Nebraska… the heart of it all?

And now, your “Conference Expansion” update.

This weekend was a big bunch of doin’s across the nation, as Pac-10, Big 12, and Big T1e1en staff all held their meetings. Understandably, expansion was the topic of discussion across the board.

We’ve heard what the Pac-10 has on the table: Among the options are take part of the Big 12 (UT, TTU, aTm, OkSU, OU, CU), take the entire Big 12 South (UT, aTm, TTU, BU, OkSU, OU), or take Utah/Colorado. According to sources, they have received approval to extend these offers.

The second option listed above is a recent development- Texas legislators who are concerned that UT make a move without aTm and TTU are also preparing to demand that UT’s move include Baylor and exclude Colorado. This is the same legislative ideology that demanded that TTU be included in the Big 12; their academic caliber may be one of the reasons that the Big T1e1n wouldn’t extend an invitation to them, and may be the heart of Dr. Gee’s “Tech problem” reference.

In Colorado, this was greeted with the idea that CU join the MWC. Expected this week is an offer to Boise State to join the MWC; Colorado joining as well would then have the conference’s membership including Colorado, Utah, BYU, TCU, Boise State, and would strengthen state rivalries with Colorado State and Air Force.

So, what does this have to do with Nebraska? Well, it’s like this- at the Big 12 meetings, conference members were asked to reaffirm their commitment to the conference. Three schools did not: Missouri, Colorado, and Nebraska. In fact, Mizzou and Nebraska have allegedly been given a timeline to make up their minds on their future with the conference, although what would happen if they declined to take a position has not been stated.

Nebraska’s role in the history of the Big 12 is an interesting one. During the original merger between the Big 8 and the SWC’s teams, there was contention surrounding the new conference’s perspective on “partial qualifiers”- Nebraska wanted to maintain the Big 8’s willingness to allow unlimited numbers of these students as a part of the program (what has been described as a key part of their famous ‘walk on’ program); Texas wanted limits on the numbers of these types of students that would be allowed. Texas’ opinion won out. Recently, Nebraska AD and former football coach Tom Osborne was the only “nay’ vote in regards to maintaining the conference championship game’s location in Dallas; he thought that it should be split between Dallas (Big 12 south) and St. Louis (Big 12 north) regions. Remembering his school’s last experience in Dallas, this is more than understandable. Check out the great work on Orangebloods.com for more details on Nebraska’s position in this discussion.

So, if Nebraska decides that it will forsake the Big 12, it a) opens the door for others in the conference to do likewise (either to the Big T1e1n or Pac-10) and b) makes the national landscape unstable enough to potentially push Notre Dame into joining the Big t1e1n as well.

Ah, yes… Notre Dame. Remember them? They’re still in the picture- in spite of all of their conversations about “proud independence“, this weekend we heard the following from the Big T1e1n meetings-

The 11 school presidents and chancellors along with Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick met for about 4 1/2 hours, and Big Ten commissioner Jim Delaney said the majority of time was spent on expansion dialogue.

I’ve got a couple of thoughts on this whole kettle of corn:

• It seems that this may come down to an academics vs. finances decision: The Big T1e1n is committed to their academic prowess (all members top tier research institutions and members of the AAU), being willing to make an exception for Notre Dame due to their academic reputation. Nebraska, Missouri, Texas, Colorado, and aTm are all AAU members; Baylor  and Texas Tech are not. Hence the “Tech Problem” mentioned above- who will the Big T1e1n make offers to, and what will the Texas legislature do in response.
• On the other side is the Pac-10, which requires a unanimous vote for conference admission. TTU might ruffle some feathers with the academic giants (Cal/Stanford) as might Baylor. Other members of the conference may also balk at some of the history of these potential programs.  A comment over at Buckeye Planet sums this up- “Let the P10 get stuck with the cheatingest school in history (Oklahoma), the Baptist BYU (Baylor), and an academic backwater (Tech) in order to land Texas”.
• Again, over at Orangebloods you read this:

If four superconferences emerge, you could be looking at the playoff everyone has been waiting for with the conference championship games serving as the quarterfinals. Everything about college football’s postseason as we know it would likely be revamped and revised.

The non-super conference schools would sue to get into these playoffs, but by then the NCAA might have nothing to do with supervising college football. At that point, the four superconferences could be appointing their own governing body, creating their own rules and breaking away from the NCAA and the rest of college football.

Lawsuits would be filed by those left out, and there’d likely be government hearings into the legality of it all. But the playoff field of 60 to 64 teams would basically be set at the beginning of every football season with the race to get to the quarterfinals (conference championship games), then the semifinals and national title game.

That sounds pretty close to the “playoff” scenario that I posted here back when we were on SBN- some day, if we get it ported over to our current archives, I’ll do a revisit once this whole thing washes out.

But what’s really interesting is that, under this idea, the NCAA would be out of the college football business- the very thing that it was created to supervise. Although, given what we’re witnessing in the long and drawn out “investigation” of Southern Cal, the NC2 may have much credibility right now anyway.

Whatever will happen, we may know as soon as this week or as late as this fall. Personally, I think we’re going to see a rolling set of decisions: invitations, realignments, etc. We haven’t even discussed the rumors swirling around the SEC (Georgia Tech, FSU, Miami, Virginia, Va Tech, Oklahoma schools who don’t go elsewhere), or the Big T1e1n’s potential push into the Big lEast.

At any rate, though, life at my house is going to be a whole lot more interesting in the near future- especially since I’m getting ready to head to St. Louis for two weeks with the “Husker Nation” side of the family. Good times.