …

[Admissions Director Marc] Harding said the university did what it has always done to enroll students at ISU — recruit aggressively, tout its academic programs and show off its social draws, such as student groups and Big 12 conference athletics.

And, while grasping at straws for positives, this column from a Wisconsin student about improving the Big Ten may be as good as it gets:

Step 3: Add Missouri and Iowa State

Adding these two schools makes sense. Before the Big Ten announced Nebraska was to become its 12th member, Missouri’s name was all over the rumor mill.

A natural fit because of the high level of their sports programs, academic prowess — ranked in the top 50 of public universities — and geographical location, Missouri is a promising school to add to the Big Ten. Iowa State is an odd pick I admit, but they will be one of the easiest pieces to grab once the Big 12 ceases to exist. Our conference already has one team in Iowa; why not bring in another?

Because Iowa State doesn’t give you any more TV footprint, that’s why they won’t. But thanks for the thought.