Iowa Highway Ends (etc.)

A glance down the emergency stairway told Lightoller the water was now on C Deck … rising fast. But the lights were still bright … the music still ragtime … the beat still lively.

Only two more boats.
— Walter Lord, A Night To Remember

(Three of ISU’s bowl opponents in the 2000s have gone on to win BCS bowl games.)

This year, the Big East has eight football teams and 16 basketball teams. Next year, TCU will become the ninth/17th. That leaves, realistically, three spots, maybe five.

The New York Post:

According to multiple sources, the most likely scenario — should Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas and Texas Tech leave the Big 12 for the Pac-12 — would bring Kansas, Kansas State and Missouri to the Big East.

When the Big 12 nearly lost five members to the Pac-12 last year, the Big East had an agreement in principle with Missouri, Kansas, Kansas State and Iowa State. The Big East has since added TCU, making Iowa State expendable.

The nation’s first land-grant university, the birthplace of the electronic digital computer, a university that has close relationships and does serious research with both the Department of Energy and the Department of Agriculture, is about to be thrown on the scrap heap because its football team sucks.

The Houston Chronicle quotes a recruiting consultant making the obvious shot: “The good players want to play the best competition, and no one is arguing that the SEC isn’t the best conference. So from A&M, the talk track will be that you can stay in Texas, play as many home games as you’re playing now, and then when we go out of state, you’ll go to Auburn and Alabama and LSU and Tennessee instead of Iowa, Kansas State and Missouri.”

Funny, I didn’t think the Aggies played the Hawkeyes.

[Second Officer Charles] Lightoller had a more tangible yardstick – the steep narrow emergency staircase that ran from the Boat Deck all the way down to E Deck. The water was slowly crawling up the stairs, and from time to time Lightoller walked over to the entrance and checked the number of steps it had climbed. He could see very easily, for the lights still gleamed under the pale green water. His gauge showed time was flying.
— Walter Lord, A Night To Remember

I really hate to compare the Big 12 to the Titanic. I’m not the first. But from where it stands right now, early Monday morning, the boats are dwindling, and Iowa State is still in steerage.

The Orlando Sentinel (via Chicago Tribune):

Baylor, Iowa State and Kansas State, the remaining three members of what was the Big 12 Conference, would most likely end up in the Mountain West Conference, giving the league some much needed boost.

That’s trying to make the MWC look good, although it may not need the help. The MWC handed the Cyclones their first overtime loss in history (9/7/96, Wyoming 41, ISU 38). And it’s home to a New Mexico team that went 1-11 last year but gave up fewer points to Utah than ISU did (56-14 vs. 68-27).

Matt Tait of KUSports gets it:

That leaves K-State, Baylor and Iowa State. It’s likely that each is panicking big-time and, at this point, may very well be hoping for major conference expansion beyond 16-team conferences. If the leagues grow to 18 or, gasp!, 20, as some have suggested, that dramatically increases K-State, Iowa State and Baylor’s odds of remaining in a major conference and keeps them — for now — from having to face the music of what life might be like in the Mountain West.

But K-State has an out: Kansas, at least publicly, has its back. Again, Mike Hlas:

On its own, Kansas State might struggle to find a good conference fit. But if linked with Kansas and Missouri, K-State could work its way into the Big East. Baylor and Iowa State could have the most difficult situation staying relevant.

Baylor’s name keeps popping up, but its situation is different, both by circumstance of being in Texas and being a private school:

Baylor, a Baptist school of 14,000-students just keeps getting better and better. There are new facilities all over campus. The athletic complexes are state of the art, opulent and undeniably big-time in basketball and baseball and softball and track, where they’ve won and regularly compete for national titles. [For what it’s worth – and it’s not worth much – Baylor won the women’s basketball tournament in 2005.]

A Big 12 basketball blog goes straight for the jugular:

ISU just doesn’t have enough to warrant admission into a power conference. The[y] split the Iowa market with a B1G school and just don’t have a footprint outside of the state. I hate to dog a conference school like this, and Clone fans tend to hate my world view, but if the Hawkeyes don’t campaign for ISU (and they won’t) then who does? If nobody, what does ISU bring to a power conference that would make them extend an invitation?

But maybe, maybe, the Texas Legislature will swoop in…

Multiple league sources confirmed Sunday that Texas lawmakers, including Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, are preparing to take a more active role in determining whether Texas A&M should head to the Southeastern Conference and whether Texas should join Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Texas Tech as part of a four-school move to an expanded Pac-12….

If the Big 12 implodes, there has been speculation about the Big East seeking to bring in the five remaining Big 12 schools (Baylor, Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri and Iowa State) as part of an expanded football league in 2012. Another scenario could include the Big East going after only Kansas, Kansas State and Missouri.

…or not.

First, from the Oklahoman, it’s oh [double expletive deleted]:

OU’s sole focus now on joining Pac-12 (well, that headline just exudes optimism)

The Pac-12 preference is to add four schools – OU, Oklahoma State, Texas and Texas Tech.

OU president David Boren stepped out of a cloak of secrecy Friday and said the Sooners were being proactive in deciding their conference future, had interest from multiple conferences and expected to make a decision soon, from 72 hours to two weeks.

But it’s Bryan Burell of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch who’s gone ahead to “Bring out your dead”:

Tick, tick, tick. Two weeks to get your stuff together; two weeks to find three new conference members with some true gravitas who aren’t afraid to walk into a mine field; two weeks to solve the troubling fiscal imbalance that has already caused Nebraska, Colorado and Texas A&M to bolt over the past 15 months. Two weeks to do what Beebe has consistently been unable to do since this whole thing began unraveling like a cheap suit. Two weeks to live or die. My money is on death, quick, embarrassing and forever. …

Beyond all the very relevant academic credentials that [Missouri] can showcase, among the stragglers left behind — Kansas, Kansas State, Baylor and Iowa State — the Tigers have the most to offer any conference shopping for new members.

And I heard a Fox Sports radio guy slip and say “Pac-16” when talking about Saturday’s games.

The thunderclouds of doom that interrupted the Iowa game today (and Notre Dame, and Michigan) would have been more appropriate hanging over Ames.

When Texas governor and A&M alum Rick Perry was in Iowa recently, he didn’t do much to answer questions asked about A&M’s role in destabilizing the Big 12 Conference. But, as the Boston Globe points out, he may have to:

To fans of other Big 12 schools like Baylor, Texas Tech, and Iowa State, the fear now that the departure of Aggies will cause the Big 12 to implode — and that when the dust settles, their teams may wind up in a second-tier conference. …

Perhaps the most vulnerable member of the Big 12 if it breaks up is Iowa State. … Further, Iowa State’s fan base is concentrated in the more conservative western third of the state, where, incidentally, there are also a disproportionate number of GOP caucusgoers. …

In these vast stretches of rural Iowa, Iowa State sports, be it football, basketball, or wrestling, is the only show in town. But while Western Iowa may be devoted to Iowa State, it’s not exactly considered a promising market or exciting television for the rapacious athletic conferences that will feed off the remnants of the Big 12.

The Globe is a little off on its perceptions. I think at best, western Iowa is divided into thirds between the Huskers, Hawkeyes, and Cyclones, and the Omaha media market plays into that. And I don’t think there’s anywhere, even Ames, where Iowa State is the only show in town; you can’t drive too far on any Iowa road without seeing a Hawkeye flag flying.

Maybe Iowa State’s presence in a BCS conference should replace ethanol subsidies as the alleged litmus test for Republican candidates. But maybe instability will stay in the background as long as there aren’t any other…

University of Oklahoma president David Boren says multiple conferences have shown interest in the Sooners recently and he expects to decide whether to leave the Big 12 or not within the next three weeks.

Oh [expletive deleted].

Here’s what they’re saying about Iowa State this time around:

Starting with the Cedar Rapids Gazette’s Mike Hlas, who lays it out in no uncertain terms (read the whole thing):

If the first of the inevitable four superconferences should involve the breakup of the Big 12, Iowa State is in severe trouble. … [If] there’s no Big 12 next year and the Big East maybe just scoops up Kansas for even more basketball prestige? Then Iowa State is left scrounging for membership in a league such as the Mountain West or Conference USA.

The Oklahoman, on the position of T. Boone Pickens Oklahoma State:

For OSU, the Pickens-made-possible ascension in football puts the Cowboys on the radar in terms of appeal and relevance — a status that didn’t exist even five years ago, before the Stillwater version of the Pickens Plan was complete.

Ten years ago, before Pickens penned his first big check to OSU athletics, the Cowboys weren’t much more thought of than Iowa State.

All that has changed.

Houston Chronicle:

SMU, Houston and TCU are the three schools that ought to be invited, but Texas fears all three. All have rebuilt their programs, and all three would cut into Texas’ recruiting. The Big 12 is a Texas production, and with schools like Baylor and Iowa State desperate for the affiliation, the conference will live a bit longer even in a diminished state.

Topeka Capital-Journal:

Why Notre Dame wouldn’t fit in the Big 12: “Hard to see the Fighting Irish making that road trip to Ames.”

(And why SMU wouldn’t fit: “They’re SMU.”)

Blogger at the Kansas City Star:

At this point, nobody can foresee how it will play out. One would presume Texas, Oklahoma and OSU would remain together in some form or fashion. And, certainly KU and KSU would be happy to feast on the crumbs that fall from their table. So would Iowa State, but the more strung out the conference gets, the better the odds the Cyclones are going to end up elsewhere devoid of any other B12 schools. Can the Missouri Valley be far away?

The Missouri Valley. UNI’s conference. About 13,000 people a game. Now that is a vote of no confidence.

Texas offered a Big 12 Network; Texas A&M refused. Texas reportedly offered a Lone Star Network; A&M refused. Texas created the Longhorn Network, just like everyone expected, and now A&M has gone off the deep end. Austin American-Statesman:

Texas A&M notified the Big 12 conference Wednesday morning that it is seeking league membership elsewhere.

President R. Bowen Loftin sent a letter to commissioner Dan Beebe to alert him of the school’s decision. Once the school finds another league – it’ll be the Southeastern Conference – the Aggies will cut their Big 12 membership June, 30, 2012. …

The move by the Aggies, which is not unexpected, could cause a monumental shift in the college football landscape if the Big 12 fails to come up with an adequate replacement team. The Big 12, which started competition in 1996, could implode, allowing its marquee teams like Texas and Oklahoma to be free agents to align with other top conferences.

A 13-team SEC would have to be looking to poach another team from somewhere else, potentially setting off a chain reaction. And if there is a game of musical chairs, Iowa State isn’t going to have one.

Jamie Pollard is being, um, nonchalant: “It is unfortunate that Texas A&M is moving forward with plans to depart the Big 12.”

“Unfortunate.” Can we panic now?