Though it seems like eons ago, it was just last week we were listening to big speeches during a pompous newsconference in Nebraska and were shrugging our shoulders when Colorado showed their Benedict Arnold flakiness. How quickly breaking news becomes stale. Both schools were duped by the same university that 1 ups them in the competetive arena every year.
Texas is the mastermind. I’ve always held the position that Texas didn’t want to go anywhere. They covered their bases in case the whole conference imploded, but they didn’t start the snowball rolling in the Rockies, the one that swept away Boulder and ended up wiping out Lincoln.
How did rumors of the Big Ten’s interest in expanding get into the minds of certain Big 12 universities? Rumors started in December which begs the question “Why didn’t Beebe do something earlier?” Maybe there was something more too it than what is now chalked up to Beebe’s incompetence. I find it hard to believe that such a game changing deal was drafted up overnight as soon as the two schools left.
Consider this, assuming the money promised from the new TV deal and the Texas TV Network actually materializes, the Big 12 just got stronger in every aspect including on the football field and in the bank account. In football everyone now plays everyone else. We all must go through the same gauntlet and whoever comes out of that hellish schedule on top is without a doubt the best of the best.
The idea of a super conference is built on a flimsy premise. I think each conference should be split up into groups of 10 teams, everyone should play everyone and whoever ends up in first should be put into a National Championship football tournament. Do away with half of the early season gimme games and actually play a couple games in December. This will never happen because money has long since become king of the game, but it can happen in one place at least for a moment… the Big 12!
The realignment mixer apparently showed cracks in the Big 12 cake pan that held the schools together. Rumors were stirred around by the media’s big mixing spoon and soon the whole thing was whipped up into a conference recipe filled with ingredients that never really went together in the first place, like chocolate and cheddar cheese.
It seemed that crusty Nebraska felt out of place and felt slighted by the creation of the Big 12 nearly 15 years ago; wanton Colorado yearned for the Pac 10; Baylor wasn’t part of the equation if Colorado was; A&M wanted to go east; Tech didn’t make the grade in the classroom; both Oklahoma schools would hitch their wagons to Texas; Kansas, Kansas State and Iowa State were loners; Missouri was given the finger by the Big Ten and we all hated each other and couldn’t stand being in the same conference.
Was it really a dysfunctional family or was it a product of all the pressure of possible collapse? I wonder how many buttons Texas really pushed? Nebraska and Colorado apparently caught the message, too bad it turned out to be smoke signals for a raid that never happened.
Texas knows they’re the money in the Big 12. Everyone knows that. When Texas sent out a few rumors of their “discussions” with other conferences, did they think they could knock a few screws loose? When pressure is applied who’s the most likely to get antsy and collapse? The weakest ones at the bottom.
Maybe that’s what Texas wanted all along. They knew that deals could be made in the eleventh hour after a couple defectors jumped. Dan Beebe pulled off a genius fix that makes Texas come out looking brilliant.
Now Colorado gets to travel an extra thousand miles to play their nearest conference “rival” unless you count the new dream matchup to mark on your calendars- the Buffaloes vs the Utes.
Nebraska on the other hand gets to take a beating on the court AND the football field now. No longer are the Big 12 north rivals there to prop up their football program.
We get rid of two bottom feeders from the clearance rack. Yes, we’ll miss the wraith of Nebraska football but I wish the the Pac 10 and the Big Ten well as they try their hand at milking money out of those turnips. Texas was the prize all along.
Media coverage has dulled as expected, but when they do bring up the topic they now say this fix is like putting a bandaid on a severed hand. With Texas getting the lionshare now, soon the other schools will grow disasitified with the way the money was divvied up. Maybe so, but Texas and Oklahoma have dominated the football field for years. That hasn’t killed off the fervor fans feel for those “lesser” teams in the conference.
It is time, of course, that will be the only thing that will prove this theory true or false. East-cost media minds under estimate the power of close rivalry, especially rivalry in the midwest. I think that distance is what will ultimately separate the “super conference” from becoming fact and remaining fiction.
Tags: Sports
