“The paperwork is in the formalized process, but he’s been in the process the past couple of weeks,” Nelson Stewart said. “I think for him, it’s the best fit. He doesn’t have to wait, and they have a scheme that he’s comfortable with.”

Stewart says Vinson is leaving LSU on good terms and suggested that playing time was the key to his ex-player’s decision.  ”They’ve just got so much talent in their secondary (at LSU).”

Hopefully they’ll have enough to offset the loss of the former 4-star signee.

Almost immediately, emails started to pour in here at MrSEC.com.  The gist was as follows: “If the Pac-12 and Big Ten can partner in the Rose Bowl and in a new round-robin regular-season scheduling agreement, why can’t the SEC and Big 12 do the same?”

Makes sense.  And the press has started getting behind the idea, too.

Yesterday, Cecil Hurt of TideSports.com — a hybrid of Rivals.com and The Tuscaloosa News — wrote the following:

“But with all the talk about the changes in postseason football, and particularly the new SEC-Big 12 ‘champions’ matchup, doesn’t it seem sensible that the conferences – especially what now appear to be the four soon-to-be super conferences (the SEC, the Big 10, the Big 12 and the Pac-12) should take charge of opening weekend as well. With the coming playoff, even a four-team playoff, it makes more sense than ever.

To be honest, a Georgia-Oklahoma game would seem far more compelling to me on Labor Day than New Year’s Day, if those teams are out of the playoff picture. Not every matchup can be Alabama-Michigan, and not every one can sell out an NFL-sized stadium in a neutral city in a matter of hours.”

It’s a good piece.  You should read it.  But there are two things standing between the plan Hurt and many fans support and reality.  And both are already being used by people inside the SEC as reasons to avoid adding a ninth conference game.

* First, if SEC coaches don’t want play a ninth league game, why would they be in favor of playing a ninth game against a team from the second-most successful league of the BCS era?

* Second, if SEC athletic directors don’t want to play a ninth conference game because it would mean giving up a home game every other season, why would they want to give up a home game every other season in order to play a team from the Big 12?

While schools in the Big Ten, Big 12, ACC and Pac-12 are fine with playing a minimum of nine BCS-level foes per year, many SEC schools want to cap things at eight for bowl eligibility purposes.  (Southern Cal, for example, will play nine Pac-12 games, one game against a Big Ten foe each year, as well as its yearly tilt with Notre Dame.  That makes 11 BCS-level games per year.)

Additionally, the folks in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina have pointed out often that they already have a built-in BCS-level game as part of their schedules thanks to their in-state rivalries with Florida State, Georgia Tech and Clemson.  (Kentucky fans would argue that Louisville is a major conference team as well, but the Big East is far from a major conference anymore.)

This brings us to what could be a better option altogether for the SEC… if the league actually wants to help tap the breaks on conference expansion.

Last year, the SEC welcomed in Texas A&M and then Missouri from the Big 12.  That move destabilized the Big 12 until ESPN and FOX stepped in to dole out major cash to the league in an effort to hold it together.

Just last week, the SEC aided the Big 12′s rejuvenation process with the aforementioned bowl partnership.  That gave the Big 12 more stability moving forward, but in turn, it made the ACC appear even more vulnerable.  If the ACC is vulnerable, then massive realignment is still a possibility.

We’ve been told repeatedly from sources at just about every SEC school that no one in the league is anxious to become a 15- or 16-team conference.  Just this week, interim Big 12 commissioner Chuck Neinas told an Austin, Texas radio station that an “SEC colleague” had told him not to expand past 12 because 14 is “unruly.”

So how could the SEC make more money, fend off “strength of schedule” attacks from rival leagues (by guaranteeing nine BCS-level games per year), and help save the ACC?  All the while making sure those folks already playing ACC schools don’t balk?

The answer is pretty clear.

In his column yesterday, Hurt suggested a series of Big 12-SEC games be played on opening weekend each year.  Not bad.  But if the SEC truly wants to slow expansion, we believe it should set up a series of annual games against the 14 ACC schools instead.

SEC coaches would likely be less worried about an ACC game tacked onto the schedule than a game against a Big 12 foe.  Playing most of those games at neutral sites and grabbing a sponsor and an overall television partner would quiet SEC AD’s groans regarding lost income from lost home games every other year, too.

The SEC’s television partners have already asked the league to start scheduling better games toward the end of the season.  For that reason — as well as the fact that USC-CU, UF-FSU, and UGA-GT already play at the end of the season — we would suggest lining up neutral site ACC-SEC rivalry games over the final two weeks of the season.

The ACC and SEC share a major corporate partner in AT&T.   Now let’s say ESPN, AT&T and nine NFL cities/stadiums all cough up dough to create the AT&T SEC-ACC Football Challenge each season?  How much money would that be worth?  How much would that help the SEC in answering cries that its teams only play eight guaranteed BCS-level foes per season?  How much would such income — and a partnership with the SEC — help stabilize the ACC.

Answer to all: A bunch.

As a hypothetical, let’s imagine that Carolina-Clemson, Florida-FSU, and Georgia-Georgia Tech continue to play each other on a home-and-home basis.  Ditto Vanderbilt and Wake Forest which are winding down a seven-year home-and-home contract themselves.  If Kentucky squawked over having to play both Louisville and an ACC foe, give them a permanent home-and-home rivalry with the ACC’s traditional cellar-dweller, Duke.  There’s already a hoops rivalry there between the fanbases.

That leaves nine schools from each league to pair with one another each season.  Those schools could rotate foes on a regular basis, always meeting on neutral sites.  Here’s an example of what might be possible come 2015:

Alabama vs Pittsburgh at LP Field in Nashville, TN

Arkansas vs North Carolina at The Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA

Auburn vs Syracuse at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ

Clemson at South Carolina (permanent foe, home and home)

Kentucky at Duke (permanent foe, home and home)

Florida State at Florida (permanent foe, home and home)

Georgia at Georgia Tech (permanent foe, home and home)

Kentucky at Duke (permanent foe, home and home)

LSU vs Virginia Tech at FedEx Field in Washington, DC

Missouri vs Virginia at The Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis, MO

Mississippi State vs North Carolina State at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, NC

Ole Miss vs Maryland at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore, MD

Tennessee vs Boston College at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, MA

Texas A&M vs Miami at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, TX

Wake Forest at Vanderbilt (permanent foe, home and home)

Other stadiums and cities could be used based upon a bidding process and availability — Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, the Superdome in New Orleans, Reliant Stadium in Houston, Yankee Stadium in New York, etc, etc.

Lining up a year-in, year-out sponsored series of late-season football games against the ACC would accomplish three things:

1.  It would bring in more dollars for both leagues (which should be enough to get the ACC on board with such a plan).

2.  Those dollars and the credibility of partnering with the SEC could help hold the ACC together (and prevent the SEC from having to expand again so soon after going two new teams).

3.  It would guarantee each SEC foe at least nine BCS-level contests per season, which would aid the league in the polls and computer rankings.

We at MrSEC.com understand the thinking behind a Big 12-SEC regular-season partnership to rival the Big Ten’s new deal with the Pac-12.  But we believe the better play would be in setting up an annual SEC-ACC partnership.  Better for the ACC.  Better for the SEC.  Better for the stability of the college football landscape.

Revenue estimates for such a network have ranged anywhere from $500,000 million to $1 billion to even more depending on the source you read and the data they use.

David Climer of The Tennessean goes the simple route in explaining why an SEC Network should be worth more than the already highly successful Big Ten Network and the start-up Pac-12 Networks (there will be six channels focusing on two member schools each):

“Getting toeholds in Texas and Missouri pushes the total population in the SEC’s 11-state footprint to 91 million, according to the latest census figures. Compare this to the Big Ten (69.5 million) and the Pac-12 (62.8 million).

That means if Slive, who is in his 11th year as commissioner, can strike an agreement that would put the SEC Network into every cable and satellite subscriber’s house, it should eclipse the revenue of the Big Ten and Pac-12 TV deals.”

This is nothing new to our readers who’ve seen our “reason for expansion” pieces over the years.  It does, however, further explain why Missouri got an SEC invite over West Virginia, a fine athletic department that just happens to be located in a tiny state.  Many Mountaineer fans took it as an insult when we tried to explain that dynamic a year ago.

As expansion talk continues to roil, maybe it will become more and more clear to those few holdouts who don’t quite get it — television is driving this bus.

1.  Clemson AD Terry Don Phillips says there’s “no substance with regard to a report” from Orangebloods.com that there’s been informal contact between the Big 12, Clemson, Florida State, Virginia Tech and Miami.

2.  Here’s the original Orangebloods piece claiming that one Big 12 source puts the odds of expansion at “55 to 60 percent.”

3.  Today that site claims that Georgia Tech “has also put out informal feelers to the Big 12.”

SIDENOTE — “Informal feelers” could mean a single rogue booster who wants his school to move has put in a call to someone he knows at a Big 12 school.  Either way, it seems that reports of a “done deal” for FSU and Clemson to join the Big 12 were exaggerated.

4.  Texas AD DeLoss Dodds told CBSSports.com yesterday that he’s against expansion and that he thinks the new playoff system will make league’s playing championship games think twice… but he also says he’s been courting Notre Dame for a while.  (Of course he’s against expansion.  The more schools that join the Big 12, the more Texas’ power and revenue share will decrease.)

5.  ESPN’s Chris Low said on The Paul Finebaum Show yesterday that he believes more expansion is coming and “I can tell you that the SEC has their eyes on Virginia Tech.”

6.  At about the same time, the athletic directors at Virginia Tech and Virginia were saying they don’t feel there is “a serious threat of someone leaving the ACC.”

SECOND SIDENOTE — We’ll have more on the Virginia Tech talk a little later today.

7.  Here’s a graphic look – literally — at what expansion and realignment has meant for basketball.

8.  This writer says college football needs an early signing period.

9.  The season-opener between Alabama and Michigan in Arlington, Texas will — no surprise — kick off at 8pm ET on ABC.

10.  Arkansas quarterback Tyler Wilson has been pleasantly surprised by how quickly he’s developed a relationship with new offensive coordinator Paul Petrino.

11.  LSU’s football players are eager to get the “taste” of defeat out of their mouths.

12.  Transferring Texas A&M hoopster Naji Hibbert says he can be better on and off the court at Gardner-Webb.

13.  The Aggies come to the SEC with some peculiarities, says this writer.

14.  Will Muschamp believes his young Florida offense will grow up.  (Yeah, but how quickly?)

15.  Freshman Georgia placekicker Marshall Morgan will need to quickly do some growing up, too.

16.  Six Kentucky basketballers have been invited to the NBA’s draft combine.

17.  Tennessee coach Derek Dooley said of the felony theft arrest of tight end Cameron Clear: “I am aware of the situation but I can’t comment and won’t comment till I get all the details.”

18.  When Dooley was initially asked about rumors that Clear had stolen items from athletes on campus back, he said on May 7th: “I’ll classify it as messageboard journalism, like a lot of things that come through.”)

19.  Finally, here’s another writer’s look at the most important transfers in college basketball (and three are coming to an SEC arena near you).

THIRD AND FINAL SIDENOTE — If I open one more website and see Mia Hamm pop up in a video ad I’m going to punch something.

“I like the every year playing LSU.  I think that’s good. I think that’s good for the league.  It’s two national programs with the recent success we’ve both had.  As far as how they rotate the other Western Division opponent, that’s up to (commissioner) Mike Slive and our athletic directors.  I’m just in favor of still playing eight as far as SEC games.”

No surprise on that last part.  Just as SEC coaches feared going from six SEC games to seven and then to eight and then adding a conference championship game 20 years ago, today’s coaches are in lockstep in their desire to avoid a nine-game league schedule.

“I think there’s enough good teams in our league right now,” Muschamp said. “It doesn’t really matter.  There’s going to be great matchups week in and week out in our league.”

That’s all part of the negotiating process.  Not to be lost in all of this, however, is the possibility/likelihood that both CBS and ESPN would like to see the SEC adopt a nine-game schedule for football.  More “SEC versus SEC” inventory would be easier to sell for both networks than “SEC versus Jacksonville State” or “SEC versus Troy” type games.

The question is — how much is it worth to those networks?

If CBS, for example, says it won’t provide a significant bump in pay unless there are better games to choose from, that might encourage Mike Slive and the league’s presidents to overrule the conference’s athletic directors and football coaches next week in Destin… in what would be a very surprising move.  The same could be true if ESPN showed that having more SEC in-league games on the schedule would help gain a new SEC Network placement on more cable systems.  (For that very reason, ESPN is currently trying to land more Big 12 games on the schedule of the Longhorn Network it co-owns with Texas.)

The SEC is already working to improve the quality of its late-season schedule at the behest of its TV partners.  On the basketball front, one need only remember how the SEC yielded to ESPN over those Thursday-Saturday turnarounds that became quite controversial among fans and some coaches last winter.  Time and again Slive’s league has wisely shown a willingness to give and take when it comes to working happily with its big-spending television partners.

So if CBS and ESPN play hardball with the SEC while at the same time offering to open their wallets a bit wider in exchange for a nine-game conference slate, it’s at least possible that a nine-game schedule isn’t completely dead and buried just yet.

If those networks make it worth the league’s while.  Big if.

2.  This writer says the SEC-Big 12 bowl deal shows that the ACC and Big East should have been angling for an eight-team playoff.

3.  This national writer looks at the eight most important basketball newcomers to the SEC next season.  (Not surprisingly, three will dress in Kentucky blue.)

4.  The Alabama fan charged with committing sexual battery on an unconscious LSU fan after the BCS title game pled not guilty yesterday.

5.  Arkansas has named six captains for this year’s football squad.

6.  Crews have started work on the new $4.6 million HD video screen at Razorback Stadium.

7.  Will Muschamp says having two quarterbacks push one another will be good Florida’s offense.  (Sounds nice, but he’d better hope one of them separates himself from the other.)

8.  Meet Georgia cornerback Damian Swann… the Dawgs’ fourth most important player in 2012.

9.  John Calipari tweeted some photos from inside Kentucky’s new Wildcat Coal Lodge.  (And, yes, the big booster behind the new digs is a coal magnate.)

10.  This writer believes further conference realignment could help UK while hurting in-state rival Louisville.

11.  AthlonSports.com previews South Carolina, their preseason #10 team.

12.  The Tennessee football team made big improvements in the classroom from last fall to this spring.

13.  ESPN lists the top 10 football players in the SEC.

14.  Conference commissioners are hoping to agree upon a new playoff format by July 4th, but a lot of people are still on completely different pages.

* 80% of the revenue generated by the ACC’s new ESPN deal is tied to football.

* The league has “look-ins” at five-year intervals that would allow the conference to renegotiate for more money if the conference’s level of play in football were to improve.  (In other words, if Florida State, Clemson, Miami or others started competing for national titles, the league could earn more cash.)

* The ACC used some of the same consultants for negotiations that other leagues have hired to aid in their own ESPN negotiations.  In other words, it wasn’t the negotiations that hurt the ACC… it was the lack of high-end football.

* There have been no discussions between Clemson and the Big 12, but “it’s such a moving target,” that Phillips would rule nothing in or out.

Asked whether or not the ACC needed to expand to add more football powers (preferably in good TV markets with plenty of recruits near by) — good luck finding those at the moment — Phillips had this to say:

“I’m at a juncture to where you don’t rule anything out anymore.  You simply can’t rule it out.  The irony of it is that as I look backwards, I can still remember when I was at Arkansas when we went to the SEC and the consternation of us leaving the old Southwest Conference at that time.  That was traumatic because of the ties that we had.  Then I go to the Big XII when they expanded.  I guess that should’ve been a signal that this is the times that we live in.  I do believe that it’s going to continue.  I do know this — football has got to be very strong because that is driving these contracts.  At the ACC meetings, we had an interesting presentation that was in regard to basketball and football with regard to the public.  Basketball is a great sport and has a great following, but over the last 10-15 years, where at one time basketball was up as a sport in this part of the country and football was lower and now it has changed places. That in and of itself tells you that football is what the public wants.  They want a playoff.  They want a championship game that’s not contrived, but one that pretty well matches up the two best teams at the end of the day.  That’s what the public wants and conferences have got to position themselves to where their members have an opportunity to get there.

One of the things that (Clemson football coach) Dabo (Swinney) did a very good job of talking about at the conference level was about the concern that one of the (SEC) teams will start off ranked higher and they have a tendency to stay up there and Dabo said, ‘Well, this past year was a great example that that is not true. If you base it on performance and who you are playing.’  We start off 8-0 and we go from being unranked to fifth in the BCS and had we finished out — fortunately we were able to come back and beat Wake Forest to get in the championship and then we beat a good, solid Virginia Tech team in the ACC Championship.  But had we finished out the year the way we did those first eight games, we could’ve been playing for the national championship and that’s going from being unranked.  That’s based on performance.  I thought Dabo’s point was very good.  This year showed what can happen and unfortunately, we were very grateful that our kids played well in the championship game and we won that against a good, solid Virginia Tech team, but our losses occurred at the end of the year which dropped us out of the BCS opportunity, but at one time we were sitting there pretty doggone good.”

This is further proof that the anti-SEC push of “their teams just start out more highly ranked in the polls” is poppycock.  Yeah, I said it… poppycock.  Balderdash, too, for that matter.

Phillips’ statement also shows that the powers-that-be in college athletics are now seriously paying attention to the fans.  In part, that’s because social media and the internet and talk radio — all of which have boomed in the last 25 years — have given fans more outlets with which to voice their opinions.  But playing just as big a role is the fact that fans aren’t spending as many dollars on tickets as they have in years past.  They aren’t watching the BCS bowl games on television like they have in years past.

College athletics’ power brokers have finally realized that they can no longer hand fans a peanut butter sandwich and charge them for steak.

Ah, but proximity to current schools in a conference is probably the least important aspect of location during short-term feeding frenzies (long-term, proximity does seem to matter and we’ll have more on that later) .  No, location matters in terms of a school’s nearest television market, it’s state’s population (for cable household purposes), and it’s recruiting grounds.

In 2010, we took a numbers-based look at possible SEC expansion.  You can read that here.  Last fall, we updated our data and took another look-see.  You can start reading that series here.  The final part of that series as well as links to all the parts in between can be found right here.

Today, Tony Barnhart of CBSSports.com examines many of those small programs that are announcing — daily it seems — that they’re planning a jump to the FBS level of the football world.  Specifically, he looks at Charlotte, Georgia State, Old Dominion, Texas-San Antonio and Appalachian State (an FCS school that wants to follow those others up the ladder).  What he found was that location, location, location matters more than just about anything else.

As Barnhart points out:

* Charlotte won’t play its first football game at any level until 2013.  By 2015, it’s already set to join Conference USA.  Why?  Charlotte is located in he 25th biggest television market in the country.

* Georgia State will be playing its third season of football this fall and it will jump to the FBS level and join the Sun Belt Conference.  Why?  Because Georgia State is located in the Atlanta television market as well as the recruiting hotbed of Georgia.

* Old Dominion has been playing football for just three seasons, but it will be joining Charlotte in Conference USA in 2015.  Why?  ODU is located in a Top 50 television market (Norfolk) and the Tidewater section of Virginia is rich in high school talent.

* Texas-San Antonio played its first season of college football last year.  It will play in the WAC this season before moving — sign of the times — to Conference USA in 2013.  Why?  San Antonio is the 36th biggest TV market in the country and I think we all know just how many recruits there are in Texas.

Sure they’re fledgling programs, but conferences are ready to snap them up because they provide inroads into good recruiting territory, populous areas, and sizeable television markets.

But then there’s Appalachian State.  Located in tiny Boone, North Carolina — population: 14,138 — the Mountaineers will mark their 85th year of football this year.  From 2005 through 2007, ASU won three straight FCS national titles.  They knocked off Michigan in Ann Arbor in ’07.  They led all FCS-level schools in attendance last season.  And they’ve made it know that they want to take a step up in class.

Only no one’s called them.  Conference USA and the Sun Belt would rather have the deep recruiting zones and television viewers provided by newborn programs than the proven football school located in a small, mountainous region of the Tarheel State.

As Barnhart points out, Appy State might still eventually land an invite into either C-USA or the Sun Belt, but as of now, those leagues are more interested in location than they are on-field proof of performance.

A year ago, we were bombarded with emails from West Virginia fans who were angry that we suggest WVU’s location wasn’t likely good enough to provide the SEC — or as it turns out the ACC — with what those conferences were looking for in terms of recruiting zones, total population, and television eyeballs.    That wasn’t a knock on WVU’s program which landed safely in the more distant, but once again strong Big 12.  It was simply a statement of fact.

And the fact is… location, location, location matters when it comes to conference expansion.  Whether that’s at the top of the food chain or the bottom of the food chain, as Barnhart points out in his latest column.

But while most dismissed an SEC network as an impossibility at that point, we wrote way back on May 19th of 2010 that Mike Slive’s league could still launch a new network if it expanded and added new inventory (meaning games).  Well, that expansion has now come to pass.  The new inventory will come into existence this fall.  And now an SEC Newtork is once again being discussed by the Southeastern Conference.

According to The SportsBusiness Journal, the SEC is not only trying to get more money from ESPN and CBS but it’s also discussing the launch of a cable channel by the fall of 2014.  Naturally, ESPN — which owns the majority of SEC programming and is already a co-owner of the University of Texas’ Longhorn Network — is in negotiations to partner onthe  potential channel.

The Journal reports:

“It remains to be seen if the SEC will be an equity partner in the channel, like the Big Ten, or if the conference will simply sell the rights to ESPN for an additional fee.

There are several different paths the SEC could take on a channel. It could follow the Big Ten model, where the conference is a 49 percent owner of Big Ten Network with Fox and shares in its revenue. Or it could go the Pac-12 route, which owns all of its regional networks. Texas, on the other hand, sold its rights to ESPN for a fee and ESPN owns all of the Longhorn Network.

All of those models are believed to be in play for the SEC, but any channel couldn’t be launched until 2014 at the earliest, when ESPN gets back syndication rights it sublicensed to regional sports networks operated by Fox Sports and Comcast. A decision on whether to go forward with a new SEC-focused network would be made by the SEC-member university presidents and ESPN. A final decision on a network will be made by ESPN in conjunction with SEC Commissioner Mike Slive and the presidents.”

The magazine’s sources believe the SEC’s new rights agreement with CBS will be finished up more quickly than the one with ESPN.  That makes sense… CBS pays less money for fewer games.  Those games are the best of games of the week, in most cases, however.

The Journal claims CBS “has balked at paying any type of significant increase,” saying that the addition of Missouri and Texas A&M does not change their original agreement with the SEC.  The network claims that Mizzou and A&M aren’t the television draws that Alabama, Florida and LSU are.

While that’s true, the same could be said for Ole Miss, Kentucky or any number of other SEC schools in football at the present time.

You can bet that Slive’s counterpoint in negotiations has been that ratings for SEC games in top television markets like St. Louis, Kansas City, Dallas, Houston, and even Austin will go up with the Aggies and Tigers now in the league.  Increased ratings mean increased advertising revenue for CBS and its affiliates.

Also, The Journal believes that the SEC can argue that “the collegiate market has been reset” since it first negotiated its own bar-raising contracts in ’08.

But make no mistake, the big money is in the network.

Someone recently sent me an email claiming that Slive and the SEC had erred in their initial deals with CBS and ESPN.  Instead of selling their own “widgets,” they cut a deal with “Wal-Mart” to distribute their widgets for them.  Jim Delany and the Big Ten had wisely found a way to sell their own widgets.

Well, sort of.

While the Big Ten’s model is now being copied elsewhere because its clearly worth a lot of money, the Big Ten did not get national exposure for darn never every game played by every league member.  Yes, Delany sells his own widgets, but his sales are for the most part limited to the Midwest.

Slive partnering with Wal-Mart — that would be CBS and ESPN, by the way — allowed him to take his product nationwide.  The result: Texas A&M and Missouri will play more nationally-televised games this fall than just about any Big Ten schools not named Ohio State or Michigan.

With the addition of an ESPN-partnered network, Slive and the SEC can have the best of both worlds.  One, most of the league’s games will continue to be broadcast nationally rather than on regional sports networks.  But two, the league would also have a means of printing its own money a la the Big Ten Network.

So even if the SEC’s negotiations with CBS result in a minimal increase in payout, the launch of a network — aided by grabbing major brand name schools in states featuring millions of cable households — should result in a windfall of cash.  Not to mention continued national exposure greater than that received by any other conference.

You might remember our expansion coverage back on May 28th of 2010 in which we looked at numerous factors driving expansion and actually pushed Missouri as a possible SEC candidate because of — wait for it — the St. Louis and Kansas City television markets (as well as proximity).  Television has been at the heart of Slive’s actions since the first shot in this realignment warfare was fired.  This summer, all of those moves should come to fruition in the form of increased funds for the league with continued massive exposure. Exposure that could include a joint venture network with ESPN.

A network we told you was still a possibility more than two years ago.

But you can expect to the new playoff system to take up a good deal of discussion time as well.  The who, the when, and the where will all likely be debated.  According to SEC associate commissioner and chief PR guru Charles Bloom (speaking to The Chattanooga Times Free Press):

“What’s going to take the day is discussion on the conference’s position on the four-team playoff.  The commissioners were charged with going back to their conferences, with each conference stating a position on their preference.  There will be a lot of discussion on that…

“The devil is in the details.  How do you fill it?  Who’s hosting it?  Is it inside the current BCS structure, or will it be separate bowls?  Is it a neutral-site bid or campus sites?  Is it conference champions only? All those items are up for discussion.”

Earlier this month the president at Nebraska suggested his fellow Big Ten and Pac-12 presidents might scuttle playoff talk altogether and instead vote in favor of a pure Plus-One game to be tacked on after the bowls.

Just last week, the SEC and Big 12 announced a partnership on a new bowl that — if nothing else — guarantees that the old BCS system will die by the 2014 season.  So even if the presidents hijack playoff plane, there will be no move back to the system Roy Kramer created.

Now there’s speculation that the big four leagues — and that’s currently the SEC, Big Ten, Pac-12 and the recently revived Big 12 — might have just set up their own mini-playoff system.  That option is one of dozens now available, though it’s hard to imagine schools like Notre Dame and conferences like the ACC going being cast aside without a fight from lawyers and politicians.

Currently, we could wind up with…

* A four-team playoff featuring any conference champions ranked in the top five or six slots in the final poll (or whatever ranking system is used).

* A four-team playoff featuring the three highest-rated conference champions and a wild card team (if the top four aren’t all conference champs).

* A true Plus-One game that would just match the top-ranked teams after the bowls.

* A return to the old way of settling a champion — the polls.  If no one can reach a consensus and the BCS is dead, then it’s possible we could return to the days when conference champions and top-ranked teams just went to different bowls in different parts of the country.

We at MrSEC.com are in favor of a seeded Plus-One system that would use the existing bowls as semifinal games.  This would be a “plus one” because only one game would be added to the season, but it would still have a 1 versus 4 and 2 versus 3 set-up.  (If you read this site, you also know we’re in favor of just taking the four highest-rated teams in the nation… because eventually ratings will be used to determine the highest-ranked conference champions anyway.  If rankings must be used, they should be used to assign the top four teams their seeds.)

We do not believe a true Plus-One — just adding a game after the bowl — solves anything.  An unbeaten team might win its bowl and be rewarded by having to play a team with one loss.  After the bowls, if you’r the only unbeaten team, you should win the crown.  Also, what if three teams from three bowl all end their seasons undefeated.  Welcome to the BCS Part II.  Two spots, three teams, voters and computers give one team the shaft.

And we don’t believe — at least not yet — that the new Big 12-SEC alliance will help form a members-only playoff.  According to that theory, the Big 12 would add two more teams in order to hold a conference championship game.  The championship games of the Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-12 and SEC would serve as de facto quarterfinals.  Then the Pac-12 and Big Ten champs would meet in the Rose Bowl (making it a national semifinal) while the winners of the SEC and Big 12 would do likewise in their own “Champions Bowl” (another semifinal).  At that point, the winners of the Rose and Champions would meet in a title game.

Hey, that sounds good.  But good luck getting that past the supporters of every non-SEC, Big 12, Big Ten, and Pac-12 school in the country.  The threat of lawsuits and Congressional hearings would most definitely become reality under such a plan.

As you can see, there’s no easy answer.  So it’s probably wise for the SEC to block out plenty of time to debate this issue.  It likely won’t be settled for months, regardless of the June and July timelines that are currently being kicked around the internet.

CBS Sports announced today that it has signed a multi-year agreement with ESPN to eventually air 26 basketball games per year from the ACC, Big 12 and Pac-12.  This isn’t new.  ESPN has sold off SEC football games to networks like CSS and Fox Sports Net since signing their contract with Mike Slive’s league.  You can own everything, but you can’t possibly show everything.  (Unless the folks in Bristol finally launch “The Ocho.”)

What this means for the SEC remains to be seen.  By clearing off more games from other leagues from its schedule, is ESPN preparing to carry more SEC contests now that the league has two new hoops squads and additional inventory?

Stay tuned.

The SEC and Big 12 have also consolidated their power in an “oh, yeah” response to the Big Ten and Pac-12′s ongoing loyalty to the Rose Bowl.  The SEC and Big 12 have sent many more teams to the BCS Championship Game these last 14 years than the Big Ten and Pac-12 have.  ”We’ll see your Pasadena and raise you an Arlington, or New Orleans, or Atlanta,” the SEC and Big 12 seem to be saying.

The response was quick and wild over the weekend with many believing this move to be “The Big One” so long talked about.  For 25 years people have speculated that we would eventually come to the point where four superconferences — and only four — ruled the college football world.

But is this really the San Andreas Fault rattling and rolling?  Is this really Fred Sanford’s chance to join Elizabeth?  And what should Joe Average Football Fan be hoping for?

Monday morning thoughts…

We’ve been hearing for months that Florida State and Clemson fans were ready to bolt from the ACC.  Oddly, their fervor for departure didn’t really kick into hyperdrive until FSU trustee Andy Haggard responded loudly to some misinformation on the internet regarding the ACC’s new television deal with ESPN.  Now social media is blazing with talk of FSU, Clemson, Miami, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, Louisville and Notre Dame possibly/probably jumping to the Big 12.

Some websites even claimed earlier this month that a deal was already done between FSU/Clemson and the Big 12.  The buyouts had already been figured out and it was only a matter of waiting for the new playoff plan to be announced.

That’s news to many people who are actually in the Big 12 it seems.  While some writers say “there is no doubt — none — that the Big 12 wants to get back to a minimum of 12 teams,” others say the league is split on expansion… with four schools for it, four schools on the proverbial fence, one school pushing hard for it (Oklahoma) and one school pushing hard against it (Texas).  Oklahoma State president Burns Hargis is in the go-either-way camp telling The Tulsa World:

“…we were very happy with where we are with 10 teams…

To be honest, I think everybody liked it.  It was a very good number for our league.

I think it was great that everyone played everyone else in football. I think two games against everyone in basketball was a good thing. I know our coaches liked it. Right now, I’d say we’re pretty happy at 10.”

Hargis is the head of the Big 12′s expansion committee, by the way.  While Hargis postures, new reports of FSU moving continue to spew forth.  Yesterday, Ingram Smith of ChuckOliver.net went all in:

“According to two people with the strongest ties possible to Florida State’s Athletic Department, FSU fully plans on exiting the Atlantic Coast Conference. Florida State will begin its transition to the Big 12 Conference beginning this June. One source went as far as to say, ‘at this point the move is inevitable.’

… Florida State leaving the ACC this summer will culminate a process that began with initial talks with an intermediary representing the Big 12 last November. Florida State did not officially reach out to the Big 12 until a week before the ACC’s most recent deal with ESPN was announced. Florida State has long been frustrated with the leadership of its current conference and in the Big 12 believes it has found a partner that is more focused, and in touch with the current economic climate of collegiate athletics.

Florida State will receive substantial financial help from the Big 12 in their exit fee from the ACC. Look for FSU to receive a similar deal that WVU received last year from the Big 12. FSU will be given anywhere from 10 – 14 million dollars towards the 20 million dollar exit fee. Much of this money will come from the exit fees the Big 12 received from Texas A&M and Missouri’s departure. It is very likely that FSU will additionally then be loaned somewhere in the area of 3 – 5 million dollars from the Big 12.  FSU’s AD department will be responsible for the remainder of the costs associated with the departure from the ACC.  FSU has boosters that have already pledged the money towards the remaining fees that are not covered by the Big 12.

Florida State will enter the Big 12 as a full member in their first year.”

That’s an awful lot of detail coming from the FSU side of things.  Smith also writes that “Clemson will almost certainly pair with Florida State as team 11 and 12 for the Big 12.”  In addition, “Georgia Tech is also talking with the Big 12.”

Smith then goes on to blow up the ACC entirely with the usual suspects — Virginia Tech and NC State — landing in the SEC and the Big Ten diving in for the remaining high-minded institutions like Duke, North Carolina, Maryland and Virginia.

Miami isn’t mentioned by Smith.  Maybe that’s because Barry Jackson of The Miami Herald wrote the following over the weekend:

“Though a Yahoo story suggested the Big 12 – which has more a lucrative TV deal than the Atlantic Coast Conference – might pursue FSU and UM, two UM Board of Trustee members said it hasn’t been discussed inside UM and they could not envision Miami being interested. One pointed out UM would need to pay more than $15 million in ACC exit fees even if it wanted to move. ”

Well, now, wait a second.  We were told that FSU and Clemson were leaving for the Big 12.  Then word came out that FSU was pushing for Miami rather than Clemson.  Then we were told Miami couldn’t pay its ACC exit fee even if it wanted to go.  And then we’re told the Big 12 will give FSU help with its fee.

If you notice that we’re writing the story in one direction, then zigging from our previous zag, you’re paying good attention.  The point is, no one seems to know what’s really happening.  And anyone who claims after the fact to have seen all this coming — if all this does eventually come to pass — would be akin to the guy who made this film saying he knew man would someday reach the moon via the Apollo space program.

For while one group says the Big 12 has already reached deals with certain schools, arguably the most powerful man in the Big 12 argues in the other direction.  Last week Texas AD DeLoss Dodds said Florida State was far both far from the Big 12 geographically… and far from joining it.  Last night he said the age of the superconference is a long ways off as well:

“I think that’s way, way out there.  The Big Ten likes where they are; they don’t want to change.  The Pac-12′s got all they can get.  I don’t see superconferences for a while.  I think it’d take a crisis for that to happen.”

Interim Big 12 commissioner Chuck Neinas has said his league hasn’t had any conversations with Florida State.  (Today he told KTXX-FM that an SEC colleague told him not to expand past 12 “because 14 becomes unruly.”)  He also said that he expects Notre Dame to remain independent.  Ah, but that where there’s another break within the Big 12 conference.

Orangebloods.com — the Rivals site that covers Texas and that is viewed by many as a Longhorn propaganda arm — writes that Texas has been “courting Notre Dame carefully since the summer of 2010.”  So at least one school inside the Big 12 must feel the Irish can be had.

Confused yet?

In the end, we tend to agree with the Orangeblood’s Chip Brown’s assessment of all this expansion talk:

“In short, anyone saying Notre Dame, Florida State or Clemson are done deals are talking to people with wishful thinking or relying on second or third-hand information from people with wishful thinking.”

Amen.  But, ironically, many of the folks doing the wishing should actually be wishing for a slow-down, not a speed-up to expansion.  Here’s why:

1.  The Big Ten and Pac-12 are stable as can be.  Due to geography, Larry Scott’s league is practically untouchable by any other raiding party.  The massive TV deal he negotiated for his conference insures that Pac-12 athletic departments will make more money than ever.  That, by the way, is already what’s going on in the Big Ten.  It’s believed that league’s schools will make $24.6 million each when checks are handed out at this year’s league meetings.  Why expand now if you’re the Pac-12 or Big Ten?

2.  The SEC is renegotiating its own television deals with CBS and ESPN and it’s expected Mike Slive’s league will be at or very near the top of the cash heap when the ink on those new contracts dries.  It’s been a backroom fistfight to hammer out the new 14-team SEC football and basketball schedules and that process has stretched all the way to the league’s spring meetings.  If you’re filthy rich and the move to 14 schools has caused some issues already, why rush to 16 (or 18 or 20 teams)?

3.  The Big 12 had lined up new television deals with ESPN and Fox that were — ironically — designed to help hold the league together.  Now they’ve given the Big 12 so much clout that it’s gone from devastation to destination in less than 12 months.  The Big 12 is the Michael Myers of conferences.  But if you’re uber-wealthy and you only have to split your booty among only 10 programs, why expand?  For a conference championship game?  Would the financial rewards of that one game be enough to cancel out the additional splitting of the conference revenue pie with two, four or six new schools?

At this point, the traditionalists better hope everyone decides to cool off for a bit.  The four leagues mentioned above are safe and secure.  They can afford to wait.

For Florida State, Miami, Clemson or anyone else hoping to leave the ACC for better television money, the better goal might be to improve your own football programs first.  John Swofford’s league controls just about every major television market up and down the East Coast.  The only reason his league can’t equal the other leagues in football TV money is the lack of performance by the three schools mentioned above.  If the Noles, Canes and Tigers had just strung together — say — six BCS titles in a row, the ACC would be rolling in mucho dinero.

And speaking of the ACC, their best options for survival appears to be:

1.  Somehow convince Notre Dame to join their league.

2.  Sign a multi-million dollar deal with the Orange Bowl and Notre Dame… right… this… instant.

Either way, Notre Dame appears to be the ACC’s best hope for a dance partner now that the Big Ten and Pac-12, SEC and Big 12 have paired up.

So what’s the takeaway?  Well, this might not be “The Big One” that everyone suspects.  Fans of tradition should pray the four most secure conferences realize that they have the time and money to be patient and make well-reasoned moves regarding expansion.  They should hope the ACC and Notre find a way to navigate through all this by finding a way to work together.

Things don’t have to be as wild and crazy as now they appear to be.

Think of the Cuban Missile Crisis.  If the hawks in the US military and the hardliners in the Soviet Union had had their way back in 1962, none of us might be around today to talk conference expansion.  Instead, the Kennedys were cool, determined to avoid a nuclear war, and Nikita Kruschev gave them a way out with what was believed to be a drunken letter he sent to the US President at the height of the crisis.

If cooler heads prevail now, we might just come out of this without having to go through Expansion War III.  Pray for cooler heads to prevail, folks.  Just don’t count on that happening.

2. Sam Mellinger: “The Big 12 just gained a whole lot of credibility, Missouri’s decision to jump to the SEC just became less reasoned and Kansas’ stance on not playing the Border War just did the same.”

3. Big 12 interim commissioner Chuck Neinas: ”We may not be Facebook but the Big 12 Conference would get a strong buy call from Wall Street today.”

4. Florida State and the Big 12.  Best option or only option?

5. Don’t count on Miami having an interest in the Big 12 (last item).

6. Tennessee athletic director Dave Hart:  ”I dont think we can allow conference realignment to eliminate tradition.”

7. Kentucky’s Brian Adams is giving up football to focus on baseball.

8. Salaries for LSU assistant football coaches put them among the nation’s elite.

9. Hugh Freeze and Ole Miss are recruiting nationwide.  246 (and counting) offers out to recruits.

10. Georgia’s most important players? Jarvis Jones comes in at No. 6.

11. Breaking down Florida’s defensive line.

12. Big expectations for an incoming trio of basketball players at Kentucky.

13. Did you know there’s a National Association of Sports Public Address Announcers?

14. Bobby Petrino sells an Arkansas home.

2. UF’s Muschamp Makes A Funny (That A&M Folks Won’t Find Funny)

3. Bama To Face WVU In 2014 Chick-Fil-A Game

4. ESPN Further Proves Its Not A News Organization Anymore

5. Can We Please Stop The “Big Ten Has To Play In Hot Weather At Bowl Time” Nonsense?

1. Jon Solomon: “The schools are regaining control of the postseason economics. The Fiesta Bowl, which has anchored the Big 12 champion, should be nervous.”

2. Jerome Solomon: “This could be good news for Houston, bad news for the University of Houston.”

3. Stewart Mandel: “Will the SEC and Big 12 push for this new bowl to serve as their designated semifinal host?”

4. Jay Greeson: “The Champions Bowl is less about a power conference and more about a power play.”

5. Gene Frenette: “It’s a certain death notice for Big East football, and the ACC might not survive without convincing Florida State/Miami to stick around and Notre Dame to come on board.”

6. Pete Thamel: “The knee-jerk reaction on Twitter and among other college officials was that this could mean that Florida State winds up in the Big 12.”

7. Bobby Bowden’s message to Florida State boosters: “Do you want to win a National Championship at Florida State?  You’ve got a better chance in the ACC than you have in the Big 12, or even the SEC.”

8. Tony Barnart’s message to Florida State’s representatives:  ”Just shut up. Seriously. You need to shut up.”

SEC Headlines

9. Arkansas AD Jeff Long: “My interest and commitment continues to be providing leadership to the University of Arkansas and to Razorback athletics at this critical time in our program’s history.”

10. Arkansas coach John L. Smith is a man with something left to prove.

11. Georgia’s Damian Swann could have a real impact in the Bulldogs secondary this fall.

12. Tennessee football coach Derek Dooley on recruiting: ”I think it’s important your recruiting office is not tied to coaches,” he explained. “That’s something that we’ve tried to structure because it’s a transient profession and you can’t get held hostage by a coach. In other words, if he leaves, [you can't have] your whole recruiting thing get disrupted.

13. Tony Gilbert is leaving Georgia to join Auburn as a graduate assistant.

14. Why John Calipari and Billy Donovan make sense as candidates to eventually replace Mike Kryzewski as coach of Team USA.

Great.  A lunchtime Friday gift for the media guys hoping to get a jumpstart on the weekend.

After finally having the blood drawn, I zipped home to put together a quick summary for you.  Only I soon realized there is no quick summary for this story.  This story is just part of a much larger, still developing story: the complete and total reshaping of college football as we know it.

For all the details, you can turn to long-time SEC scribe and all-around good guy, Tony Barnhart of CBSSports.com.  But here’s the basic gist:

* The SEC and Big 12 announced today that beginning with the 2014 season (January of 2015, that is), the regular-season champs of those two leagues will meet  in a bowl game that is not a part of what’s expected to be a brand new four-team college football playoff.  Consider it the answer to the Big Ten-Pac-12′s Rose Bowl alliance.

* That’s if the SEC and Big 12 champs aren’t invited to the playoff, of course, and during the BCS era there have only been two occasions in 14 years when either the SEC champ or the Big 12 champ hasn’t made the national title game.  The last time both leagues were shut out was way back in January of 2003.

* If one or both league champions make the playoff field, then league runner-ups would get the nod.

* The site of the game will be determined by a bidding process.  The Sugar Bowl has been the home of the SEC champ since 1976.  The old Big 8 was traditionally tied to the Orange Bowl, but the Big 12 locked in a deal with the Fiesta Bowl.  For now, however, it looks like Jerry Jones and his Cowboy Stadium in Arlington, Texas will be the top competition for the Sugar Bowl crew come auction time.

Now, for some very quick reactions, thoughts, questions, and observations (in no particular order):

1.  This looks to be good news for the Big 12 and bad news for the ACC.  At the moment there appear to be five major  football conferences — the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC.  The Big 12 was wobbling just a few months ago after losing four major brand name schools in the span of a couple of summers.  Now the Big 12 appears locked and loaded for the future (if its schools can all continue to play nice together).  The ACC?  Uh, well, not so much.  After delivering yet another punch to the Big East by grabbing Pittsburgh and Syracuse last year, John Swofford’s league now appears to be the odd conference out if we ever find ourselves living in that four super-conference universe that’s so often been discussed.  How can the ACC guarantee its survival as a big-time football league now?  By raiding the Big East for Rutgers and UConn or South Florida?  There are now two power blocs when it comes to future votes on college football matters: Big Ten-Pac-12 and SEC-Big 12.  The ACC doesn’t have a dance partner.

2.  Florida State, you now have another reason to move.  President Eric Barron might not like it and it might not make the most sense to the faculty and staff at FSU, but the Big 12 now looks more secure than the ACC.  The perception of many will be that the SEC chose to partner with the Big 12 because it’s in better shape going forward.  We don’t deny that, but an SEC-ACC bowl could have also yielded rematches thanks to rivalries between Clemson-South Carolina, Florida-Florida State and Georgia-Georgia Tech.  Regardless, many FSU trustees and fans were pushing for a Big 12 move based on perception anyway.  Now the perception of Big 12 > ACC is even greater.

3.  Business rules.  Forget emotions.  Forget one conference grabbing teams from another conference.  Harsh words and threats of lawsuits just don’t matter when it comes to money.  The SEC and Big 12 weren’t the best of chums less than 12 months ago as Texas A&M and Missouri packed their bags and departed the latter league for the former.  Well, the hatchet has apparently been buried.  (You might say the tomahawk — in this case — has been buried in the ACC’s head.)  Dollars rule in college athletics.  Mike Slive and Swofford have had a good working relationship for a while.  But when it came time to toss a rope to one league or the other and help pull them into the boat with the three most stable conferences — SEC, Big Ten, Pac-12 — it wasn’t Swofford’s ACC that got the call, it was Chuck Neinas’ Big 12.

4.  Earlier this week we wrote that FSU’s power play could force Swofford to reverse field and join the Pac-12 and Big Ten in pushing for a champs-only or a champs-mostly playoff format.  He did just that in part to exert some pressure on the Seminoles to stay in the ACC, an easier league to win than the Big 12.  But now it appears that the SEC and Big 12 were already planning ahead.  We don’t believe Slive learned of Swofford’s flip-flop and picked up the phone to Neinas and new Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby this week.  Barnhart says the two leagues have been discussing such a plan for years.  But the fact remains, Swofford abandoned the SEC’s push for a 1-2-3-4 playoff system and Slive appears to have had another partner already lined up on that front.

5.  This move seems to guarantee that by the 2014 season the BCS will be gone.  There’s still a lot of work to do before a playoff format is agreed upon and — let’s face it — that whole thing could still blow up in everyone’s faces.  But whether there’s a playoff or not, it looks as if we are definitely heading back to the days of conferences cutting their own bowl deals.  Come 2014 the bowl line-up could look a heckuva lot different for everyone.  (Earlier this week, Big Ten commish Jim Delany said he’d like to see the bowl eligibility standard raised to seven wins and he even suggested his league might go down that road on its own, by choice.)  In just two years, there could be fewer bowls and those bowls could have completely differently conference tie-ins.

6.  Delany also suggested this week that perhaps it’s time for the bowl games to pay less money to the teams they invite… with the caveat being that those games would no longer require schools to buy tickets by the bushel (which leads to most schools losing money on their bowl trips).  At Big12Sports.com today, Neinas mentioned in a video interview the possibility that the new Big 12-SEC game could be run simply by the leagues and not by a bowl at all.  So not only could bowls look different — in number and in tie-ins by 2014 — but they could start to go away altogether, replaced by games run by the conferences.  Or at least that seems to be an idea that more than one commissioner is tossing out for leverage purposes, if nothing else.

7.  As for the Big 12-SEC game, here’s hoping the good people in New Orleans can raise enough cash to outbid Jones and Arlington.  No offense to the Metroplex, but would you rather spend New Year’s in the French Quarter or in chilly mid-Texas?

8.  And before anyone tosses out St. Louis as the perfect fit for the new game, would you rather spend New Year’s in the French Quarter or in even chillier Missouri?

9.  Back to Florida State for a second, does this new power play now guarantee a Seminole move to the Big 12?  Or is there a reason FSU trustees have continually mentioned the SEC as a league they’d like to hear from?  If the SEC wanted to help stabilize the ACC it could have.  Instead, it partnered with the Big 12 and tightened the noose around the ACC’s neck.  If Slive isn’t worried about destabilizing the ACC, then perhaps he knows the age of the super-conference is here — like it or not — and he’s willing to grab FSU his own self.  That’s pure speculation, but what in the past three weeks has not been pure speculation?

10.  What was Slive’s ultimate goal here?  To help stabilize the Big 12 — a league he didn’t intend to destabilize last year — while at the same time partnering with what has been the nation’s second-strongest league during the BCS era?  (Championship game berths by league: SEC – 9, Big 12 – 7, ACC – 3, Big East – 3, Big Ten – 3, Pac-12 – 3.)  Did he want to deal a death blow to the ACC?  Or was he simply looking to do what was best for his own conference, consequences be damned?  Personally, I’ve never heard a peep from anyone at an SEC institution suggesting that Slive would for any reason “attack” Swofford’s ACC.  Therefore, it seems much more likely that this was Slive’s way of saying, “You can have the Rose Bowl, we’ll partner with the Big 12 and recent history says our bowl will feature higher-rated teams than your bowl.”  It’s strictly business.

11.  Though Notre Dame AD Jack Swarbrick says he doesn’t think the new SEC-Big 12 deal deal will have “significant near-term consequences” for his school, rest assured he’s puckering up a bit more today.  Unless Notre Dame and the ACC can reach an agreement to merge, both bodies will continue to become more and more irrelevant by the hour.

12.  Kudos to Neinas and the Big 12.  Dan Beebe took the fall for a league that was built on a fault line and part of the league’s turnaround can surely be attributed to the fact that its members were looking over the edge of a cliff just a few months ago and that scared them straight (at least straight enough to share their media rights for 13 years).  Still, the Big 12 is a perfect example of how the college football landscape is changing and morphing and shifting day after day.  One day the Big 12 looks doomed.  The next, it looks strong as can be.  Who knows what the future holds?  But Neinas deserves a lot of credit for grabbing the reins of his league’s wild horses, stopping them, and ultimately pulling them and the Big 12′s wagon back from precipice.

So what conclusions can be drawn from all this?

The Big 12 appears stronger.  The ACC appears weaker.  The likelihood of Florida State moving looks somewhat greater.  And the SEC just continues to roll right along with an answer for every problem, a yin for every yang.

Other than those, no one should draw any conclusions.  There’s a battle over a new playoff and what form it will take.  Will it include existing bowls?  Will bowls start to disappear, replaced by conference-owned games?  What about bowl eligibility standards?  Will more schools move from their current leagues?  What about those $2,000 stipends for players?  How can the NCAA preserve a level playing field when the biggest leagues are pushing to give players extra cash while more and more small schools (Old Dominion, Texas-San Antonio, Georgia State, etc, etc) jump to the FBS level?

Think you’ve got a read on what’s coming next?  Think again.  The powers-that-be don’t even know what’s coming next.  There are too many variables in too many equations for anyone to feel confident in their beliefs about the future of college football.

Today’s news?  Yeah, it’s big.  But what it means long-term for all the parties concerned?  That’s anybody’s guess.

Sorry for the long list of headines today.  Business takes me elsewhere.

1.  The Chick-fil-A Kickoff games for 2014 are set: Alabama-West Virginia and Ole Miss-Boise State.  (Gee, I wonder which game will get the best time slot.)

2.  The NCAA is working on a number of rule changes…

3.  But transfer rules won’t easily be lifted. 

4.  College basketball refs are getting a refresher course on block/charge calls.

5.  Alabama and West Virginia have never played each other in football.

6.  Tony Barbee has lined up games in Chicago and Charleston for his Auburn Tigers this season.  (Chicago’s great, but give me Charleston.)

7.  Mike Anderson has added a juco star to his basketball squad at Arkansas.

8.  NikeBlog.com has a teaser photo suggesting the Razorbacks could be trotting out new football uniforms this year… complete with two different helmets and what appears to be a navy/charcoal/black design.

(Sidenote — Another tradition goes up in flames as Michigan’s going to be using more uniform variations this fall.)

9.  Bobby Petrino broke even in selling his $600,000 lake home.

10.  LSU’s coordinators don’t want their players to forget their BCS Championship Game loss to Alabama.

11.  Speaking of not forgetting that night… the Alabama fan videotaped placing his genitals on the face of a passed-out LSU fan has been indicted on sexual battery and obscenity charges.

12.  Ole Miss is trying to find and grow new revenue streams.

13.  Here’s a look at Florida’s offensive line coming out of spring practice.

14.  No surprise: tailback Isaiah Crowell will be an important man at Georgia this fall.

15.  UGA has named a long-time Georgia high school coach as the football program’s new director of on-campus recruiting.

16.  Kentucky hoops transfer target Montrezl Harrell has been given a release from Virginia Tech.

17.  This writers says Joker Phillips is one of several SEC coaches who need to rally before 2013.

18.  This writer believes the SEC wants to get to 16 teams and will do so soon.  (We disagree and from everyone we’ve spoken to at SEC schools, they’d prefer to see how the additions of Mizzou and A&M play out first.)

19.  The Florida State-Big 12 story won’t go away…

20.  Even though Bobby Bowden thinks FSU should stay put.

Today, we wanted to remind you of our views regarding the SEC’s new basketball scheduling format.  Ah, yes, basketball is on the docket for a Destin vote as well.

As you already know, the league will continue to go division-less in hoops just as it did this past season.  And with Missouri and Texas A&M joining the conference, the league’s schedule will increase from 16 games to 18 games per season.

There have been recent conversations across the conference that the SEC might choose to preserve just one permanent home-and-home opponent per team under its new format.  If that’s anything more than fearmongering, then the SEC is about to botch its hoops schedule as badly as sticking with an eight-game plan for football will botch things on the gridiron.

Back in January, we rolled out what we call our 4-1-8 plan.  The goal of our plan was to preserve as many of the SEC’s old rivalries as possible while also creating new, geographically-driven rivalries for the league’s two new members.

You can read the full plan — including which of the SEC’s most-played rivalries would be continued — right here.

The gist of the plan, however, can be summed up easily:

1.  Each school would play nine home games and nine road games.

2.  Each school would face four permanent rival schools at home and away each year.

3.  Each should would play one rotating rival at home and away each year as well (which brings the total number games versus home-and-away opponents to 10).

4.  Each school would face the remaining eight league schools once per season (with four of those games at home and four on the road).

Easy.  Simple. Grounded in tradition.  Why that’s as perfect as a basketball schedule can be.

Which is why we would be shocked if the Southeastern Conference approves such a plan.  It makes too much sense.  Instead, we expect many traditional rivalries to be scrapped in order for SEC coaches and ADs to guarantee themselves the easiest, creampuffiest schedules possible.

At any rate, with the focus on the SEC’s new football scheduling format sure to get most of the attention at the SEC Meetings in a couple of weeks, we thought it was important to remind folks that basketball is about to get a revamp, too.  Here’s hoping the SEC will do a better job on the hoops front than it appears it will on the football front.

2.  Alabama’s Nick Saban has wrapped up his spring speaking tour.

3.  Will youth be a problem for Auburn again this fall?

4.  The high school coach of former Arkansas receiver Quinta Funderburk says he will transfer to Syracuse (not at Virginia were many initially suspected).

5.  AthlonSports.com looks at whether or not the Razorbacks can win the West without Bobby Petrino.

6.  Razorback basketballer Devonta Abron has transferred to TCU to join ex-LSU coach Trent Johnson.

7.  Mike Anderson’s team will play in this year’s Las Vegas Invitational.

8.  Here’s a closer look at Mississippi State’s athletic spending in 2011.

9.  Three Ole Miss football players are in danger of not being eligible this fall.

10.  This writer says Texas A&M will be a perfect fit with the SEC.

11.  This scribe doesn’t believe Steve Spurrier’s plan for crowning division champs has any hope of being adopted.

12. A pair of ex-Georgia football players have found new homes.

13.  Safety Corey Moore needs to have a big year for the Dawgs.

14.  Kentucky’s John Calipari is after yet another transfer, this one from Virginia tech.

15.  The fountains outside Rupp Arena turned blood red yesterday, but it wasn’t a prank by Louisville fans (or an act of Charleston Heston.)

16.  Here’s a closer look at South Carolina’s athletic budget in 2011.

17.  Derek Dooley says he’s stayed in touch with previous Tennessee coach Phillip Fulmer.

18.  Vanderbilt running back Lafonte Thompson — who switched his commitment from Virginia Tech to Vandy on National Signing Day 2011 — is being allowed to transfer away from the Commodores.

19.  Quarterback Corbin Berkstresser has been suspended by Missouri after his arrest for leaving the scene of an accident earlier this week.

20.  Tiger defensive back Robert Steeples is transferring to Memphis.

“And what about the chance for the Big Ten to finally stop playing games in SEC/Pac-12 country, maybe see if one of those sunshine programs can handle a few flakes of Midwest snow?”

Ah, yes, the weather.  You know the line as you’ve probably heard it/read it as many times as this writer has: “SEC teams should have to go play in the cold instead of Big Ten teams always having to go play bowls where it’s hot.”

Whether you like the idea of on-campus semifinals or not — and the SEC would have hosted more games than any other conference under such a set-up, by the way — it’s time to drive a stake through the heart of the “it’s the heat” myth.

Currently, the Big Ten plays three bowl games against SEC teams in the state of Florida — the Capital One in Orlando, the Outback in Tampa, and the Gator in Jacksonville.  All are played on New Year’s Day.  According to Weather.com:

* The average high in Orlando on that day is 71 degrees with an average low of 50.

* In Tampa, the average high on New Year’s Day is 70 degrees and the average low is 52.

* In Jacksonville, the average high is 65 degrees with an average low of 41.

I’ll buy that Big Ten schools have farther to travel than their SEC counterparts when it comes to bowling in the Sunshine State.  I’ll freely admit that the crowds on hand for those games are likely to have a pro-SEC slant.  I’ll even admit that seeing SEC teams play in the snow of January would be darn fun.

But the idea that Big Ten teams melt in 50-70 degree temperatures like the Nazis in “Raiders of the Lost Ark?”  Sorry, not buying it.  Even the average afternoon humidity in January in those three cities is in the 53-57% range.

Look, if the bowl games were played in Florida on August 1st instead of on January 1st, those many Big Ten folks who’ve been beating the “we have to play in their heat” drum would get my support.

As it stands, however, not even the Saskatchewan Roughriders should wilt at 71 degrees.

Folks who want to make the case for on-campus semifinals — an idea which appears to be dead anyway — can pick from any other number of good reasons.  They just need to drop the bit about Big Ten teams playing in Deep South heat.  ’Cause in January, there is no Deep South heat.

Unbelievable Update — Those of you who read this site know that we often link you to the work of Jon Solomon of The Birmingham News.  We think he’s sharp as a tack (probably because we agree with most of his work).  Well, as we were putting today’s headlines together just now — 11:30am ET — we found his latest column:  “Big Ten fans: Chill the griping about SEC football weather patterns.”

No wonder we like that guy.

Those who read this site regularly know that we believe that to be a mistake.

A simple businessman looks at his current situation and says, “All’s well, why change?”  A smart businessman looks at his current situation and says, “How is that situation going to change in the future and how must I change to insure future success?”

The SEC’s ADs — driven by the desire for more home games and an easier shot at bowl eligibility thanks to more cupcake opponents — believe that the eight-game schedule that has served the league so well the past 20 years will be just fine and dandy moving forward.

It won’t be.

Yesterday, amid Florida State rumors and realignment talk, ACC commissioner John Swofford made it official that his league would go to a nine-game conference slate when Pittsburgh and Syracuse are allowed to leave the Big East and join the ACC.  That puts the ACC right in line with every other major conference expect one.  Guess which one.

The Big Ten will be sticking with its current eight-game schedule, but a new round-robin agreement with the Pac-12 will guarantee that all Big Ten schools face nine or more BCS-level opponents per season.  In addition to the new yearly Big Ten games, Pac-12 teams will continue to play a nine-game in-league schedule… meaning Pac-12 schools will joust with a minimum of 10 BCS-level foes per year.  The Big 12 — a 10-team league for the time being — intends to maintain its nine-game, “everybody plays everybody,” round-robin conference schedule.

If you’re keeping score at home, that means of the five major conferences, four will require their schools to play a minimum of nine BCS-level foes per year.  Only the Southeastern Conference will stand pat at eight.

But it’s worked so far, right?

Yes, but a smart businessman like the one mentioned above should see that the landscape is rapidly changing.  Other leagues — whether SEC fans, coaches and ADs believe them to be inferior or not — are going to be playing more top-level games.  There’s a new playoff coming and there’s a push to get as many conference champions into that mix as possible (with as few wild card teams as possible).  Strength of schedule will matter as much or more than ever.  And in a sporting nation that’s quickly grown tired/sick/jealous of the SEC, you can bet strength of schedule in the SEC will become a key attack point for rival leagues, many poll voters, and perhaps a few computer programmers, too.

We’ve been writing that that for months now.  Last week, Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany became the first person to take a swing at conferences that play fewer big-time opponents:

“The polls don’t always measure strength of schedule.  Some conferences are playing nine games, some are playing eight.  The Pac-12 is playing nine and then go out and play a round-robin game against us, that’s 10 and some of them are going to play Notre Dame — that’s 11 difficult games.  If they’re ranked fifth in the country and they won a conference championship, I think that’s quite an accomplishment.  Some teams don’t even win their own division.  They started off highly in the rankings, lose early, don’t play a championship game and they might end up at four.”

Wonder which league he had in mind.

For the SEC, the clock is ticking.  The league can do as it did in the early ’90s and overrule the fearmongers from within who claimed at the time that an eight-game league schedule and the addition of a first-of-its-kind championship game would end the SEC’s chances of ever winning another national title.  (Note: Alabama won the national crown in Year One of the tougher schedule, championship game era.)  Or the SEC can stand still as the world rushes past.

The SEC has benefited at the polls and in the computer rankings because the perception has been that the league is tougher than every other conference.  (We at MrSEC.com believe that that perception has been a reality because of BCS title game success and the number of pro prospects NFL teams draft from Slive’s league every April.)  But the new perception is about to become that SEC schools actually play weaker schedules.  Like it, don’t like it, that’s what going to be said east, north and west of the SEC region.

Slive and his presidents can force a nine-game league schedule down their ADs and coaches’ throats for the long-term success of the conference in Destin.  We don’t believe they will, but they could.  And they should.

Getting tougher in 1992 made the college football world take note and has served as a launching pad for two decades of unrivaled success.  Now the SEC simply needs to keep up with the other four major conferences, not surpass them, to maintain their strength of schedule “wow” factor with the media.  Th same media who drive the perception of SEC greatness.

Will it keep up with the Joneses?

To quote a line that’s been credited to dozens of past military leaders: “L’audace, l’audace, toujours l’audace.”  Roughly translated: Always be audacious.

In this case, simply the avoidance of timidity will do.

Rival leagues and the media will be watching.  And the SEC’s reputation is at stake.

2. Florida defensive tackle Leon Orr is in trouble again after getting caught driving on a suspended license.

3. Vanderbilt running back  Lafonte Thourogood is transferring.

4. Clemson will be without one – possibly two – high-profile players when they open up against Auburn.

5. When it comes to Auburn this fall, different probably means better.

6. Two incoming freshman at Georgia are anxious to get their college careers started.

7. Contrary to a USA Today report, Ole Miss says its athletic department turned a profit in 2011.

8. Expect the college football playoff process to get really messy.

9. Kevin Scarbinsky on Derrick Thomas:  ”The College Football Hall of Fame just revisited his grave. And spit on it. Again.”

Extras

10. Seven million reasons why it’s good to be Mike Kryzewski.

11. The wife of former Syracuse assistant Bernie Fine plans to sue ESPN for libel.

A week ago Monday, Tony Barnhart of CBSSports.com made the case for a college football playoff involving the four best teams in the nation, period.  In that piece — which, as you know, we totally agree with — included this quote from ACC commissioner John Swofford:

“I’m a big believer in conference championships and that resonates with me.  But if you’re selling a four-team playoff, and it’s not 1-2-3-4, then the credibility of the system is undermined.”

To date, the Big Ten and Pac-12 have been the leagues trying to limit the number of non-conference champs who could reach a playoff.  The ACC and SEC have been in favor of inviting the top four teams regardless of league silverware.

But between last Monday and this past Monday, Florida State’s Andy Haggard opened his mouth and sent shockwaves across the landscape of college football.  He put FSU on the auction block.  That put Swofford in a tough spot.

On Monday — in a post titled: Did An FSU Trustee Just Cost The SEC A Playoff Partner – we wondered if Swofford might change his tune regarding a playoff for political purposes.  We wrote:

“(Faced with losing FSU) Does Swofford suddenly switch sides in the current playoff talks?  If the ACC were to suddenly join the Big Ten and Pac-12 in pushing for a champs-only or champs-mostly style of playoff, he’d be exerting pressure in two places.  Faced with a champs-only plan, Notre Dame might be forced to actually join a league and the ACC would have a one-in-three shot at grabbing them (along with the Big Ten and the Big 12).  In addition, Florida State might suddenly view the ACC, Pitt, Syracuse and all those other ‘basketball schools’ as looking pretty good.  What’s the easiest path to a national title and beaucoup playoff dollars: Besting Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, West Virginia and TCU in the Big 12 or beating, well, uh, the field in the ACC?  The ACC would clearly be the easier path at the present time (even though FSU has only one its league once and it’s division twice since 2005).  In that scenario, it might make greater financial sense for Florida State to stay put.”

So guess what Swofford said earlier today:

ACC commissioner John Swofford said ACC membership prefers conference champ model in playoff

— Brett McMurphy (@McMurphyCBS) May 16, 2012

Well, whaddya know?

This will most likely be seen as a tit-for-tat deal with the Big Ten and Pac-12.  ”You stop pushing for on-campus semifinals and we’ll go along with your plan of taking any conference champs ranked in the top six.”

But don’t think for a second that this isn’t also being driven by Swofford’s need to either a) lure Notre Dame into the ACC or b) hold on to Florida State.

* For months, rumors have swirled of Florida State and Clemson (then Miami) leaving the ACC for the Big 12.

* No traditional journalist in America could get a single source to confirm any of that even off the record.  (Not even Joe Schad threw out a “sources say.”)  I can’t stress enough how unbelievably uncharacteristic — and telling — that is.

* The ACC and ESPN announced a new deal, but instead of being viewed as a positive, many viewed it as a negative.  But they did so for many of the wrong reasons.

* The AD at Florida State, Randy Spetman, said last Friday that his school was committed to the ACC.

* A day later, the chairman of FSU’s board, Andy Haggard, nuked Spetman and the ACC and ESPN and said the board “unanimously” agreed with him that it’s time to listen to other offers from the Big 12 or the SEC, etc.  FSU football coach Jimbo Fisher backed Haggard’s comments that afternoon.

* Later that same day, FSU president Eric Barron downplayed Haggard’s trustee/booster’s comments.  He and the ACC put out statements saying Haggard had his facts wrong regarding the new TV deal.

* To the west, the University of Texas is on record as saying it’s in favor of the Big 12 remaining a 10-school league, at least for now, and AD DeLoss Dodds — probably the most powerful man in the Big 12 — said FSU is a “long ways away” from joining the Big 12.

* Newly-appointed Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby said yesterday he wants expansion to slow down, but he also admitted that he has to discuss the possibilities with his schools’ presidents.

* Officials at FSU, Texas and inside the Big 12 have all said there have been absolutely no talks and that no one has even begun any sort of negotiations.

* ESPN — having just re-worked a deal with the ACC in hopes of giving that league more stability — certainly wants FSU to remain in place and not jump to the Big 12, which would set off further moves and force the network to tear up and then re-work more contracts.

* Monday, FSU’s president sent out an email listing the complaints some FSU folks have with the ACC while simultaneously listing even more issues they would have with the Big 12.  In the process, he kicked the Big 12 right in the diplomas calling that conference “academically weaker” than the ACC.

Got all that?  Well now ex-Florida State football player and former trustee Derrick Brooks has gone on Tim Brando’s radio show and said the following:

“This is no new discussion for Florida State in terms of leaving the ACC.  Whether it be the SEC talk, Big 12, you know, what other conference.  It’s nothing new…

I finished up my trusteeship recently, but I’m still very involved.  You know, and the Big 12 is coming after us and it’s no doubt that we’re gonna listen.  You know, if anyone comes in to talk, I think there’s no harm in listening to what the pitch is.

But there’s been no commitment at all and I think from our president’s standpoint, you know, he was just attempting to put things out there from his perspective, saying ‘these are the pros and, as I see it, these are the cons, as I see it.’  But at the end of the day, you know, we’ll measure each one and if it’s a good decision then the board will decide.  You know, not me as a president, but the trustee board will decide what happens and hopefully by the Big 12 flirting or courting us it gives the ACC that much more credibility…

From my understanding it is the Big 12, you know, wanting to talk to us… now again, that’s from my understanding that appears to be the case.”

Observations:

* Even in previous conference realignment moves — with people lying all over the place — I’ve yet to see a situation quite like this one where no one seems to be on the same page.  Right down to Haggard’s rant about the details of a TV contract that were not the actual details of that TV contract.  This isn’t like watching a soap opera… it’s like watching a Mexican soap opera when you can’t speak Spanish.

* Why is it every time someone on or once on FSU’s board speaks — first Haggard, now Brooks — he mentions the SEC as a possibile dance partner for the Seminoles?  It seems that either a) FSU is longing desperately for an invite to the SEC or b) that FSU’s board knows the SEC would/will/is talking to them (which would mean there is no hard and fast agreement within Mike Slive’s league to steer clear of schools in current SEC states.)  The SEC — typically, wisely — remains quiet regarding FSU, allowing that school, the Big 12 and the ACC to stumble all over themselves instead.

* Brooks’ comments regarding the email sent out by FSU president Eric Barron make it seem even more clear that — as we wrote yesterday — if State does join the Big 12, Barron won’t be the president at the time of arrival.  Brooks sounded like a jock making sure everyone knew that the board, not the nerd, would make the final call. There’s a battle inside FSU at the moment and unlike the similar fight that was waged at Missouri last year, this one’s much more public and it’s getting a good bit nastier.

* It’s possible that Haggard and Brooks and FSU are simply trying to “pull a Texas” on the ACC.  By openly flirting with other leagues — as the Longhorns did with the Pac-10 and Big Ten and, reportedly, the ACC over the past few years — the Seminoles seem to be making a leverage play with commissioner John Swofford.  ”Give us something extra.” What’s amusing about this is that “Lil’ Texas” could wind up living in a league with the “Original Texas” and then we’d really get to see some tug-o-wars.

* Brooks’ comments make Bob Bowlsby and the Big 12 look bad.  Bowlsby and Big 12 officials have consistently said they’re not even all on board with expansion at this point with Texas being the one, big, known holdout (though Longhorn Rivals’ site Orangebloods.com is trying to help drive an FSU-to-Big 12 move).  Barron insulted the Big 12 with his “academically weaker” comment and he must have done so intentionally.  Brooks’ comments make the Big 12′s new commissioner — who’s not even officially on the job yet — look either misinformed or dishonest.  Unintentionally Brooks might have ticked off a few Big 12′ers himself.

* Finally, how the Big 12 chasing FSU would give the ACC more credibility is anyone’s guess.  I’m guessing Swofford is feeling less confident these days, not more confident in his own conference’s future.

At this point, anything at all is possible and anyone trying to read the tea leaves is wasting their time.  There are simply too many leaves to be read.

Which means the last 30 minutes I spent writing those observations… yeah, I’ll never get those minutes back.

UPDATE — This just keeps getting better.  Brett McMurphy of CBSSports.com reports that FSU’s AD told him of today’s radio interview: “I don’t know where Derrick got that.”

We at MrSEC.com have obtained a quick video breakdown of the current FSU situation:

Over the weekend we paid close attention to see how much coverage ESPN would give to Florida State booster Andy Haggard’s rant against the ACC’s contract with the network.  In terms of homepage coverage on ESPN’s website, there was none.  Not a blip, not a blurb, not a headline that we saw.

Even though the most powerful booster/trustee at a traditional football power had shivved his own school’s administration and the Atlantic Coast Conference while inviting other leagues to contact his school… “the worldwide leader” (small caps) remained mum on the subject.  On Monday a couple of ESPN’s college sports bloggers took up the topic, but not to any great degree.

Yesterday, ESPN’s Burke Magnus — the senior VP of college sports programming — wrote a short defense of ESPN’s deal with the ACC on something called ESPN Front Row (yet another of ESPN’s endless offshoots):

“The new agreement with the ACC provided a win for all involved. Fans will be served with more ACC content than ever before through a wide variety of outlets, devices and technologies. ESPN added value through four more years of an ACC agreement, plus more football games, more basketball games, more ACC sports content and new sponsorship rights for conference championships. The ACC has received significant additional financial compensation and unprecedented exposure for the added value and the longer term.

While ESPN has televised college sports for more than three decades, we recognize the rights landscape is evolving and more competitive than ever, and fans are savvier about their content choices. Our company works hard to provide fans with the widest selection of content from the schools and conferences they love.”

No doubt.  And no one does a better job of covering live games and events than ESPN.

Unfortunately, what was once a go-to leader in real, honest-to-God news coverage is no more.  By becoming a partner of the ACCs and SECs of the world and by buying the BASS leagues of the world and by starting and owning college football bowl games, the network has killed its news credibility.  (It’s also become larger and richer than any sports entity in history and for that we salute the network.  We’re not saying ESPN’s leaders aren’t dadgum sharp and savvy.)

I’m not a man who watches bass fishing on television.  In fact, I suspect if I ever find myself in Hell, fishing weigh-ins will be on television ’round the clock accompanied by a soundtrack of songs by The Carpenters.  Still, I do know there are two fishing leagues in existence.  BASS — which is owned and covered by ESPN — and FLW — which gets practically nary a mention on “SportsCenter.”  So is ESPN’s coverage of BASS news?  Or is it promotion for ESPN programming?

Ditto the network’s coverage of the New Mexico Bowl, The Hawai’i Bowl, the BBVA Compass Bowl and more.  For that matter, as a friend pointed out to me the other day, those long-running “SportsCenter” ads featuring current coaches and athletes remain delightful.  But does shooting an ESPN promo with Player X impact the amount of coverage ESPN dedicates to Player X if/when he’s arrested for drunk driving or beating his wife?

When a news organization has to put out an article defending its television contract with an athletic conference, it’s stopped being a news organization and simply become a programming organization.  Here’s hoping someone with enough money and chops to do actual news coverage — Yahoo! Sports, I’m looking at you — can step up and fill the sizeable void in news gathering that ESPN has decided to leave wide open (without ever admitting that it’s left it wide open, of course).

It’s a darn shame, too.  Before “SportsCenter” turned into a video game aimed at teenagers, it was an important, relevant source of true news for sports fans.

Now ESPN is left mostly silent when its own dealings become news, emitting only press release-type spin from a little-read web page.  Oh, to have more Bob Ley and less Skip Bayless/Stephen A. Smith gibberish.

Sidenote — Something in Magnus’ release might interest a few remaining SEC fans who can’t seem to grasp that adding Missouri and Texas A&M will force ESPN to cough up more dough to Mike Slive’s league via an expanded contract or a new SEC Network partnership:

“… the additions of Pittsburgh and Syracuse as ACC members triggered a composition clause in the existing agreement. This clause is designed to allow for both partners to address the value of the conference taking into account the change in membership. There was no specific valuation formula based on total number of schools or on a per school basis. It is not an “out clause” nor does it trigger a complete renegotiation of the entire agreement. Again, conference composition clauses are standard in our industry and are part of every ESPN college rights agreement.”

For those who’ve wondered, there’s a definitive mention from ESPN of the “look-ins” Slive has mentioned previously.  And if the ACC could get a slight bump by adding Syracuse and Pittsburgh, expect the SEC to get a major bump by adding Missouri and Texas A&M (bigger markets, more cable households).

In January, a South Carolina trustee cooked up a plan for the SEC to adopt an NHL-like point system for counting wins within the league — one full point for a divisional win, one half point for a cross-divisional win.  That idea came and went.  Maybe because the SEC region is such a hotbed for professional hockey.

Steve Spurrier then came out last month and suggested that division games only should count toward determining division champs.  This would make the SEC the first major league or conference, college or pro to play games that didn’t really count in its standings.  South Carolina-Auburn last year — ultimately, the game that cost USC a trip to Atlanta — would have been nothing more than an exhibition when it came to the SEC leaderboard.

LSU’s Les Miles then came out in support of Spurrier’s plan.  Vanderbilt’s James Franklin did likewise late last week.

Now, if you read this site, you know that we’re part of the vocal majority who can’t imagine the league doing any such thing.  Even commissioner Mike Slive has said he would have a hard time conceiving a plan in which some SEC games meant more than others.  And Georgia’s Mark Richt said he didn’t think Spurrier’s plan would pass muster.  

(Perhaps this debate is another reason for the SEC to petition the NCAA to drop divisions as a pre-requisite for a championship game and to just go divisionless.)

As we’ve pointed out, there are scenarios possible under Spurrier’s plan that are much more troubling than what his Gamecocks went through last year.  Say Carolina (or LSU or Vandy) goes 7-1 in league play overall.  Subtract the two cross-divisional wins which are meaningless and the Cocks (or Tiger or Dores) would finish 5-1.  Now let’s say their loss comes to a divisional foe.  The foe wins the rest of its division games and thus holds the tie-breaker over Carolina (or LSU or Vandy).  But if that opponent drops its two cross-divisional games and finishes 5-3 in league play, don’t you suspect Spurrier (or Miles or Franklin) would quickly complain that the teams weren’t really 5-1 each… their team was 7-1 while the other guy’s squad was just 5-3.

At least Alabama’s Nick Saban seems to get it.  Like yours truly, he understands that opponents rotate year to year and what might be an easy schedule this year might not be next year: 
“I just think that’s one of those things that’s not always going to be controlled.  It’s not manipulated with who you play.  We have a rotation, we have to go through it. 

I think the other division games you play on the other side are important to our fans and there’s a lot of tradition involved in some of those games.  I think if you minimize the importance of those games, that wouldn’t be in the best interest of our league.”

The Tide coach went on to say that he would listen to Spurrier’s proposal in Destin in a few weeks.  Here’s hoping the majority of coaches and athletic directors agree with Slive and Saban and Richt rather than Spurrier, Miles and Franklin.  If they don’t, we’ll just be addressing this issue from a “change it back!” perspective the first time some team gets “jobbed” (in their view) by the new system.

Interestingly, many supporters of Spurrier’s plan say they favor it because it would create fair scheduling.  How long would it take, though, for cries of “Why do we have to play three tough games on the road while they get their toughest games at home” to ring out?

Not long.

There’s no such thing as a “fair” schedule.  Until the SEC mimics English soccer’s Premier League and everyone in the conference plays everyone else twice — home and away — there’s nothing even close.  And even then teams would still play on different dates.  Injury factors, weather factors, and discipline factors would all play a role in keeping schedules uneven.  ”You got ‘em when they were weak, but we played ‘em when they were healthy!”

Spurrier, Miles and Franklin can speak their minds in Destin.  But God help the league if they win over their fellow coaches and the ADs and the presidents and the commissioner.  We’ll guarantee you right now that such a change would only lead to more belly-aching from more coaches in the future.

SEC games that don’t actually count as SEC games?  Yeesh.

That view — coupled with the fact that not one source at any school or league would confirm the Florida State/Clemson/Miami/Big 12 rumors to a single journalist at a any traditional news source — led us to believe there was nothing to the FSU realignment talk.  In fact, we still believe the trustees at FSU bought too much into rumors of TV contract flubs, reacted to those rumors, and gave the rumors more credence than deserved.  FSU board chairman Andy Haggard lit a fuse that was previously unlit, in other words.

So it’s not surprising for us to see that brand spanking new Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby has come out and said exactly what we were saying a month ago — a cooling off period on expansion would be nice:

“My opinion is college athletics would be well served by some period of smooth water and not all of the angst and disorganization that goes with moves from one league to another… 

Conference realignment will continue to be an issue and one we all have to be vigilant about.  I think the topic will be on every agenda going forward.  But it’s on every other conference’s agenda going forward, too…

It’s all about driving value for the member institutions.  There is a case to be made for optimal value being driven by the status quo, and there is a case to be made for some form of expansion.  And I’m not prejudging or adopting either side of that right now.”

Ways to read those comments:

1.  The Big 12 doesn’t want to expand before doing some serious research and learning exactly how the last round of moves will impact the league.

2.  Bowlsby and several others in the Big 12 want to expand, but with Texas in favor of remaining a 10-team league the new commish can’t buck them.  Yet.

3.  League powers are split on expansion an Bowlsby — as a newbie — is trying to figure out who to back and how.

4.  Bowlsby means what he says about wishing for smoother waters, but things change on a daily basis and it’s possible the Big 12 could add schools never… or by sundown.

5.  Bowlsby is flat lying while his league hammers out a deal with FSU right this very moment.

We’ll go with Option 4 on that list.

Presidents and league commissioners across the country are looking for stability for themselves.  Whatever insures stability for their own league or school, they’ll support.  Unfortunately, one league’s move to stabilize itself will in turn destabilize a brother conference.  Thus, the wheel never stops spinning.

But the people running the schools and leagues are smart men and women.  Most realize that it’s better to gauge the changes they’ve just made and then decide whether more changes are necessary than it is to just rush willy-nilly into more changes.  If you don’t know how a 10- or 14-team Big 12, SEC or ACC will work out, why rush to 12 or 16 schools?

Unfortunately, presidents are owned by trustees.  Trustees are often nothing more than wealthy fans driven more by emotion than the cooler, nerdier presidents.  Trustees can make presidents do things they don’t initially want to do.  That’s what happened at Missouri.  That’s what happened to an extent at Texas A&M.  And that appears to be what’s happening at Florida State.

We believe Bowlsby and others would prefer to catch their collective breath before diving back into the depths of the churning realignment seas.  The trustees and fans who ultimately drive these decisions with their checkbooks… not so much.

2.  Auburn defensive coordinator Brain VanGorder wants his defensive backs to get stronger.

3.  Suspended Arkansas receiver Kane Whitehurst has been given a release to transfer.

4.  Three Hog footballers arrested over the weekend have only themselves to blame.

5.  It was a down year this year, but Florida could have as many as nine players drafted into the NFL next spring.

6.  Georgia AD Greg McGarity expects success from his coaches… or else.

7.  The Dawgs offensive line will be the team’s biggest question mark entering the fall.

8.  James Franklin is offering a lot of scholarships to Vanderbilt and he’s doing so early (and successfully).

9.  Missouri and Kansas are doing battle over license plates.

10.  There’s been a lot of change in the SEC, but you can expect the run of success to continue.

Former Tennessee coach Phillip Fulmer – who posted a 152-52 record at his alma mater before being forced out — joins a host of Vols already in Hall, including ex-UT coaches Robert Neyland and Doug Dickey.

Former Texas A&M coach RC Slocum — who posted a 123-47-2 record before being forced out  – says his election is “validation of the players, the assistant coaches and the entire staffs I was so fortunate to work with here at Texas A&M.”

The election of former LSU tailback Charles Alexander — a two-time All-American and Heisman Trophy finalist — “is an important recognition for one of the legendary figures in LSU athletics history,” according to Tiger AD Joe Alleva.

Congratulations to all three men.  You don’t get much higher honors than being voted into your sport’s hall of fame.

Below you’ll find the total expenses for each public SEC school — as a private school Vanderbilt doesn’t share its budget — from 2006 through 2011.  In the end, we tally the numbers to see who’s spent what on athletics over a six-year span.

Remember, Missouri and Texas A&M were Big 12 schools during this stretch.  So here are your total athletic expenses year-by-year for 13 of the SEC’s 14 schools:

Observations:

* Combined, the SEC’s schools have spent $5,595,974,982  on athletics since 2006.  That’s billion with a B.  Somewhere an economics professor just fainted.

* It’s no surprise that the traditional “Big Six” football programs in the SEC — Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, LSU and Tennessee — would have been the top six spenders if not for the addition of Texas A&M.  (Before sending angry emails about my reference to a “Big Six,” note that the SEC in 1992 put Auburn in the West Division and Vanderbilt in the East Division despite geography in an effort to put three powers in one division (Bama, Auburn, LSU) and three in the other (Florida, Georgia, Tennessee).

* It is surprising that Arkansas’ athletic outlay has been so low compared to its SEC rivals, but remember, numbers can be tweaked.  As any Hog fan can tell you — and will likely shout at you — the UA athletic department never goes into debt thanks to donors who are down with paying up front, in cash (in most cases).

* How long before someone in the Magnolia State reads this chart, sees that Ole Miss and Mississippi State have spent about $350,000,000 less on athletics over the last six years, and starts a push for those schools to leave the SEC for the Big 12?  (Kidding, of course.  The SEC’s even-Steven revenue share actually aids those schools.)

Now let’s take a look at the increase in athletic spending for each school from 2006 to 2011, just those two years.  And since we’re looking at those two years only, the percentage increase we’ll show you should be used as only a ballpark indicator of budget growth.  Mississippi State, for example, had been remarkably steady in its growth until making a big jump in 2011.  That doesn’t mean they will spend the same amount of cash in 2012.  You can see in the chart above that several SEC schools have seen spikes and declines over the past six years.

Still, here’s a look at the total dollar increase from 2006 to 2011 along with the percentage growth for each school:

As you can see, the percentages can be a little bit deceiving.  Mississippi State basically doubled it’s budget from 2006 to 2011.  But the Bulldogs grew from just — just? — $25 million in ’06 to $36 million in ’10.  In 2011 came the bounce to $51 million.

Similarly, big-spending schools like Florida and Tennessee didn’t show a big percentage growth, but overall they’ve been the league’s spendthrifts over the last six years.

After looking at all these numbers, it becomes more and more evident why the board of trustees at Missouri pushed their school toward the Southeastern Conference.

The database is wildly interesting, but it’s not quite perfect.  First, only public schools are required to share their expenses and revenues so Vanderbilt and other private schools are not included.  Second, schools fudge numbers, cook books, or any other cliches you can imagine.  There is no definitive number that can be used to compare School X to School Y because the two schools might tally up their numbers in totally different ways.

Having said that, these numbers are about as close as one can get to actually determining the health — or illness — of an athletic department in a given year.

In the chart below, we’ll use USA Today’s data to show you the total revenue, total expenses, and total net profit for each SEC program in 2011.  But remember, Vandy isn’t included and Missouri and Texas A&M were making Big 12 money in all of the years studied:

Again, these numbers can be doctored by the schools to appear any way they like.  In several years we’ve seen SEC programs report a net profit of exactly $0 for a year.  Maybe they pulled a Michael Scott and spent their surplus at the last minute, but we think it’s more likely they’re tweaking things as they see fit.

But…

Looking at Missouri’s net athletic profit in 2011 — according to USA Today’s numbers — it’s not to hard to figure out why the school is jumping to the SEC this year.

It was a stunning response to Haggard’s statements on Saturday.  Aside from Texas officials in years past, I can’t recall many university presidents referring to other conferences as being “weaker” academically.  Especially not when their school was supposedly angling for an invite into that very league.

Before we look at what Barron said, let’s tackle some obvious points:

1.  Barron is having to convince his own board that any move to the Big 12 would be rash and imprudent.  Ditto the fanbase.  His email reads like a private communication rather than as something he knew would hit the press.  It wasn’t given the once-over and twice-over and proof-reading polish that these types of statements usually receive.  (Hey, Barron could fit in as a writer here at MrSEC.)  There is emotion in his words.

2.  The fact that he sent the email at all tells you that there’s suddenly a movement growing to get FSU out of the ACC and into the Big 12.  Haggard on Saturday claimed he could speak “unanimously” for his board.  Was he going rogue? Does he really have everyone’s backing?  Barron’s email suggests that if he didn’t have strong support before his statement he certainly has it now (unanimous or not).

3.  Before Haggard gave credence to the incorrect info regarding the ACC’s contract with ESPN, Seminole fans seemed split on a move.  Since Haggard spread his incorrect info, the FSU messageboards and other social media outlets show a strong, strong fan push toward exiting the ACC.  ”Give us Iowa State!”

4.  This move is being driven by the internet.  We noted on Saturday that the tail could be wagging the dog a bit in this whole FSU-to-Big 12 situation.  First, bloggers and messageboarders say FSU and Clemson are moving to the Big 12 for more money and because they’re tired of everything favoring the North Carolina schools.  Then the chair of FSU’s trustees takes that misinformation and spreads it.  That makes national news (everywhere but at ESPN, the ACC’s television partner).  After it makes national news, public opinion spins even further in the direction of a move.  Tail… wagging… dog.

5.  Further, the two Rivals.com sites covering Texas and Florida State are working together to drum up support for the move and to goad more FSU fans into supporting the move.  Orangebloods.com wrote a response to Barron’s email yesterday arguing against all of his points.  All that was missing was a “please come to the Big 12, FSU” at the end.  Soon, Warchant.com posted Chip Brown’s story on its own site and today that site has posted its own response shooting down Barron’s email.  It’s pretty clear how the Rivals sites want things to culminate.

6.  Ironically, Orangebloods.com — viewed by many as a PR arm for Texas’ athletic director — is actually breaking ranks with DeLoss Dodds on this issue.  Dodds wants the Big 12 to remain a 10-school league.  Why not split the new TV contract among fewer schools, have an easier path to the national title without a league championship game, and give yourself a 1-in-10 chance of winning the league rather than a 1-in-12 or -14 or -16 chance by expanding?  He told Kirk Bohls of The Austin American-Stateman yesterday that FSU is “a long ways away” both in terms of distance and of joining the Big 12.  ”There’s no traction.  There’ve been no conversations between Florida State and the Big 12… I’m for 10.  I think Oklahoma wants to alk about it.  If the rest of the league wants more than 10, we’ll be good partners (and accept that).”  So yet again Big 12 schools are apparently all over the map on this with Texas claiming they’ll be a good partner when even new commissioner Bob Bowlsby referred to the Longhorns as the league’s “800-pound gorilla” just a wee ago.  Seeing if  Texas will acquiesce to Kansas State’s wishes will show us just how happy and friendly the Big 12 schools really are these day.  (Using KSU only as an example of a school that might favor adding FSU.)

7.  All the above — Barron’s email, Dodd’s comments, etc — appear to further prove our “Wag the Dog” theory.  Reports of a done deal were the nonsense everyone in the traditional media said they were.  But those very reports have led some to start thinking more and more about a move and now those against a move are having to make their cases against an FSU-Big 12 marriage.  Regarding the traditional media in all of this, isn’t it likely that at least one — one! — reporter working the rumors would have found someone to fess up before Haggard’s rant?  No one from The Topeka Capital-Journal to The Tallahassee Democrat to The Dallas Morning News to Yahoo! Sports to ESPN could get a single source to confirm any of this.  Then it blew up Saturday thanks to Haggard’s reaction.

8.  Despite Barron and Dodds making it clear they’re against a move, neither said specifically that a union wouldn’t occur.  Barron’s long email made no such definitive statement.  (Mainly because he couldn’t.  The board of trustees is his boss.  They’ll make the call… just as the board did at Missouri a few months ago.)  And Dodds said he’d be a good soldier if that’s what’s required.  So, no, Barron’s email and Dodd’s public stance of being pro-10 schools don’t nix the chatter or the possibility of a move one bit.

Now, take a look at Barron’s email.  It’s startlingly strong:

I want to assure you that any decision made about FSU athletics will be reasoned and thoughtful and based on athletics, finances and academics.  Allow me to provide you with some of the issues we are facing:

In support of a move are four basic factors argued by many alumni:

1. The ACC is more basketball than it is football, and many of our alumni view us as more football oriented than the ACC
2. The ACC is too North Carolina centric and the contract advantages basketball and hence advantages the North Carolina schools
3. The Big 12 has some big football schools that match up with FSU
4. The Big 12 contract (which actually isn’t signed yet) is rumored to be
$2.9M more per year than the ACC contract. We need this money to be competitive.

But, in contrast:

1. The information presented about the ACC contract that initiated the blogosphere discussion was not correct. The ACC is an equal share conference and this applies to football and to basketball – there is no preferential treatment of any university with the exception of 3rd tier
rights for women’s basketball and Olympic sports. FSU is advantaged by that aspect of the contract over the majority of other ACC schools.

2. Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska and Texas A&M left the Big 12, at least in part because the Big 12 is not an equal share conference. Texas has considerably more resource avenues and gains a larger share (and I say this as a former dean of the University of Texas at Austin – I watched the Big 12 disintegration with interest). So, when fans realize that Texas would get more dollars than FSU, always having a competitive advantage, it would be interesting to see the fan reaction.

3. Much is being made of the extra $2.9M that the Big 12 contract (which hasn’t been inked yet) gets over the ACC contract. Given that the Texas schools are expected to play each other (the Big 12 is at least as Texas centered than the ACC is North Carolina centered), the most likely
scenario has FSU playing Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State, and West Virginia on a recurring basis and the other teams sporadically (and one more unnamed team has to join to allow the Big 12 to regain a championship game), we realize that our sports teams can no longer travel by bus to most games – the estimate is that the travel by plane required by FSU to be in the Big 12 appears to exceed the $2.9M difference in the contract – actually giving us fewer dollars than we have now to be competitive with the Big 12 teams, who obviously do not have to travel as far. Any
renegotiated amount depends not just on FSU but the caliber of any other new team to the Big 12.

4. Few believe that the above teams will fill our stadium with fans of these teams and so our lack of sales and ticket revenue would continue.

5. We would lose the rivalry with University of Miami that does fill our stadium

6. It will cost between $20M and $25M to leave the ACC – we have no idea where that money would come from. It would have to come from the Boosters which currently are unable to support our current University athletic budget, hence the 2% cut in that budget.

7. The faculty are adamantly opposed to joining a league that is academically weaker – and in fact, many of them resent the fact that a 2% ($2.4M) deficit in the athletics budget receives so much attention from concerned Seminoles, but the loss of 25% of the academic budget (105M) gets none when it is the most critical concern of this University in terms of its successful future.

I present these issues to you so that you realize that this is not so simple (not to mention that negotiations aren’t even taking place). One of the few wise comments made in the blogosphere is that no one negotiates their future in the media. We can’t afford to have conference affiliation
be governed by emotion – it has to be based on a careful assessment of athletics, finances and academics. I assure you that every aspect of conference affiliation will be looked at by this institution, but it must be a reasoned decision.

Eric Barron
President

Wow.  Barron is obviously trying to calm down his trustees and a fanbase that’s increasingly feeling the urge to move.  But some of his comments suggest he might be trying to scuttle any chances of an FSU-Big 12 merger from the inside, too.

In Point 2 he makes the Big 12 appear weaker without those four schools that have left it.  He says that Texas — where he was a former dean of the geosciences school — rules the conference.  He’s basically saying what we wrote yesterday: If Seminole fans think there’s a Carolina bias in the ACC, just wait’ll you land in the Big 12 with Texas.

In Point 7 he states that the FSU faculty are “adamantly opposed to joining a league that is academically weaker.”  Holy crap, he just flat called the Big 12 “academically weaker.”  We’ve written time and again that schools don’t move to academically weaker leagues — especially schools from the ACC, Pac-12 and Big Ten.  Some Big 12′ers have emailed to ask about Mizzou and Texas A&M moving to the SEC?  First, neither the Big 12 — a league formed in the mid-90s — nor the SEC were viewed on par academically with the other three leagues I specifically referenced.  Second, when A&M and Mizzou moved to the SEC, they made it the stronger conference than the Big 12 in terms of the number of AAU schools.  (Again, rant against the AAU if you wish, but that’s a measure used and pushed by academicians across the country.)  More importantly, neither MU or A&M publicly dissed the SEC as being academically inferior even during the non-denial/denial stage of their courtships.

Think Big 12 presidents will enjoy reading Points 2 and 7?  Think Barron didn’t know they’d be ticked at reading them?

Barron has walked so far out on a ledge that there’s almost no room left for backtracking.  At least not for him.  If the board of trustees ignores the points he’s put forth and decides to push for a Big 12 move it’s hard to imagine Barron being the the Florida State president if/when the school entered that league.

This is all looking more and more like Barron and his pointy heads versus Haggard and his hot heads.  Meanwhile, it also appears that there might be yet another Texas versus Everybody fight brewing in the Big 12.

Welcome to Dysfunction Junction… where the Big 12 and Florida State meet.

Again we ask the following question: When’s the last time the Big Ten or SEC had any kind of public battles like this?  The Pac-12 under Larry Scott’s leadership has also learned to keep its fights and arguments in-house, behind locked doors.

That’s not the case in the ACC or Big 12 yet.  That’s why those leagues still aren’t as stable as the Big Ten, SEC and Pac-12, television dollars be damned.

For now, we at MrSEC.com await the next round of the internal fight in Tallahassee that’s being waged externally for all to see.  What happens between FSU and the Big 12 could destabilize an already shaking college football landscape further.  So watch with care, SEC fans.  The moves at Florida State could set off a chain of events that might just impact your league in the long run.

We didn’t see that one coming.  Probably because it wasn’t actually coming until Haggard believed what he read on the internet and kickstarted a Seminole Summer, rather than an Arab Spring.

ESPN’s Andy Katz reports today that “multiple sources” have told him that “the highest-profile game that could occur is Kentucky at Georgetown.”

He also speculated on some of the other matchups, saying he wouldn’t be surprised to see Louisville at Florida, Marquette at Missouri and Tennessee at Notre Dame.  ”But those last four appear to be more speculation at this point,” he wrote.

The Big East is still trying to decide whether it will line up two more of its teams for the challenge this year, as the SEC has expanded to 14 teams with the addition of Missouri and Texas A&M.  If the Big East does not include two more squads, two SEC teams won’t be able to take part in this year’s challenge.

2.  This writer believes college hoops coaches and their endless promises on the recruiting trail are to blame for all the transfers these days.

3.  College football — obviously — doesn’t appear to be done with realignment yet.

4.  The NCAA is considering a need-based stipend for college athletes.

5.  Auburn’s freshman football players are already rolling onto campus.

6.  Tiger receiver Trovon Reed was arrested for missing a court date over unpaid parking tickets.

7.  Is Will Muschamp ready to lead a revival of Florida football?

8.  Ex-Wright State combo guard Julius Mays will be eligible immediately once he transfers to Kentucky this offseason.

9.  What’s to become of the Missouri-Kansas rivalry?

10.  In case you missed it, Vanderbilt’s James Franklin has now joined Steve Spurrier and Les Miles in believing the SEC should not count cross-divisional games in the standings.   (Leave your nasty comments for us below, but we still think this is a goofball idea… and that there’s a reason no one else uses such a system… and that the first time a 5-3 team went to Atlanta over a 7-1 team, everybody would scream for the old system.)

I know this first-hand because I spoke to two people inside the top levels of two ACC schools last week and they both told me all was well in their league.  The sources were off so we were off.  Ditto everybody else in the traditional media.  And though Dan Wetzel’s excellent column on ACC rage behind the scenes paints the picture as being obvious in hindsight, I don’t recall Wetzel writing any of this before Andy Haggard’s comments, either.  Perhaps a “we in the media” might’ve worked better in his column.

Now, on the other side of the fence you have the bloggers and Twitterers and messageboard posters.  Most are anonymous.  Most run with any rumor they hear.  Some are correct.  Most aren’t.

But here’s what’s interesting:

* Traditional media members get little credit when they get a story right (“It’s your job!), but they get eviscerated whenever there’s a mistake made or a “failed to see it in advance” type of issue.  Like the FSU story.

* The blogs and Twitter users and messageboarders pay no price whatsever for getting it wrong when they toss stuff against the wall to see what sticks, but when they hit on a story — or even just a portion of a story — they’re hailed as real, big-time newsbreakers.

We’re a website.  I hate the word “blog” because there are three writers on this site and still others provide outside, freelance type commentary as well.  But we’re closer to a blog than we are to the traditional media.  There aren’t 100 of us and we don’t have copy editors looking over our stuff (obbvyussly).  However, we try to carry ourselves like the traditional media because the three guy making up this site’s staff all have traditional media backgrounds.  So throwing out ideas to see what sticks or writing about “nip slips” isn’t tops on our agenda for gaining credibility.

Basically, we’ve got a foot in both camps.  So there’s no bitterness associated with the above observations.  We’ve been on both ends of the spectrum and enjoyed the rewards of both.  We’ve also been discredited as being too traditional and as being up-against-the-wall-stuff-tossers.

Trying to walk that line — hell, trying to find that line to walk — we just find it interesting that the two parties are held to two such totally different standards.

Then again, people in this day and age basically go to news sources that validate their own opinions anyway.  Whether it’s Fox News or MSNBC, many people view those right- and left-leaning networks as being “fair and balanced,” simply because they tell the listener/viewer what they want to hear.  Ditto NPR or Rush Limbaugh.

It’s the same with traditional media versus new media.  If you want buttoned-up facts, you turn to traditional sources and sometimes you’re going to be a day late.

If you want speculation and to hear what might happen next before anyone else hears it, you turn to folks who are more likely to run with a rumor without finding two corroborating sources first.  But you’ll have to live with a lot more false information.

To each his own.  As stated, we’re somewhere in the middle of those two groups.  Just trust us on this one — the two types of media are held to very different standards.

1.  Here’s the full extent  of FSU trustee Andy Haggard’s “I was only trying to say” backtrack from Sunday.

2.  The ACC meetings got going yesterday and the Seminoles in attendance were “calm and relaxed.”  (As opposed to Nathan Thurm.)

3.  Want amazing?  ESPN’s ACC blogger Heather Dinich lists “What to Watch” at this week’s gathering but does not mention the comments of Haggard or FSU’s AD or FSU’s president.  At all.  She barely mentions Jimbo Fisher’s comments and thanks him “for keeping the expansion talk alive.”  Wow.

4.  David Ubben, ESPN’s Big 12 blogger does talk about Haggard’s comments, but it’s clear that ESPN has put this topic on the backburner.  I kept looking but I never saw this enormous, wild story make the homepage at ESPN.com over the weekend.  Never.  And you can bet that if it weren’t an ESPN contract that had FSU so ticked off you’d have seen Haggard’s comments and all the rampant speculation they touched off getting a lot more play.  ”Worldwide Leader” indeed.

5.  CBSSports.com’s Dennis Dodd is talking about a four-league universe.  (He thinks ESPN will try to get FSU to stay put.  We do, too, as we’ve mentioned.)

6.  Matt Hayes of The Sporting News — taking things a bit further than we did today — suggests FSU would get “slaughtered” in the Big 12.  (As we said when folks made those comments about Texas A&M last year, we’re not buying that based on FSU’s rich history.  Power programs always rise again.  However, at the moment there’s no question the Big 12 is tougher than the ACC football-wise and the Noles haven’t been tearing up the ACC.  Additionally, if some FSU fans think the ACC favors UNC and Duke, wait’ll they land in the Big 12 with Texas.)

7.  Chadd Scott of ChuckOliver.net does a good job of explaining Tier 3 media rights if you’re not well-versed on that subject.

8.  Warchant.com says “it’s all about the money” for Florida State.

As it turns out, Haggard was railing about Tier 3 rights and a pro-North Carolina school bias within the ACC without actually knowing what he was talking about.  His view of the new contract was driven by Twitter, messageboards, blogs, etc.  Those sources were wrong when it came to the details of the contract.  Therefore Haggard was wrong, too.

Enter Florida State president Eric Barron who tried to put the toothpaste back into the tube with this statement late Saturday night:

2. Kevin Scarbinsky on The Sporting News ranking of Alabama’s Nick Saban at No. 1 and Auburn coach Gene Chizik at No. 36: “The Sporting News got it right, and The Sporting News got it wrong. There isn’t a better coach in college football than Saban. There aren’t 35 coaches in college football better than Chizik.”

3. What will those same rankings look like in 10 years? “Here’s a wild card: Bobby Petrino. He’s 51, banished from the current rankings but there’s still time to get back in the hunt.”

4. Just how good was the 2011-2012 athletic season for the University of Alabama?  “It’s the best in a long, long time.”

5. Could former Alabama quarterback Phillip Sims play sooner rather than later at the University of Virginia?

6. Sims’ departure has moved incoming freshman Alec Morris one notch closer to the top.

7. A “monster rebuilding project” awaits new Mississippi State basketball coach Rick Ray.

8. John Calipari’s search for one more recruit at Kentucky.

9. Why Houston’s Mack Rhoades is probably not a candidate for the athletic director job at Texas A&M.

10. Why football will endure:  ”Football will continue — will survive, endure, ramble on — because there will always be a stream of players to play it.”

Extras:

11. Mike Bianchi: More than ever, Florida State fans feel they are a football school hopelessly trapped in a basketball league. 

12. Dan Wetzel on the ACC television deal: “In Tallahassee, it may have been the last straw.”

But we at MrSEC.com spoke to sources at SEC schools who thought realignment was slowing down, not speeding up.  We spoke with officials from two ACC schools who we have connections to and they both thought the talk of FSU/Clemson to the Big 12 was absolutely bonkers.  ESPN had just cooked up new television deals for both those leagues.  Why would they do that if they thought all that work could soon go up in smoke?  Even Orangebloods.com — the Rivals site that covers Texas — had repeatedly called the idea a “longshot” and like, oh, so many others had said there had been no contact between Big 12 officials and the folks from Florida State and Clemson.

Add to this 20 years of Florida State officials talking about how partnering with ACC schools had helped their own academic image and it was hard to imagine the FSU administration backtracking.  Plus, the commissioners of all the conferences are currently working on what’s expected to be a new postseason playoff plan.  Seems like it would be difficult to agree on a plan if you don’t even know who’ll be playing where in a couple of years.

So we were inclined to buy it — for once — when FSU athletic director Randy Spetman said this on Friday:

“We’re in the ACC. We’re committed to the ACC.  That’s where our president and the board of trustees has committed to, so we’re great partners in the ACC.”

Well, uh, no.  At least that’s not the case according to the outgoing chairman of Florida State’s board of trustees, Andy Haggard.  On Saturday, he completely cut the legs out from under his school’s athletic director, the Atlantic Coast Conference, and ACC/FSU television partner, ESPN.  Hell, Haggard sawed through more legs than a Civil War doctor.  His barrage against his own league and — by default — his own athletic director was epic.

He was ticked that the ACC gave away its Tier 3 rights for football to ESPN while holding on to its basketball rights:

“It’s mind-boggling and shocking.  How can the ACC give up third tier rights for football but keep them for basketball?… It continues the perception that the ACC favors the North Carolina schools.”

(Remember that part.  It’s important.)

As for the long-held argument made time and again by the “Knowledge is Good” crowd in Tallahassee that ACC + FSU = Win, Haggard scoffed:

“No FSU graduate puts on his resume or interviews for a job saying they are in the same conference as Duke and Virginia.  Conference affiliation really has no impact on academics.”

And then he dropped the bomb that yes indeedy he wants Florida State to start talking to the Big 12:

“How do you not look into that option?  On behalf of the Board of Trustees I can say that unanimously we would be in favor of seeing what the Big 12 might have to offer.  We have to do what is in Florida State’s best interest… With the SEC making the kind of money it does it’s time to act.  You can’t sit back and be content in the ACC.  This is a different time financially.  This isn’t 10-15 years ago when money was rolling in.”

“On behalf of the Board of Trustees I can say that unanimously.”  Really?

Boom.  (And we ain’t talkin’ Will Muschamp.)

We’ll break this down from a few different angles below, but that’s just an amazing interview for Haggard to have given Warchant.com — the Rivals site covering FSU — just one day after his own school’s athletic director had said the complete and total opposite.  We know — we’ve written it — ADs lie.  You can call it spinning if you like, but technically, they lie.  Often.  Still, they’re usually not outed within 24 hours by their own top trustee.

Just remarkable.

Even more amazing?  Seminoles football coach Jimbo Fisher — who sources had pegged as a pro-ACC guy — told The Orlando Sentinal post-Haggard’s rant:

“There have been no official talks, but I think you always have to look out there to see what’s best for Florida State.  If that [jumping to the Big 12] is what’s best for Florida State,then that’s what we need to do.”

If Haggard dropped Fat Man, Fisher unloaded Little Boy.  Both fell right into the laps of Spetman and the ACC.

Some thoughts:

It seems the tail’s been wagging the dog at FSU

You would think Haggard would be pretty clued in to the ACC/ESPN television contract.  He’s FSU’s top trustee until his term ends — reportedly — at the next board meeting.  But like so many others in the last few days, he was actually all wrong regarding those hotly-debated Tier 3 rights.

Jim Lamar of The Tallahassee Democrat reports that ACC assistant commissioner Michael Kelly said Saturday that all ACC schools have the exact same Tier 3 rights.  Moreover, all the men’s basketball and football games go to ESPN.  Now, that won’t put any more cash in FSU’s coffers, but the idea of the basketball schools being given an advantage?  Unless Kelly is lying — and the contracts would be pretty hard to forge — Haggard was 100% off base on that front.

Which makes this writer wonder just how connected to this process he’s been.  Could that be the source of his anger?  Is this an Arab Spring type of moment we’re witnessing, driven by rumors, exaggerations, anonymous blogs and social media?

Think about it:  The ACC cuts a deal with ESPN.  One blog drives the story that FSU and the Big 12 are talking.  Somebody floats their rage over the Tier 3 rights on a messageboard or two.  It hits Twitter.  An outgoing, left-out (and possibly angry about it) Haggard sees all this and decides to do a number on his own AD and ESPN because he  believes what he sees in the blogosphere, the messageboards and Twitter.  But then it turns out that a good part of his spiel is based on faulty information.  ”They’re favoring the North Carolina schools!”  Uh, no, actually they’re not.

Additionally, FSU reportedly made all of a whopping $350,000 last year on its Tier 3 rights.  In other words, it’s not like the new deal with ESPN is really going to cost the Florida State a whole lot of cabbage.  It wasn’t making it under the old deal, either.

Trouble is — the damage is already done.

What can the ACC say now?

Nothing.  There is no way back from what Haggard’s done.  Perhaps as an attorney and uber-booster he knew all along he could drive FSU to the Big 12 by simply opening his mouth.  Trustees at Missouri forced chancellor Brady Deaton’s hand last year.  Key boosters and trustees led the charge for Texas A&M to join the SEC, too.

The ACC has already come out to declare that the deal is even-Steven for everyone.  They’ve said the perception of uneven Tier 3 rights is “totally inaccurate”.  Kelly also said, “There is no change in fundamental rights at this time.  ESPN does have the rights to all of our football and all of our men’s basketball games.  There is no opportunity for our conference or our schools to produce games beyond that in those two sports.”

So it’s the exact same deal ESPN and the ACC had put together years ago.  They just extended it.

Some FSU fans won’t care, though (and that number grows every time a guy like Haggard spreads inaccurate information about the deal that was cut).  The deal may be even, but it’s still worth $3 million less per year than what other schools in other conferences are making.  Nevermind the fact that if the Seminoles had been winning as much as the ACC expected when it brought them in, the league’s contract would’ve probably paid a whole lot better.

Ironically, the ACC’s spring meetings begin today in Amelia Island, Florida.  Oh, that should be a fun event.  Especially for Spetman, who thanks to Haggard, will arrive without the use of this testicles.

What can Spetman do?

Call Bill Byrne at Texas A&M, perhaps?  Call a realtor?

Spetman’s been emasculated by his school’s top money man.  Whether he’s the chairman of the board or just Johnny Millions, Haggard will continue to have clout via six-inch sheets of green paper.  Lots of ‘em.  And clearly he’s not in the same corner as his athletic director when it come to the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Worse, nothing Spetman says from this point forward can ever be believed again.  Literally.  He was either a liar regarding FSU’s interest in the Big 12 (and was outed quicker than most lying ADs) or he is just a stooge standing in front of the real power brokers on FSU’s board (which is closer to the truth for most athletic directors, including Spetman).

He may stay in Tallahassee and Haggard may be discredited as having gone rogue, but Spetman’s credibility is kaput.  Dunzo.  Finito.

What can FSU do to save face?

Florida State president Eric Barron put out a press release Saturday night trying to calm the storm (or cover up whatever’s happening behind the scenes):

Naturally, the Big 12′s already interested

There will be a lot of “told ya so’s” coming from the crowd that said a deal had already been struck between FSU and the Big 12.  By all accounts that’s not true.  Sources from Lubbock to Austin to Tallahassee have all said there’s been no contact between the parties and that the Big 12 hasn’t even talked expansion with its new commissioner Bob Bowlsby.

You can bet they’ll talk about it now.

Dan Wetzel of Yahoo! Sports immediately responded to the Haggard/Warchant.com story by Tweeting that a Big 12 source said, “I can’t imagine how we wouldn’t be interested in Florida State.”  He went on to say that there’s “legit concern in ACC” that Miami may also try to leave if FSU goes.

Where’s ESPN’s coverage of this?

The chairman of Florida State’s board of trustees just said he wants the Big 12 to give the Seminoles a ring and as of midnight this morning, ESPN.com did not have the story as one of its featured frontpage headlines.  Hmmm.  That wouldn’t be because Haggard’s statements make the ACC/ESPN deal look bad, would it?

Or maybe ESPN is just hoping/praying that the deals it negotiated with the Big 12 — paying it a higher-then expected fee just to keep it together — and the ACC — extending its deal through the late 2020′s — aren’t going to be tossed into the trash heap just yet.  ”Ignore it, maybe the story will go away.”

The Dude abides

Hey, we at MrSEC.com have been right on a lot of things regarding conference expansion.  So right in fact that a lot of other sites have copied our material and then patted themselves on the back for getting our predictions and theories right.  But we can admit when we were wrong.

In this case, “The Dude of WV,” a blogger who won’t sign his name to his posts, had heard from someone who knew some FSU backers were ready to move.  Kudos.

Now, the “done deal” part of the story, well, that’s pretty much been shot down by everyone who a) has legitimate sources and b) signs his name to his posts.  Still, we didn’t think this was coming.  We trusted our sources.  On FSU’s interest in the Big 12 — or at least in one very influential man’s interest — those sources were wrong.  Which means we were wrong.  Which means we tip our hat to the unknown West Virginia fan who tossed his horseshoe a lot closer to the stake than most anyone else on this FSU/Big 12 thing.

Blankety-Blank, Blankety-Blank

Speaking of our sources, I followed up with a good friend who happens to be in a pretty high-up position with an ACC school’s administration.  After being told repeatedly for the last week that folks in the league really did feel good about the future and that FSU officials were A-OK with the new ESPN deal, I zipped him a text this afternoon: “What gives?”

His response?

Well, I can’t tell you exactly what he said because this is a family site.  But I can give you the gist.  The folks at his school were not happy.  They were blindsided.  And Haggard was viewed as a “petulant child” — that is a quote — for his outburst.

Academics don’t matter

Perhaps to Haggard academics don’t matter, but to most top dogs at major universities, they sure as heck do.  No school has left the Big Ten, Pac-12 or ACC in decades in order to move to a richer league with a worse academic reputation.  If FSU heads to the Big 12, it will be the first.

The grant and research money that can be brought in for schools via cooperative programs such as the Big Ten’s Committee on Institutional Cooperation is enormous.  Try more than $500 million each year.  

A school like Florida with its $100,000 athletic budget?  UF recieves more than $550 million annually in sponsored research funding.

Academics might not matter to Haggard and they might not matter to Florida State (despite 20 years of saying just the opposite).  There might not be enough shared academic/research cash in the ACC to give FSU pause in the first place.

But for a man to suggest conference affiliation doesn’t have anything do with academics?  He sounds like a guy who was born rich and didn’t have to do a lot of homework of his own in college.

We’ve talked to so many university officials over the years who’ve said that getting “name” schools into a league is big, big, big for the pointy heads running those schools.  If academics didn’t matter, why has the SEC been promoting Missouri and Texas A&M’s AAU status non-stop since they climbed aboard?

The Big 12 would be catching a big fish

If the Big 12 lands Florida State, that’s a win for Bowlsby’s league and a loss for Mike Slive’s.  Missouri has a better academic reputation, solid athletics, and will bring in a lot of new cable households in a brand new part of the country.  We’re all in on Mizzou, so don’t start screaming when you read this, Tiger fans, but…

Florida State is a national brand.  When it comes to national television ratings, FSU versus Arizona State would draw more eyes than Mizzou versus Arizona State.  Florida State versus Georgia would get better ratings than Missouri versus Georgia.

No, FSU wouldn’t add a new state or new households to the SEC.  If the league doesn’t start a new network with ESPN, then what’s the difference on that front?  Florida State would’ve been a bigger brand name and would have drawn bigger numbers for every SEC contest they played.

FSU to the Big 12 would be a major coup for a league that was on a respirator about 12 months ago.

The Big 12 would also get a nice little tit-for-tat by picking up the Noles.  The SEC just got a foothold in Texas with A&M.  FSU would give the Big 12 a foothold in Florida.  Take that, SEC.

FSU would get more cash, but…

Let’s face facts, Florida State is a national brand despite the fact they’ve fallen off in football over the last decade.  If they couldn’t beat the Wake Forests and Georgia Techs of the ACC for a league title, just how are the Seminoles going to fare in the Big 12 with Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, West Virginia and TCU?  Careful what you wish for, Mr. Haggard.

In addition, FSU already has a rival with Florida and could easily develop rivalries with Georgia, Auburn, Alabama and others in the much closer SEC.  At some point Seminole fans might be faced with road trips to Lubbock, Ames and Manhattan (Kansas) that make their current excursions to Atlanta, Coral Gables and Tobacco Road seem like neighborhood strolls.

Clemson, Miami, Louisville and Notre Dame… you’re on the clock

What once was an unsubstantiated rumor supported by no quotes an written by an unknown person has quickly become an honest-to-God mega-story thanks to Haggard’s comments (and Fisher’s response to them).  You can bet the expansion/realignment talk will go absolutely nuts at this point.

FSU will be viewed as a done deal and schools all over America will be kicked around as being the next to join the Big 12… or Big 14… or Big 16.

What about Notre Dame?  The Big Ten?  Will the Big East collapse?  Will the ACC?

You can also expect all the talk of a 16-school SEC to start up again.  Expansion chatter is good for business when football and basketball are out of season.  So get ready to read that Commissioner Slive has secretly flown into Blacksburg and Raleigh and Chapel Hill and Durham.  Get ready for East Carolina fans to start their campaign for SEC entry again.  Get ready for rumors of a Big 12 versus SEC tug-of-war for Florida State to commence.

Oh, it’s all coming.

Damnit.  (Trust me, I’m not excited to be writing about this stuff at 1am on a Sunday morning.)

If you’re a conference commissioner, good luck on the playoff front

Those talks between the league commissioners and Notre Dame’s AD just got a lot more interesting, didn’t they?  Let’s see if they can design a playoff system while also trying to figure out who’ll be playing who on a regular basis.

Will Florida State get any Texas A&M-style blowback?

Last summer, a myriad of national writers took aim at Texas A&M for destabilizing college football with its move to the SEC.  (How the third school to leave a league was to blame for realignment, I’m still not sure.)  But let’s see if the columnists now hammer Florida State for with equal vigor for kicking off Expansionpalooza 2012.

Shoot, let’s see if ESPN ever gets around to even mentioning this story.

While we think the SEC should have grabbed Florida State…

Have we made this clear yet?  If FSU lands in the Big 12, that’s a huge plus for the Big 12 and — like the extension of their grant of rights and their new TV deals — it will further stabilize a league where everyone needs a set of handcuffs to stick together.

But…

When you consider how loudly factions at FSU just broke ranks and went in separate directions, you think, maybe the Seminoles really wouldn’t have been a good fit for the SEC.  Seriously.  When’s the last time you saw an SEC or Big Ten school do something like Haggard and Florida State just did?  Never?  Those are the two top leagues in America because they don’t air their dirty laundry.

Saturday in Tallahassee was dysfuntional at best.  And while the Big 12 is clearly improving, it could have easily changed its name to the Dysfunctional 12 over the last few years.  Maybe FSU is better off with the Texases and Oklahomas of the world after all.

Nah.

We still think the SEC and/or FSU missed the boat on this one.  Florida State should be in the Southeastern Conference.

Kudos to the Big 12 if they land ‘em.

I think that deal’s supposed to be done in two months, right, Dude?

I gotta start following that guy’s Twitter feed.

2. Bruce Feldman explains his Bobby Petrino to Kentucky idea.

3. Williams-Brice Stadium will have a different look this fall.

4. Mike Anderson: “At UAB in our second year, we made the Sweet 16. My second year at Missouri, we made the Sweet 16. The, the third year, the Elite 8. See where we’re headed here?”

5. New Mexico assistant Ryan Miller joins the basketball staff at Mizzou.

6. Former Kentucky player Sean Woods is now the basketball coach at Morehead State.

7. Which early season basketball tournament looks to have the strongest field next season?

8. SEC baseball becoming more like SEC football – dominant.

Extras

9. If Texas said yes to West Virginia, would it really say no to Boise?

10. 50 years later, NBA legend Don Nelson finally gets his college diploma.

Doesn’t he know FSU’s already got an agreement in place to move to the Big 12 along with Miami, Clemson and others?  A deal to start their own television network?  A deal that would grant them a full-share of revenue as soon as they enter Big 12?  And a deal for the Big 12 to help buy the Noles’ way out of the ACC?

Apparently not:

“We’re in the ACC. We’re committed to the ACC.  That’s where our president and the board of trustees has committed to, so we’re great partners in the ACC… I’m not out negotiating.”

Further, Spetman told The Sentinel that any reports about any Florida State officials talking to Big 12 officials are — in the writer’s words — patently false:

“They’ve said I’ve been in Texas all this week.  My wife was wondering how I was getting back and forth every day…  I don’t know why people have written (about FSU to the Big 12).  I don’t know how they can say that — and I don’t mean to pick on the media – but how can the media person come out and say that there was a Florida State person in a meeting that wasn’t true?  How can they get away with that?  To my knowledge, nobody from our organization was there.  So I don’t know how they can get away with saying that.”

Spetman also said he and his fellow FSU officials “weren’t actively seeking” an invitation to the SEC last summer, either.

Things change.  People lie (or “spin” if you prefer).

But Spetman’s definitive comments sure seem to confirm what we wrote last week and what we’ve been told all this week from people actually working inside athletic departments and university administrations — Florida State and Clemson aren’t going to the Big 12 in the near future.

2.  The SEC will try out wireless communication for its officiating crews this fall.

3.  A great find.  Now you can read a letter Paul “Bear” Bryant wrote to an incoming Alabama freshman about 40 years ago.  (We pause for Tide fans to wipe their tears.)

4.  Think Nick Saban will remind his team about Jim Delany’s “that team” remark when they open with Michigan this fall?

5.  LSU chancellor Mike Martin is a finalist to become the chancellor at Colorado State.

6.  Here’s a look at Mississippi State’s safety position p0st-spring drills.

7.  And here’s a look at Florida’s receiving corps after spring practice.

8.  This writer tells you which nonconference teams he thinks Georgia should schedule in football.

9.  Kentucky hoops signee Nerlens Noel says the NCAA hasn’t contacted him directly and that he’s in “great position to qualify” academically.

10.  Steve Spurrier and Frank Martin visited Augusta, Georgia yesterday saying, “It’s great to cross the state line and still be in Gamecock Country.”

It took a day, but Nick Saban has responded.  Asked yesterday about the Delany’s comment, Bama’s coach said, “Don’t be so self-absorbed,” while not naming Delany directly:

“Too many people are about their own self-preservation rather than doing what’s best for college football.  The whole reason we are talking about doing this is for the fans, and the fans want the four best teams.  To come up with a plan where, instead of having Numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4 playing but you have Number 1, 3, 6 and 12 or whatever, it doesn’t make any sense.  They don’t do it in basketball, so for once, let’s do what’s best for college football…

A lot of it (in terms of alternate playoff plans) is targeted at our league.  Last year at one point, we had LSU, Arkansas and us ranked 1-2-3 in the BCS.  Two years in a row, we played Florida in the championship game and we were ranked 1-2.  Some people don’t like that.”

No kidding.  SEC fans had better hope that the Mike Slive/John Swofford bloc can hold more sway with small conference commissioners than the Delany/Larry Scott bloc.  If not, we could indeed be looking at a four-team playoff that doesn’t invite the four best teams in the country.  (Only in college football…)

And for those out there who repeatedly tell this writer that conference champs should be given special treatment because we have no way of accurately selecting the four best teams, we also have no way of accurately selecting the four best conference champions.  Under the plans kicked around, those same rankings that would be inaccurate in choosing the top four teams in the country would be used to select which conference champs are in and which are out.

Oops.

Below is the national Top 10 followed by the rest of the SEC’s squads:

1.  Kentucky — 23,721

2.  Syracuse — 23,618

3.  Louisville — 21,503

4.  North Carolina — 20,159

5.  Wisconsin — 17,181

6.  Creighton — 16,655 (Yes, Creighton.)

7.  Tennessee — 16,543

8.  Ohio State — 16,511

9.  Indiana — 16,462

10.  Kansas — 16,445

18.  Vanderbilt — 13,698

23.  Arkansas — 13,096

27.  Alabama — 12,484

32.  Missouri — 11.830

37.  Florida — 10,434

45.  South Carolina — 8,868

50.  LSU — 8,661

60.  Mississippi State — 8,019

71.  Texas A&M — 7,383

74.  Georgia — 7,079

81.  Auburn — 6,502

91.  Ole Miss — 5,770

By conference, SEC teams averaged 11,513 fans per game, second only to the Big Ten (12,868).  The Big 12 (11,057), Big East (10,881) and ACC (9,876) lagged behind the SEC.

Football may come first in the Dixie, but SEC fans turn out in big numbers to watch hoops as well.  In total, SEC schools sold more than 2.4 million tickets to home basketball games last season.

For those keeping score at home…

Orangebloods.com — the Rivals site that covers Texas — wrote yesterday that maybe, just possibly Florida State could consider a move to the Big 12.  Now, last week the same site reported that they’d been told by people at Clemson and Florida State that representatives from those schools had had no conversations with the Big 12 at all.  Yesterday’s piece didn’t conflict that.  Yet it’s still being passed around the internet as though there’s some breaking news involved.  Granted, they make a good case for all the reasons FSU might want to consider a move, but they don’t say the Seminoles are considering a move.

In fact, in another post from Chip Brown — the site’s administrator — Orangebloods refers to “the longshot scenario that Florida State would possibly leave the Atlantic Coast Conference.”  So while the site itself says it’s been told the parties haven’t actually talked and that such a move is a “longshot scenario,” it’s being passed along on other sites that a new gospel has been handed to us, written by Brown, stating that FSU is ditching the ACC for the Big 12.  Talk about seeing what you want to see and reading what you want to read.

Further, Orangbloods writes that FSU president Eric Barron “is seen as an academic who is not tied in closely with athletics and prizes FSU’s place in the academically strong ACC,” despite working for the University of Texas from 2006 through 2008.  In addition, the site says football coach Jimbo Fisher “is apparently opposed to leaving the ACC.”  Oh, and the site questions whether or not AD Randy Spetman — facing a budget shortfall — is in any postion to push his school into a new league.

Funny.  While Orangebloods is being tabbed as breaking some sort of news of an FSU move, in reality the site looks to be stating, “Hey, it’s possible, but there are a lot reasons to think it won’t happen.”

(Ironically, this is the exact same stance we’ve taken here, here, and here only to be clubbed over the head for it by Big 12 messageboarders.)

Another person being quoted by Big 12 fans is someone who refers to himself as “The Dude of WV.”  Yep, no name.  We just know the following from his tagline: “The Dude abides.  Truth seeker, philosopher, sPitt hater, and Mountaineer fan.”  Well that sounds like an objective point of view.  (Nevermind the unwillingness to sign his name to his work.)

At any rate, the Dude wrote last week that not only have their been talks between FSU, Clemson and the Big 12 — you listening, Orangebloods? — but that “both FSU and Clemson have reached a tentative agreement to leave the ACC for the Big 12.”  Well, hell, that’s strong as new rope, as we say Down South.

Yesterday, he provided an update that starts with this bit of homerism:

“The vast majority of media pundits and traditional journalists just can’t accept an ACC team would leave for the Big 12.  They offer a litany of reasons why any move would be a bad idea.  Yet switch ‘Big 12′ with ‘SEC’ and they all agree a move would be a great thing.”

No, grand sweeping generalizations there.  But, since the Dude chose to go there…

People would think an SEC move for Clemson and Florida would make more sense than a Big 12 move for three simple reasons:

1.  Those schools are already in the same region of the country which would make travel easier and cheaper.

2.  Those schools already have existing rivalries with SEC schools.

3.  The SEC is a more stable league than the Big 12.  We wrote earlier this week — though it was ignored by several Big 12′ers because it didn’t fit their “You hate the Big 12″ narrative — that the Big 12′s decision to extend its grant of rights is a terrific step for the league and goes along way toward stabilizing things inside that conference.  However, the SEC has no exit fees.  Think about that.  They’re so unworried about schools leaving that they don’t even have exit penalties in their handbook.  On the other hand, the Big 12′s granting of media rights is akin to a married couple saying, “Yeah, we trust each other, but we better handcuff ourselves together just in case.”

Those three points are facts.  We here at MrSEC.com cover the SEC, we don’t pull for, root for, or puff up the SEC.  Those three points aren’t homerism, they’re reality.

So is this: You know why Notre Dame is never mentioned in connection with the SEC?  Because that school would more likely align itself with a league better known for its academics, like the Big Ten or the ACC.  SEC fans won’t like to hear that and we’re sure to hear that by adding Missouri and Texas A&M Mike Slive’s league has now grown to four AAU schools total, more than the Big 12.  True.  But it’s still a fact that the ACC, Big Ten (and Pac-12, too) have better reputations academically than the SEC.

Notre Dame’s also a lot closer to the Big Ten and the Big 12 than it is to the SEC.  That doesn’t hurt us to say that because we… don’t… care.  We cover.  We give honest opinions unclouded by allegiance to a school (or hatred toward sPitt, for example).

But back to the Dude’s latest ultra-popular expansion piece…

Yesterday he wrote that FSU has already asked the Big 12 “to help with the ACC buyout and demanded a full share of Big 12 revenues from the start.  And they want Miami to join them.”  Further he adds: “Miami’s money problems are worse than FSU’s and FSU believes that travel in the new Big 12 East would not be that much of a burden with WVU, Clemson and Miami in the division.  Add Louisville or Maryland in there and travel is no longer an issue.”  And for a sweetener: “FSU really likes the spirit of cooperation they are getting from the Big 12.”

Yep, because when you think of the Big 12 in recent years, the words “spirit of cooperation” often come to mind.

So last week we had FSU and Clemson with tentative deals to jump leagues.  Now we have a Big 12 featuring Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Baylor, Texas Tech, TCU, Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State, West Virginia, Florida State, Clemson, Miami, and Louisville or Maryland making up a new 14-school league.

Now that seems like a big jump in a week’s time, but that’s what’s been sent to my john@mrsec.com email account about 50 times since yesterday afternoon.  (Most of those emails also mention that Notre Dame will jump in as a non-football member of the league, too, to bring the total number of Big 12 schools to 15.)

That would be a helluva conference, no two ways about it.  Good football and basketball, mega-brands, a huge geographic footprint for recruiting and a big “electronic” footprint in terms of desirable television matchups.  And if the Dude’s nailed that one, we’ll be the first to tip our hat to him.

But doesn’t it seem that there would be a lot of hoops to jump through to make all of that happen?  And doesn’t it also seem odd that ESPN and Fox would cut new TV deals with the Big 12 if they thought all those moves — or any of those moves — were truly likely in the short-term?  Just saying.

That’s not all, of course.  Brett McMurphy of CBSSports.com writes that Boise State might now be reconsidering its decision to join the Big East.  If so, they could get directions from TCU on how to leave a conference before ever entering it.

And Andy Katz of ESPN.com writes that according to his sources, Louisville AD Tom Jurich “told the Big East board of directors that the Cardinals want to be in the Big 12 or the ACC.”  But wait, there’s more.  ”Connecticut, meanwhile, states publicly that it wants to stay in the Big East, though a number of UConn sources have said privately that they want to be in the ACC with Notre Dame.”

Of course, they do.

While all the world appears to be spinning off into the Realignment Twilight Zone again, we’re sticking to the same points we’ve been making for a week:

1.  Any changes in conference affiliation aren’t likely to lead the SEC to expand anytime soon.  The smaller conferences — we’re looking at you, Big East — might be drawn and quartered like William Wallace, but the big boys probably aren’t going to be adding four to five teams, regardless of what anonymous writers with good taste in movies claim.  (Two thumbs up for “The Big Lebowski”)

2.  If the Big 12 expands, it will do so probably in hopes of getting back to 12 teams in order to add a conference championship game (which Big 12 officials have publicly stated isn’t an actual goal).  Louisville almost got in over West Virginia last year.  Katz’ news on Jurich and the Cardinals wanting to join the Big 12 or ACC is perfectly believable.  That’s why we’ve listed Louisville as the most likely school to join the Big 12… if invited.

3.  We’re still not convinced that adding a league championship game by grabbing Louisville and Cincinnati — the other school we’ve thought makes the most sense if a biggie can’t be grabbed — would add enough revenue to justify even adding two more schools.

4.  No one pays attention to academics, but academic budgets are far larger than athletic budgets.  Would a move by FSU increase or decrease its academic standing?  Would that in turn lead to more grants for research or less, more funding or less, more donations or less?  These things don’t matter as much to schools like Boise State and San Diego State who need to grab every penny — academic, athletic or otherwise — that they can find.  They do matter to Top 100 universities, their presidents and their donors.  Keep in mind, in the history of expansion the three most-respected leagues academically have never lost a single team to a conference with a lesser academic reputation.  Not the Pac-12.  Not the Big Ten.  Not the ACC.  Call that dumbluck or claim “there’s a first time for everything,” but to date, the schools most prideful of their academic standing have never stepped down the ladder.

5.  Even if the Big East disintegrates, it’s likely that each power league other than the SEC will scoop up a school or two.  Louisville and Cincinnati or Notre Dame to the Big 12.  Notre Dame or Rutgers to the Big Ten.  Notre Dame or UConn to the ACC.  None of those moves would force the 14-school SEC to react.

6.  While some continue to trumpet Virginia Tech and NC State as future members of the SEC – ignoring the fact that the majority of NCSU’s board is put in place by UNC’s board — we don’t see the SEC raiding the ACC.  In fact, if the SEC has a pal among the other Big Five leagues right now it appears to be John Swofford and his conference.  As 14-schools leagues, the SEC and ACC are fighting similar battles right now when it comes to the layout of a new playoff system (assuming the Big Ten and Pac-12 presidents don’t blow that whole idea up).

Yesterday, we wrote that the ACC’s new television agreement should hush some of the rumors regarding ACC defections.  One commenter asked beneath our story, “What fans have you been talking to?”

The answer: None.  We don’t form our opinions and go on the record with those opinions based on what we read on messageboards.

Instead I’ve personally spoken to people inside two SEC athletic departments, two SEC administrations, two ACC administrations, and one high-ranking television executive (not with ESPN or Fox) in the past 24 hours.

Those seven phone calls and email conversations have led those of us at MrSEC.com to believe that what we’ve said all along is still true — expansion and realignment at the highest levels is slowing down, not speeding up.  Everyone seems to believe the Big East could crumble at any moment.  No one seems to believe FSU or Clemson will leave the ACC, despite the rumors which — to date — have not had a single quote attached to them.

So if you’re thinking FSU might land in the Big 12 North as the folks at WFOR-TV in Miami seem to, you might want to take a deep, deep breath.  Sure the Big 12 could be the Big 20 tomorrow.  Never say never.

But I think Big 12 fans and everyone else should pay attention to what Oklahoma State president Burns Hargis said regarding his league’s possible expansion:

“No, I don’t think there’s a consensus on it.  I think there are a lot of variables [and] a lot of factors that have to be considered.  Right now we have a lot of views on it, but they’re all subject, I think, to what we believe the future of college athletics will be and who might we ask to join.

I do think there’s a strong feeling in the conference for the round-robin nature of our schedules.  I know our athletic directors really like that [and] I think fans really like that.  So there would have to be a very good reason to abandon that.”

Money is a very good reason.  That said, it certainly sounds as though the Big 12 — like most other leagues out there — would rather catch its breath and see how its most recent changes play out before racing into more moves.

Blair Kerkhoff of The Kansas City Star seemed to agree with that sentiment while appearing on a West Virginia-based radio show this week:

“At least the league isn’t backpedaling and having to add schools to save its existence.  Now it adds schools to enhance its existence, if it decides to.  My gut is telling me is it has to be the right schools.  You don’t add for the sake of adding…

I threw out Florida State and Clemson only because those names have been popping up since February.  I had not written that in any story or blog, but I said ‘if we’re going to round up everybody, let’s include those two.’ 

Everybody that I’ve talked to in the Big 12 and at schools in the conference office tell me there have been no conversation between those schools and the Big 12.  But, that’s not to say back channeling hasn’t happened or various other ways that schools can communicate with conferences.”

True enough.  But again, with previous expansion moves there has always been some level of talk among the major players before a move took place — the Pac-12′s Larry Scott flying hither and yon to meet with various Big 12 school officials in 2010, SEC officials and Texas A&M officials chatting one another up in 2011, etc.

At some point, the big boys may start talking.  Until then, the “it’s coming and it’s coming fast and it’s ALMOST HERE!” crowd probably need to relax.

We could be wrong.  No doubt about it (even though we trust our sources because they’ve given us great information over the past four years).  But we don’t believe the Big 12 will be raiding the ACC and the Big East and grabbing Notre Dame in the next week or so.

We think a lot of this stuff just feeds on itself.  Remember, there was a time when the Pac-10 was definitely going to add Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas A&M and Baylor.  There was a time when the Big Ten was definitely going to add Missouri, Notre Dame, Rutgers and Connecticut.

So put your money on the hype if you like.  You might hit the jackpot.  We at MrSEC.com will be keeping our cash in pocket until we hear something just a bit more definite.

UPDATE — Chuck Carlton of The Dallas Morning News writes: “…two sources indicated that Florida State’s name has not yet been mentioned in expansion talks among Big 12 athletic directors.  One source also wondered about the rumor’s resiliency and what it said about legitimate Florida State discontent.  And multiple sources listed Louisville as the most likely Big 12 possibility, given the wobbly Big East and the Cardinals’ runner-up status to West Virginia int he most recent expansion sweepstakes.”

That’s how long it is until we’re tracking the faxes on National Signing Day 2013.  And since it’s already May — wasn’t it Christmas last week? — we think it’ll seem like a blink of the eye until that day arrives.

It’s been three weeks since our last check of the Big Board and several schools have picked up commitments in that time.  Below we’ll show you how your favorite team — and your hated rivals — are stacking up to date in terms of committed prospects.

As usual, we’ll use Rivals.com’s rankings.  For each star they assign, we’ll dole out a point.  But we’ll also award a point to 0-star recruits because sooner or later those commits will be graded, too (and if they wind up in the SEC, they’ll most likely receive no less than two or three stars).

First, we’ll show you the SEC’s 14 programs rank in terms of total talent points committed on this May 10th:

Next, let’s take a look at the average points per commitment for each program, in order to figure out what caliber athlete is interested in each program (as of now):

And finally, here’s a peek at which schools have picked up the most total points since our last comparator on April 17th:

But now The Sporting News — Hayes with fellow writer Steve Greenberg, in fact — has ranked all the college football coaches in the country from #1 all the way to #124.  Some anonymous coaches also weigh in on their colleagues in some of the breakdowns of each.

Below we’ll show where each SEC coach fell in their rankings as well as who is above and below each coach:

1.  Nick Saban, Alabama

Just above him: No one

Just below him: Chris Petersen, Boise State

4.  Les Miles, LSU

Just above him: Urban Meyer, Ohio State

Just below him: Bob Stoops, Oklahoma

8.  Steve Spurrier, South Carolina

Just above him: Gary Patterson, TCU

Just below him: Frank Beamer, Virginia Tech

14.  Mark Richt, Georgia

Just above him: Mark Dantonio, Michigan State

Just below him: Bronco Mendenhall, BYU

25.  James Franklin, Vanderbilt

Just above him: Brady Hoke, Michigan

Just below him: Gary Pinkel, Missouri

26.  Gary Pinkel, Missouri

Just above him: James Franklin, Vanderbilt

Just below him: Dabo Swinney, Clemson

36.  Gene Chizik, Auburn

Just above him: Ken Niumatalolo, Navy

Just below him: Bo Pelini, Nebraska

46.  Dan Mullen, Mississippi State

Just above him: Mike London, Virginia

Just below him: Kevin Sumlin, Texas A&M

47.  Kevin Sumlin, Texas A&M

Just above him: Dan Mullen, Mississippi State

Just below him: Paul Rhoads, Iowa State

59.  Will Muschamp, Florida

Just above him: Dave Christensen, Wyoming

Just below him: Paul Pasqualoni, UConn

74.  John L. Smith, Arkansas

Just above him: Mark Hudspeth, Louisiana-Lafayette

Just below him: Todd Graham, Arizona State

77.  Hugh Freeze, Ole Miss

Just above him: Terry Bowden, Akron

Just below him: Larry Coker, Texas-San Antonio

90.  Joker Phillips, Kentucky

Just above him: Doc Holliday, Marshall

Just below him: Mike MacIntyre, San Jose State

99.  Derek Dooley, Tennessee

Just above him: Norm Chow, Hawaii

Just below him: Garrick McGee, UAB

You can get the full explainers right here.  We’ll just tell you that four SEC players made this year’s list with three other just missing the cut.  And those super-skilled athletes are…

2.  Devin Taylor, DE, South Carolina

3.  Justin Hunter, WR, Tennessee

6.  Knile Davis, RB, Arkansas

8.  Jay Prosch, FB, Auburn (transfer from Northwestern)

Just missing the list were:

Eric Reid, DB, LSU

Jesse Williams, DT, Alabama

Lerentee McCray, LB, Florida

(You can tell its May when people start posting all their different lists.  It’s not football or basketball season… it’s list season.)

2.  Alabama AD Mal Moore opens up about firing Mike Shula and hiring Nick Saban.

3.  Mike Anderson has added a juco forward to Arkansas’ 2012-13 roster.

4.  LSU guard Ralston Turner has been given a release from new coach Johnny Jones and will consider transferring.

5.  Texas A&M’s next AD will need for Kevin Sumlin and Billy Kennedy to succeed.

6.  Here’s a post-spring look at Florida’s running back situation.

7.  Freshman John Theus will get a shot to crack Georgia’s starting O-line in preseason camp.

8.  Come Monday, Mark Richt will be able to use his phone again.

9.  The academic status of Kentucky signee Nerlens Noel might be a bigger issue than ongoing NCAA snooping.

10.  Indiana’s Tom Crean discusses the end of the UK-IU basketball series.

11.  South Carolina junior guards Eric Smith and Brian Richardson intend to stay put under Frank Martin.  (Sorry, but it’s behind a paywall, folks.)

12.  Derek Dooley feels that all the anchors that were weighing down Tennessee’s program are gone.

13.  Frank Haith is building his Missouri program with transfers (from Auburn, Oregon, Pepperdine, Tulsa and UConn).

14.  Mel Kiper lists nine SEC players on this Top 25 Big Board for next year’s NFL draft… and only two of those players are seniors.