Expansion Updates – 6/10/10

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As Jackie Gleason might say, “And away we go…”


1.  Today might be the day that changes everything.  Reports surfaced last evening that point to a Nebraska entry into the Big Ten.  According to ESPN, Tom Osborne informed some staff members yesterday that the Cornhuskers would be leaving the Big 12 for the Big Ten.

A Big Ten source revealed that the Nebraska deal should be done by the end of the week or early next week.

With Nebraska leaving, expect Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Colorado to start negotiating with the Pac-10 immediately.  Colorado is expected to get the nod over Baylor, Texas politicians be damned.

That would leave Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State, Baylor and Missouri (which has angled for a Big Ten berth) looking for new homes.


2.  Adam Rittenberg of ESPN.com reports: “I’m also told that right now, no other candidates are imminent to join the Big Ten.  That means Missouri is far from a lock.  Notre Dame?  The Big Ten is prepared to move forward without the Irish for now.”


3.  Colorado, according to other sources, already has a Pac-10 invitation.  The Pac-10 is looking to become the nation’s first 16-school BCS conference.  Unless something falls apart, the six Big 12 schools would form one division with Arizona and Arizona State while the old Pac-8 schools would make up the other division.

But rather than create a conference championship game, the Pac-16 would likely push to get two automatic bids into the BCS, one for each division champion.  Other BCS leagues currently have one automatic bid with the ability to land one other at-large team.  If the Pac-16 gained two automatic bids, it could still push for the ability to land an additional at-large team in the bowl series.

One Big 12 coach said, “The Pac-10 doesn’t believe in a championship game.  And coaches in the Big 12 don’t like it anyway.”


4.  Notre Dame remains the biggest fish in the expansion pond, but most school officials still do not want to join a league.  That said, it sounds as if athletic director Jack Swarbrick at least realizes the potential for mass changes (which could conceivably leave the Irish all alone with no major schools to schedule in football).

“I do feel very strongly that there probably is not a long-standing status quo anymore.  It’ll probably become more fluid.  I could see conference mergers where whole conferences would disappear in a merger.

“There are so many things that can produce seismic change.  We’re going to live with that sort of change more often than not.  The emerging consumer of college sports is so different.  Generations of young people are growing up who are so accustomed to rapid change.  They don’t understand things that don’t change.  They have shorter attention spans, are accustomed to change and less oriented to tradition.”


5.  Along these lines, Stewart Mandel of SI.com ended a recent mailbag piece with a brilliant breakdown of college football’s many recent changes… and the fact that no one seems to care.  As Swarbrick said, people adjust.  Take it away, Mr. Mandel:

“My two cents: No college administrator could possibly tell me with a straight face that 16-team superconferences, severed rivalries and politicians having to grovel to protect their states’ programs is a good thing for college football.  The sport is built on tradition, but tradition clearly is not the top priority for many parties right now.  They’ll undoubtedly tell you how all that extra television money and exposure will ultimately benefit their “student-athletes” (more so those in the sports being funded by football than in football itself), or how excited they are to be aligning themselves with such academically renowned peers, but the average fan doesn’t care.  He or she just wants the Ohio State-Michigan game to still matter.

“But college football has undergone an unbelievable amount of change over the past 15-20 years.  If someone had told you in 1990 that Penn State would join the Big Ten, the Southwest Conference would crumble, the Rose Bowl would start occasionally hosting non-Big Ten and Pac-10 teams, the amount of bowl games would more than double and 6-6 teams would be eligible, the Orange Bowl would be played on January 5th, show companies would alter schools’ uniforms beyond the point of recognition, coaches would make $5 million and most major teams would play one or two games per year against I-AA foes… well, you would probably have been horrified.  And that’s before even bringing up the BCS.”

(Editor’s note — Or conference championship games.  Or the regular flow of midweek games.)

“And yet, the sport has never been more popular.

“So something tells me that whatever ultimately results from all of this — no matter how clunky, no matter how blatant a money-grab, no matter how many fans are initially resistant, disappointed and/or ticked off — the new world order will eventually seem normal, much like everything I just listed above.  As long as there are still brats to be had in the parking lot and hits to be seen on the field, people will still crave college football.  The landscape is ever-changing, but the game remains the same.”

Those observations should run with each and every “the sky is falling” column that will most assuredly be penned if mega-expansion befalls us. 

The last round of expansion didn’t destroy anything about college football.  Arkansas stopped playing Texas and Texas A&M for gosh sakes.  Those Texas schools parted ways with their old SWC mates TCU, Houston, Rice and SMU.  In the Big 12, Oklahoma and Nebraska ended their annual football rivalry game — one of the best traditional games in the nation.  That was an absolute sin of a move.  But now no one cares.  And now Oklahoma and Nebraska won’t even share a conference anymore.

Like expansion or hate expansion, Mandel has it right — as long as people love football, the sport will roll right along and we’ll be there to follow.


6.  Did Mandel also mention something about politicians?  Well, another of these toads has croaked up in defense of one of his state’s schools.

Iowa Republican Charles Grassley said that he and other federal lawmakers from states that could be hurt by conference realignment will look at ways to delay or prevent it.  He said the options could range from asking the Justice Department to conduct a review of whether the changes violate federal anti-trust laws — something US Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah also brought up Wednesday. 

Grassley said serious consideration could also be given to introducing legislation to end the federal tax deduction permitted to college athletic contributions.

I believe I made clear yesterday my views on politicians who choose to get involved in sports.  I have a standing policy that if any major politician in the state in which I reside decides to get deeply involved in football, basketball or baseball issues, I will vote his rump out.  These people are sent to Washington to fix big problems.  I do not consider who Iowa State plays on Saturday night to be a big problem.

And if Iowa State loses some cash in all of this, so sorry.  Why does Iowa State deserve more loot than say Tulane or Akron?

I find it interesting that Grassley is wanting to make sure that the little guy — Iowa State — is taken care of financially.  This is the same man who once said that the new US spending programs showed a “trend toward socialism.”

Obviously socialism is okay if your constituents’ favorite school would benefit from a “let’s help make everyone equal” mindset.

But Grassley has shown previously that he has no deep understanding of the finances of college football.  When Alabama hired Nick Saban for $4 million per season, the Iowa senator said:

“When I see big salaries for sports coaches and money for stadium sky boxes while tuition skyrockets, I wonder whether the university trustees are doing their jobs.  They need to justify those expenses as part of the public obligation that comes with tax-exampt status and make sure that colleges are meeting their priorities.”

Just one problem there, chief, Alabama’s athletic department makes money on its own.  Saban’s salary isn’t coming from the same pool of cash used to hire professors.  Tuition in Tuscaloosa isn’t being raised to pay Saban.

In fact, Saban’s enormous salary is actually just a fraction of the increased revenues the coach has brought to Bama (via television appearances, BCS bids, merchandising, stadium expansion, ticket sales, etc).

But why let facts stand in the way of a grand harrumph?


7.  Georgia’s Mark Richt said yesterday that he doesn’t believe the SEC is “in a rush to change any time soon.”

No kidding.