http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=5285680

If this goes down, I'll have to congratulate Texas on making the remaining nine Big XII schools their bitch in this deal and give props to Kansas and Missouri for whoring out for that extra buck while saving their ass.
While A&M is a shell of the team it was during the SWC heydays, I don't really get why either they or OU would completely sell their soul to keep the conference alive.
I don't understand why Fox would pay the conference as a whole that much more for less games, and how they plan to recoup all the revenue they lose from not having a televised championship game.
It will certainly be humorous if the Pac-10 loses out on all this conference realignment deal and gets stuck with Utah instead of the Big 12 South.
I'm just glad that Nebraska is no longer with a lack of guarantees on a tv deal and has a long term conference revenue sharing plan now in place.
I just hope I can afford a trip to Madison the first time the Huskers play the Badgers in the Barry Alvarez Bowl.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=5286672
Here's the story, nice tip

On the contrary, I think you know exactly how sports work in the modern era but the rest, yeah, that's pretty accurate.

But I ain't mad at you--I dig your passion.

For purely selfish reasons, this is what I've been hoping would happen. Utah in a Pac 12 suits me fine. I assume UW hoops will now be coming to town every year (and the rest of the Pac 10 bball teams for that matter). I'm not sure how football will work but UW will be here every few years regardless, and other Pac 10 schools every year.

And "getting stuck" with Utah is not as bad as you imply. Yeah, the splash of adding 6 teams rather than 2 is bigger. I'll give you that. But Utah has one of the best records in college football over the past decade, including two BCS bowl victories and an undefeated season. In hoops, they have made the NCAA tourney 13 of the past 20 seasons, with 2 sweet 16's, 1 Elite 8, and 1 title game appearance. I'm not going to look at that similar Big 12 south record, but my guess is that it's not as good. Obviously, UT has been pretty consistently dominant in football and bball over that time frame but the others?--not so much (correct me if I'm wrong).

Academics and research? They do matter in these negotiations. I would wager that the U of U compares pretty favorably with all of them--probably better.

Agree, the Pac-whatever could do much worse than adding a Utah. Heck, I've always thought that they should add some combination of Utah, BYU, Boise St., or Fresno St.

Had to come back to this...Isn't college hoops the sport where Kansas moving to some small time conference could actually be a good move? As long as they can win said shitty conference, they get into the tournament and then have a punchers chance of winning, every single year, just like a Gonzaga or Butler or whoever.

Just a thought.

Well, I think with the NBA age rules as they are, the term "Cinderella" has all but been eliminated when teams like Butler and George Mason regularly make the Elite 8 and Final Four. So, I think you're scenario (in this now hypothetical situation) is most likely. I think they'd dominate. At least at first.

But, I could also easily see them falling back to the pack. After a couple of seasons of being in the Horizon league and playing Cleveland St. and Valparaiso on some cable access channel they'd start losing those Blue Chippers, that big conference money, and so on. I think they'd could be like Butler in that every 4 years when they have a great team full of seniors they could go deep in the tourney but they probably couldn't do it every year like they do now (and by "do it" I mean making the tourney as an at large bid, Conference champ or not).

You meant one final four appearance for Utah in 1998, not a title game appearance
OU made the final four in 2002, the elite eight in 2003 and 2009, the sweet 16 in 1999 and 15 of the last 20 tournaments
Oklahoma State has two final four appearances in the last 20 years and has also made 15 of the last 20 tournaments
I think that if academics and research really mattered in these negotiations, Texas would have jumped ship to the Big Ten before Nebraska did, since they have the CIC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_ ... iversities
Also the Big 12 South schools bring quality Baseball teams and most of them field more sports and better overall Women's athletic programs than Utah.

just heard kirk bohls of the austin american-statesman on the radio call the new big 12 the "big temp"

LOLZ

Atleast one Longhorn sportswriter is frank and honest about the chances of the long term survival of the Big 12.
I can't wait to hear the complaints of low level Big XII schools about having to play in the Pinstripe Bowl at Yankee Stadium in the middle of winter or how the majority of the bowl tie-ins they have are for 2nd rate games located in Texas.

So, how to square the Pac 10? Colorado's kind of on an island...

Why not pillage the Moutain West?

Pac 16 West
Washington
Washington State
Oregon
Oregon State
Cal-Berkeley
Stanford
Cal-Los Angeles
Southern Cal

Pac 16 East
Arizona
Arizona State
Colorado
Colorado State
Brigham Young
Utah
Nevada-Las Vegas
Nevada-Reno

Bold equals Mountain West.
Italic equals Western Athletic.

Or leave out the Nevada schools & pull in New Mexico & New Mexico State.

I've been out of the loop with this thread due to moving my family from Arkansas to Wisconsin and not really being online much since last Monday...

But, overall, I'm extremely happy that Nebraska made the move to the Big Ten (or whatever it will end up being called). Now go get Notre Dame on board. That is all for now.

Utah played Kentucky in the Final.

UK defeated Stanford (!), Utah took down UNC.

So, it looks like the Big XII will have 10 teams, and the Big Ten will have 12 teams (for now... it's just a matter of time before Texas pulls this again). Fitting.

Yeah, I was reading up on the new tv deal for the Big 12 and it appears like they aren't really going to receive any increase in payment from Fox Sports for the broadcast rights, they are just getting more cash because they are sharing it with fewer teams and are allegedly hoping to gain a judgement of roughly 80% of the conference payouts to Colorado and Nebraska for the next two years.
If they fail to get that Husker cash through legal channels, that's roughly 15 million dollars less to the Big three remaining in the Big 12.
I personally have no problem with forfeiting some of the cash Nebraska receives for having games on tv this coming season, but to me it seems pretty ridiculous to make a school pay their former conference bowl revenue money, bonus money for making a BCS game or title game appearance, especially after they aren't playing in your conference.
I'm sure the Huskers and the Big Ten have already started a legal fund to fight this, but I'm interested to see how the NCAA handles it all.

So, OU and OSU bball are about on par with Utah hoops. Pretty solid run by all 3 schools. And as Monty pointed out, Utah did play in the title game vs. UK in '98.

If we're going to delve into women's athletics, the Ute gymnasts are a perennial top 5 team with 10 national titles and 8 second place finishes and 35 consecutive national championship appearances. But, as you know, women's athletics did not factor in this decision whatsoever.

So, my overall point---Utah is no slouch. Obviously the P10 would've loved to become the P16 (with UT involved), but weren't willing to kowtow to the Longhorns and their demands for exclusive TV rights, etc. Good. I suspect UT was just playing both sides all along in order to gain the best deal possible to remain in the B12--good for them too.

Bottom line---college athletics remains in a state of money-grubbing cluster-fucking in which the rich get richer and it doesn't appear that anything will be changing anytime soon.

Go Team!

Women's gymnastics? Seriously? That's shit I won't even delve into, and Nebraska had an all-around champion in 2003 that I knew during my grad school days.
Baylor won a Women's hoop title in this decade, and didn't even sniff a Pac-10 bid due to being a Baptist school, and OU had a title appearance in that sport last year.
Also Texas Volleyball has been on par with Stanford and Washington lately, Utah not so much.

Why not? Not sure about the Huskers program but at places like Utah, UGA, Bama, Michigan, Florida, UCLA, and others, that shit is big time. I know UGA (winners of the last 5 National Titles, ) gets regional TV coverage for their meets. It's on par, if not bigger, with Women's BBall in terms of popular women's teams around these parts.


I'm with Marco and Bloor's earlier comment that the Pac-10 could do MUCH worse than Utah. Hell, getting Utah would be a big upgrade if you ask me over Colorado.


That aside, this whole thing has made me want Texas to have a disasterous football season this year. Like, 3-9 fan suicide bad.

now there's an argument i don't think you want to broach. had academics been factored into this equation nebraska wouldn't have been presented this opportunity - they don't even crack the top half of the 12 when it comes to books. while i'm disappointed the original big 8 teams have officially been separated (bound since the early 20th c), i think this is a fantastic move for the huskers. it's going to sting a bit however when they finally realize they're not the football superpower they once were - i don't think a .500 b10 record will even get you to the gortons fish stix bowl. i think dhrjericho makes a pretty solid case for the utes joining the pac10. i don't know why you're getting into a pissing contest w him fightinlib. be happy for your team and go give dad a big hug.

I wasn't arguing that Nebraska is a superior academic school. I was stating that if Texas was as concerned about the status of academics in the SEC as they said they were and really wanted to be in a Superior Academic conference they could have made the move to the Pac-10 or Big 10 and still made more cash than they currently are in the Big XII.
I think folks running Nebraska now have made a decision to consciously strengthen academics while continuing to develop a major athletic program. The State Fair is moving west to Grand Island this year, so that the University can build a massive research complex in a similar vein to the one that exists at NC State.
I wasn't arguing against Utah either, I think they are indeed superior to a Colorado Athletic Department that is in debt and possibly owes the three big programs in the Big 12 around 9 million. I was just pointing out what the Pac-10 was missing out basketball wise from the Big 12 south schools that chose to remain in the Big 12, and giving marco some crap for bringing up gymnastics for all the times I've been mocked for discussing Husker Volleyball. Also the loss of the Texas TV market and failing to making a huge splash in conference alignment is a huge blow to the Pac-10.
I'm not sure how Nebraska is going to finish with a .500 record in the Big Ten, especially if they split it East/West. The Huskers have faired extremely well against the Big Ten in both regular season games and bowl games this decade, even when they fielded some rather mediocre teams.
They are a projected top ten/top five team this year heading in to the final season of Big 12 play, so I don't think their incredibly worried about joining the ranks of the Big Ten.
Men's Basketball appears to be the only sport that they will be a perennial cellar dweller, and that is nothing different from the Big 12.

i see.

speaking of good old fashioned whoring doesn't it appear the big 10 is lowering their standards to include nebraska strictly for football revenues? and why does the ncaa still enforce academic probation for football players? since outside of california you don't get paid for amateur ball, these players should be exempt from all studies and at least their first two rape convictions.

Nebraska and the Big Ten have had flirtations with each other going back to the days when Michigan State joined the league. There were allegedly discussions about the Huskers leaving the Big 8 for the Big Ten around the time that Penn State joined the league and again when the Big 12 was being formed.
Also depending on what former Big 8/Big 12 North team you follow, Barry Alvarez and Iowa became integral factors in selecting the Huskers over Missouri, and there is a belief that those schools have long wanted to bring Nebraska into the fold if it ever became possible.

I'm in complete agreement with all of these points.