Much Ado About Nothing

I pondered the following question on Facebook the other day. Is anybody else concerned that as of today the Big 10 has 12 teams and the Big 12 has 10 teams? Or do I have too much time on my hands?

I’m guessing the answer is the latter. You can thank the end of hockey season for that.

Anyway, after several weeks of rampant speculation and theories about the end of the college football universe as we know it, there is surprisingly little change. Reports of the Big 12’s demise were, to say the least, greatly exaggerated as were reports that the Big 10 was prepared to add half the eastern seaboard to its membership. In fact, when it’s all said and done, we could literally end up with nothing more than two BCS teams changing conferences and perhaps one new BCS school in Utah (you may recall them trampling Tyler Palko in the Fiesta Bowl a few years back).

The initial over reaction is hardly shocking considering the flimsy amount of evidence that most sports media need these days to run with a story. If Andy Katz or Adam Schefter hears a rumor from Jim Tressel’s (aka Mr. Rodgers’) sophomore year roommate, that’s good enough for the ENTERTAINMENT and sports network in Bristol to create a half hour special.

And of course we are no closer to that illusive college football playoff. We are also no closer to Ben Roethlisberger being Time Magazine’s person of the year but that’s an issue for a different day.

At least we finally have the long awaited answer to why they never renamed the eleven team Big 10. I’m guessing it took about 20 minutes after Penn State accepted its Big 10 bid for the other members to determine they wanted a 12th school. Sadly, it then took 20 years to accept that Notre Dame was not interested. It seems possible that at long last, The Big Whatever Conference finally told the Fighting Irish to go pound sand.

Seriously, can the entire college football world please stop sucking up to this second tier program that is still living off accomplishments from the Eisenhower administration? There is little doubt in my mind that the Big Whatever held that spot open so long because they continued to hope ND would change its mind. That’s not going to happen and good riddance.

In lieu of the Irish, The Big Whatever choose the only other football program I can muster up comparable hatred for; the Nebraska Thug Huskers. I joked (sort of) during the Stanley Cup finals that I would root for a team of ex-convicts in a seven game series against the Eastern Pennsylvania Orange and Black Goon Squad. Perhaps I should have chosen my words more carefully since the last time this happened, the ex-cons stole a national championship from Penn State (yes I’m still very much bitter about that).

We will postpone railing on Nebraska for another day. Believe it or not, I’m actually happy they are joining the Big 10. Penn State fans do not typically charge the field or turn over cars on Atherton Street after beating Minnesota. Conversely, a bi-annual grudge match with Thug Huskers should have the goal posts in fear of their safety in Happy Valley. Given the rampant mediocrity of every Big 10 school west of Columbus, adding another power program is probably a good thing, even if it is one that sold out its integrity to win a national championship.

This is hardly the conference armageddon we were told was coming. The Big 12 was deemed to be dead conference walking. The Pac 10 was going to steal 6 teams, which would in theory mitigate the short-term collapse of Los Angeles’ only professional football team, the USC Trojans. The Big 10 was supposedly going to grab four Big East Schools, while the ACC grabbed the leftovers.

The net result was expected to be four super conferences who could, in theory, have lucrative conference championship games and then send their champions to a 4 team national playoff. Or even better, four super conferences who could in theory have lucrative conference championship games and then have 8 computers and 1,500 sports writers arbitrarily determine who the best two teams are.

Maybe that will all still happen. Maybe the Big Whatever is so determined to get the Flubbing Irish in their conference that they will blow up the Big East. Maybe $25 Million per year will not be enough to make Texas happy.

My guess however is that in the end there will be minimal change. Here are a few things to consider in regards to the Big 10, the conference that got the ball rolling on this:

1) Nobody from the Big 10 ever officially stated that the conference wanted to expand to 16 teams. That was a media creation. Their primary goal was to get to 12 so they could have the all important, conference championship game. That way somebody else can ruin Ohio State’s national championship hopes before the entire country has to endure it on New Year’s Day.

2) The teams that were being thrown around as potential candidates were ridiculous. Why on earth would the Big 10 want to add Rutgers or Syracuse? The Big 10 already has a highbrow academic institution with lousy sports teams in Northwestern. They don’t need a junior varsity version from New Jersey. Syracuse has not fielded a decent team since before Philly fans were hazing Donovan McNabb. And for those financial cynics out there, I just don’t see cable subscribers in the New York market forking over $3 extra per month to watch the Scarlet Nights battle Purdue.

3) No matter how much anybody wants to believe otherwise, I don’t think Pitt was ever a viable candidate. The Big 10 wanted one of two things; either a school that would advance its football profile or a school that would add a significant new television market. For better or for worse, Nebraska provides the former (and to a very small extent the latter). Pitt provides neither (although the Wannstedt offense is eerily similar to Big 10 offenses of the mid 70s). Besides, as much as I would like to see the Pitt/Penn State football renewal, the Big 10 would be terrible for Pitt’s basketball team.

4) No matter how arrogant or stupid it may seem to the rest of us, Notre Dame is not coming. Good for them. Let them value their football independence right into irrelevancy. It might take 20 more years but eventually NBC will find something that generates higher ratings on Saturday than a 5 win team with an overrated QB (see, Powlus, Mirer, Quinn, Clausen, etc). I for one will not lose a minute of sleep when that occurs.

What this means is that the Big 10 might officially be the Big 12 (not to be confused with the existing 10 team Big 12) and that might be it. The Big East may survive, completely unchanged from a football perspective. The PAC 10 will settle for Utah and continued conference mediocrity and The Big 12 (10) will probably survive as a 10 team league. That’s unless The Big 12 (10) goes after TCU and one other school to be determined (although there is apparently some huge cat fight between TCU in Baylor, ripped straight from the truly strange stories of the who on earth could possibly give a damn department).

So much for the seismic changes in college football. So much for the potential playoff. Bring on five more years of John Saunders and Kirk Herbstreit explaining to us why you really can use a computer to pick the best team in the country and yet we are decades away from having the capabilities to stage an 8 team playoff.

The masochist in me would like to see more changes. I would like to see exactly what everybody thought was going to happen. It would add a desperately needed boost to college football which is far too reliant on the same, tired 100 year old conference match-ups. It might even force the BCS schools to play quality opponents in their non conference games, rather than battling for Buffalo and Coastal Carolina. Most important, the new conference set-up would rid us of any more mediocre Big East teams stealing BCS bowl bids through the NCAA’s charitable giving program for disadvantaged eastern conferences.

Conversely there is a side of me that hopes this does not happen. That’s the side that values integrity, loyalty and the notion, however quaint, that college athletics are supposed to be about interscholastic competition rather than billion dollar television deals. Watching all these schools ditch their conference tie ins in a desperate grab for more money is a bit sickening. It’s also a bit hypocritical given that they just admonished USC for failing to promote a proper amateur environment at their institution, around the same time the Pac 10 was consulting an intoxicated Eddie Belfour on how much to bribe Texas.

Of course there could be another round of changes and more jockeying for position. Anything is possible. That being said, in the end this story appears to be far more bark than bite. That’s fine, I can go back to ripping the moronic BCS system without all this other distraction.