Thoughts on the Big 12 desertion in 2010

The Big 12 Conference was in danger of ceasing to exist during this time last year (June 2010.) A year later, after ridding two schools that nobody seemed to care or miss, it has signed a huge long-term TV contract, firmly stood its ground as one of the best in the college landscape, and seen a lot of its teams enjoy great success in a variety of sports. It has turned out better than alright. Here is a look at some of my posts in various sports websites during that turbulent 2010 summer:

Lowering yourself

The SEC schools just suck academically. Do you know only 2 of the 12 schools there are members of the AAU? The SEC has been strong in football because it was able to take players left out by the real Universities. It would be an extreme disadvantage for A&M to recruit against other SEC schools who basically don't have a minimum requirement for admissions.

Texas A&M would be lowering its standards by joining the SEC.

06/13/2010

About Colorado

I am not sure about the religious crazy part. I think you have it confused with its next-door neighbor: Utah. However, the folks at the University of Colorado surely made a bone head decision to jump to the Pac-10 Conference. They thought they would be the leader of that bandwagon of six Big 12 schools going West together. But now they've joined alone a conference that will give them far less TV money than before, plus a huge buyout penalty in the millions.

Colorado now looks very bad. I wonder if it will craw back and ask for forgiveness.

06/30/2010

SWC-The New Big 12

By the way, here is a solution to keep the Big 12 intact:

Bring back the ghosts of the old SWC. Get TCU and the Univ. of Houston to join. TCU went to a BCS bowl last year, is a national power, and its baseball team just beat Texas in the NCAA super regional. UH finished better than Memphis in the conference tournament in basketball, is a regular bowl participant in football, and just got 160 million to upgrade its Athletic Department.

These two schools would kill to join the Big12, and you can put them with the four other Texas schools to form the new South Division, send Oklahoma and Oklahoma State to the North Division, and you are in business again! The New Big 12 just might be even better.

What’s the purpose?

If you are going to split a conference into 2 divisions, and play as few inter-division games as possible to minimize the travel, then what's the purpose of forming a new conference?

Why not take AZ and

Best move is no move

The best case scenario is of course staying in the Big 12. But if A&M has to go somewhere, they will have a future in the SEC, as they are going to be the most resourceful school in that league, and sooner or later, they can be the brand name of the league much like Florida is right now. Joining the California schools in the Pac-xx just doesn’t make any sense.

It’s a good thing the schools have come to their senses. I met an ABC guy wearing a Longhorns t-shirt on the streets yesterday, it turned out he was a Longhorn, and I asked where he preferred everyone to go, and he said staying in the Big 12. So I think that was an overwhelming majority opinion.

But at the end of the day, A&M will end up winners no matter what happens, at the expense of the likes of Baylor and Kansas, which I really feel bad for. It's nice to have all the chips and the resources, huh?