Anyways, Chip Brown from Orangebloods.com reports OU may apply to the Pac-12 by the end of the month.
Oklahoma will apply for membership to the Pac-12 before the end of the month, and Oklahoma State is expected to follow suit, a source close to OU's administration told Orangebloods.com.
Even though Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott said Friday the Pac-12 was not interested in expansion at this time, OU's board of regents is fed up with the instability in the Big 12, the source said.
The OU board of regents will meet within two weeks to formalize plans to apply for membership to the Pac-12, the source said.
Messages left Sunday night with OU athletic director Joe Castiglione and Oklahoma State athletic director Mike Holder were not immediately returned.
If OU follows through with what appears to be a unanimous sentiment on the seven-member Oklahoma board of regents to leave the Big 12, realignment in college athletics could be heating back up. OU's application would be matched by an application from Oklahoma State, the source said, even though OSU president Burns Hargis and mega-booster Boone Pickens both voiced their support for the Big 12 last Thursday.
There is differing sentiment about if the Pac-12 presidents and chancellors are ready to expand again after bringing in Colorado and Utah last year and landing $3 billion TV contracts from Fox and ESPN. Colorado president Bruce Benson told reporters last week CU would be opposed to any expansion that might bring about east and west divisions in the Pac-12.
Currently, there are north and south divisions in the Pac-12. If OU and OSU were to join, Larry Scott would have to get creative.
Scott's orginal plan last summer was to bring in Colorado, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State and put them in an eastern division with Arizona and Arizona State. The old Pac-8 schools (USC, UCLA, Cal, Stanford, Oregon, Oregon State, Washington and Washington State) were to be in the west division.
Colorado made the move in June 2010, but when Texas A&M was not on board to go west, the Big 12 came back together with the help of its television partners (ABC/ESPN and Fox).
If Oklahoma and Oklahoma State were accepted into the Pac-12, there would undoubtedly be a hope by Larry Scott that Texas would join the league. But Texas sources have indicated UT is determined to hang onto the Longhorn Network, which would not be permissible in the Pac-12 in its current form.
Texas sources continue to indicate to Orangebloods.com that if the Big 12 falls apart, the Longhorns would consider "all options."
Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe held an emergency conference call 10 days ago with league presidents excluding Oklahoma, Texas and Texas A&M and asked the other league presidents to "work on Texas" because Beebe didn't think the Pac-12 would take Oklahoma without Texas.
Now, it appears OU is willing to take its chances with the Pac-12 with or without Texas.
There seemed to be a temporary pause in any possible shifting of the college athletics' landscape when Baylor led a charge to tie up Texas A&M's move to the Southeastern Conference in legal red tape. BU refused to waive its right to sue the SEC over A&M's departure from the Big 12, and the SEC said it would not admit Texas A&M until it had been cleared of any potential lawsuits.
Baylor, Kansas and Iowa State have indicated they will not waive their right to sue the SEC.
It's unclear if an application by OU to the Pac-12 would draw the same threats of litigation against the Pac-12 from those Big 12 schools.
Originally Posted by ChiefsfansofDallas:
Is there really any difference between being OU/UT's bitch than being Bama/LSU's bitch?
Doubling the amount of expendable revenue available to us and the commensurate upgrades in facilities and the campus.
I know you folks keep thinking you have a point when you say "you guys haven't won anything here, you won't win anything there", but you really don't.
If the circumstances will be exactly the same there as they are in the IIX, then I might as well get paid a hell of a lot more money to do it. The University will be far better of for those funds.
Back to the drawing board, son. If you're going to troll this thread, you have to up your game a great deal. The bar is quite high. [Reply]
Originally Posted by :
THE BIG 12 AND BIG EAST = TWO DRUNKS AT A BAR TRYING TO HOOK UP
Published on: October 27, 2011 | Written by: Clay Travis
20
The Big 12 and the Big East are like the two drunkest, most desperate*people at the bar trying to hook up. It's never pretty. One day after it was clear that West Virginia was on the last helicopter out of the Big East Saigon, it suddenly wasn't clear at all after reported phone calls from Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell to Oklahoma and Texas Tech leaders. You knew at some point that truth would become stranger than fiction in the conference realignment mess. You just didn't expect for United States senators from West Virginia to*make statements like these:
"If someone as U.S. Senator interfered after the process took place, then that's wrong and unacceptable," West Virginia's Senator*Manchin said. "If a U.S. Senator has done anything inappropriate or unethical to interfere with a decision that the Big 12 had already made*then I believe that there should be an investigation in the U.S. Senate."
And with these quotes the conference realignment male soap opera, turned into a script so insane even Latin American*telenovellas would reject it as unbelievable.
At this point, there is only one logical conclusion to conference realignment: After a two year investigation Baylor president Ken Starr*will be*impeached for having an affair with an intern.
The Big 12 is the root cause of all of this mess. That conference's instability has led to every other conference's makeup changing in the past year. Consider for a moment the simple Big 12 math over this past year and a few months: 12-2-1+1-1+1 = ?
Who is the root cause of all this*instability? Texas.
The Longhorns have bullied the rest of the conference so far that anyone with any power wants to leave. Only, you guessed it, no one can leave now. This conference is a bad reality show, CBS's Big Brother meets college sports. Oklahoma and Oklahoma State tried to leave but found out no one would take them. Somewhere Nebraska, Colorado, Texas A&M, and Missouri have to be reading these latest*headlines and doubling over in laughter.
You know how the 1972*Miami Dolphins undefeated team gets together every year and cracks open a bottle of champagne to celebrate? The schools that got out of the Big 12 -- Nebraska, Colorado, Texas A&M, and Missouri --*should have an annual party where they break open*a bottle of*champagne and celebrate their disunion from*the fundamentally broken*Big 12. *
Here are*nine*additional thoughts about the latest insanity:
1. How bad is the Big East?
West Virginia and Louisville are threatening to lead us into full on Senate investigations*over an invite to a conference that anyone who can leave wants to leave already.
This is like fighting*for*an opportunity to board the Titanic.
Yep, the Big East is so unstable that people are trying to prolong their lives by boarding a ship that everyone knows is going to sink someday.
2.*The Big 12 and*the SEC are fighting over*who is going to have the uneven schedules.
Missouri is the prize that balances out the hang-ups. I still believe Missouri will be in the SEC for 2012, but as*time drags on this becomes more difficult to manage. **
So the question hanging out there is this: Will the Big 12 have a nine team conference in 2012 or will the SEC have a 13 team conference in 2012? Both are problematic.
If the SEC has a 13 team conference then it has to apply for a NCAA waiver and play unbalanced division schdules that could end in disaster -- two undefeated division champs that never played in the SEC West.
Alternatively, if the Big 12 has just nine teams then every conference team has to add one out of conference game for 2012. With this short notice every school would have to pay a substantial sum -- likely $500k at minimum -- to round up opponents.
So Missouri's location in the 2012 season has become a plum prize.
3. Here's my compromise plan on behalf of the Big East, the SEC, and the Big 12.
In honor of the political establishment's involvement, we'll call it the Travis Compromise. This works particularly well since the reason I have the name Clay is because my grandfather, born in Kentucky, was named after Henry Clay, the great compromiser. So I'm following in my namesake's footsteps here.
The Travis Compromise entails:
a. Missouri comes to the SEC in 2012.
As a result of that departure Missouri owes the Big 12 in the neighborhood of $13 million as a buyout. (Texas A&M owes a similar sum).
The Big 12 pockets $26 million in buyout fees and the SEC doesn't have an unbalanced schedule to worry about.
b. West Virginia comes to the Big 12 in 2012.
The Big 12 gives $13 million, the Missouri buyout fee, to the Big East in exchange for the Big East waiving the 27 month exit fee requirement.*That $13 million*may sound like a lot of money, but when you*consider that Big*12 schools*would be on the hook for at least $6 million to buy games if they don't have 10 conference*teams,*it's*actually a*pretty good deal. *
It also sets a precedent for the Big*East -- if*Pitt and Syracuse can come up*with $13 million each, they can buy their way out of the 27 month exit fee as*well. But that's in*addition to the $5 million buyout. So each school would*need to come up with $18 million to leave. If Pitt,*Syracuse, and West Virginia all pay $18 million to leave that gives the Big*East a windfall of $54 million which it can*redistribute to the remaining five Big East schools.*As a part of the receipt of these*distributions each remaining Big East*school would sign a ten year guarantee to the league, which the*league could then use to add new members.*
South Florida, Cincinnati, Louisville, Connecticut and Rutgers would each receive*$10 million and a guarantee that they'd remain in a BCS league alongside the new additions. Where does that BCS guarantee come from?***
c. The SEC and the Big 12 agree to vote in favor of preserving the Big East's automatic bid when the next round of BCS negotiations arises.
Voila, an elegant compromise saves the day.
Congress is removed from the equation and everyone is happy. (The payment amounts*could be negotiated, but all three conferences win under this scenario.) You can easily see a way the Big East could extract the same promise from the ACC to help protect its automatic qualifying bid. With the SEC, Big 12, and ACC all lined up in its corner the Big East would have four votes to preserve its automatic bid.
Remember, the single most important asset the Big East has is the automatic qualifying bid in the BCS. If the conference loses that it loses the ability to bring on new schools. So protecting that bid is the primary objective of the Big East.
4. For those of you who are surprised the Senate got involved, a*Congressional anecdote.*
I spent four years working*in the Capitol while I was in college in Washington, D.C.*One*of my roles during those four years was giving tours of the Capitol.*I'm a history buff so I picked up all the anecdotes I could to make*my tour sparkle. One of them was this:**
Just after the Civil War, the dome was completed and a massive chandelier was added to the Capitol. When they returned from recess and Congressional members saw it hanging there, the chandelier provoked an outrage. Member after member derided it as too ostentatious to hang in the Capitol. The scandal grew. Until an enterprising reporter found out where the real outrage was coming from:
Congressmen recognized the chandelier because it used to hang in D.C.'s highest end brothel.
So am I surprised that Senators are getting involved in realignment?
Nope.
5. Adding more than ten schools isn't an option right now.
Some of you are already emailing asking why the Big 12 can't add both Louisville and West Virginia. The answer is simple -- the TV money isn't there right now. Going above ten members means that every school in the Big 12 would make less money. Going to 11 also means you have to go to 12.
Unless ESPN and Fox agree to pay more money -- which ESPN certainly isn't going to do and I doubt Fox would do -- then the TV money is set. Recall that ESPN is already paying for a 12 team conference and agreed to pay the same amount for a ten team conference. So do you really think ESPN is going to agree to pay more money for an 11 team conference when it already bought a 12 team conference?
Nope.*
Now, when the ESPN deal comes up in*a couple of years expansion*beyond ten may become viable. But not*now.*
Ten is going to*be the number. Especially when you consider*that in the past year the Big 12 has lost four of*its six top television teams:*Nebraska, Colorado,*Texas A&M, and Missouri have all been replaced by a quartet of vastly inferior television draws. *
6. Why isn't the Big 12 considering Memphis?
I understand West Virginia, but I have no idea why the Big 12 would rather be in Louisville than Memphis.
It makes no sense.
The cities are roughly equal. (I'd give the nod to Memphis personally, but there's no great separation between the two).
Both are great basketball programs. Granted, Memphis's football program is presently*awful, but it's in an incredibly fertile recruiting region. Lots of schools, I would think, would love to be able to recruit in Memphis. There are zero recruits in Kentucky for either football or basketball.**
Plus, getting in to Memphis gets the Big 12 inside the SEC's footprint and limits the travel to a great degree. Every school would still be in the central time zone
It seems like a no brainer to me. But what do I know? (I bet the answer is a lot more than Memphis's clueless AD R.C. Johnson).
7. The Big East would give up Louisville in a heartbeat if it meant they got to keep West Virginia.
That's why*a part*of me thinks that the Big East is actually encouraging this Louisville to the Big 12 talk. Anything to keep West Virginia, the only football program in the conference that anyone pays any attention to at all.
If Louisville left replacing them with Memphis would, it seems to me, be pretty close to an even trade.
Basically, Memphis has to end up in the Big East no matter what. But if the Big East could get the Big 12 to take Louisville over West Virginia it would be a massive win.
8. Why isn't Ken Starr still threatening to sue anyone?
Remember when Ken Starr was concerned about major conference expansion? Remember his threats to sue the SEC over Texas A&M's departure? Remember his insistence on keeping conference's geographically cohesive?
Now his conference is going to gut the Big East, fly hundreds of miles across multiple states, all to play either West Virginia or Louisville. And Ken Starr isn't uttering a word.
Everyone is looking out for their naked self interest. Everyone. That's why Ken Starr, in particular, is so full of crap. He tried to pretend, like always, that his stance was predicated on something other than naked self interest.
9. Funniest suggestion for how to solve the West Virginia-Louisville battle? A teeth-off.
The fan base with the most teeth gets the Big 12 invite.
Given that Kentucky and West Virginia have the worst teeth in the United States*-- this is an actual stat -- this has reality show written all over it.
It's like The Biggest Loser meets teeth. Someone steps up to a dentist with their mouth closed and we all write down how many teeth we think they have. Then they open their mouth and the tally goes up on a screen.
To the victor goes the*spoils, the fairest method to decide conference realignment of all. It's the electoral college of teeth.
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut:
Doubling the amount of expendable revenue available to us and the commensurate upgrades in facilities and the campus.
I know you folks keep thinking you have a point when you say "you guys haven't won anything here, you won't win anything there", but you really don't.
If the circumstances will be exactly the same there as they are in the IIX, then I might as well get paid a hell of a lot more money to do it. The University will be far better of for those funds.
Back to the drawing board, son. If you're going to troll this thread, you have to up your game a great deal. The bar is quite high.
You make a good point. Being a mediocre SEC team is better than being a mediocre Big XII team. Can't really deny that, I suppose. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Saulbadguy:
You make a good point. Being a mediocre SEC team is better than being a mediocre Big XII team. Can't really deny that, I suppose.
Originally Posted by :
By: Sean Cartell
SEC Digital Network
COMPLETE MISSOURI COVERAGE AT THE SEC DIGITAL NETWORK
University Of Missouri: What You Need To Know
Missouri-SEC*Connections: A History
Homecoming Tradition Traced To Missouri
Missouri To The SEC: The Dortch Report (Basketball)
Missouri To The SEC: Barnhart's Take
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Given the ever-changing conference paradigm over the past year, the Southeastern Conference has continued to demonstrate its commitment to maintaining its stature as one of the nation’s premier conferences by welcoming the University of Missouri as the league’s 14th member, Commissioner Mike Slive announced Monday.
Missouri joins Texas A&M University as the league’s two new institutions who will begin full membership on July 1, 2012. It is the first expansion of the SEC membership since Arkansas and South Carolina joined the conference in 1992.
Missouri was a charter member of the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association in 1907, which became the Big Six Conference in 1964, the Big Eight Conference in 1964 and the Big 12 Conference in 1996.
Geographically, it is a natural fit as the state of Missouri touches more states (Arkansas, Kentucky and Tennessee) that currently are home to an SEC institution than any other state that is not in the league’s previous 13-member footprint. Like the majority of the cities in the SEC, Columbia, Mo., is a college-centered town with a metropolitan population of 164,283, making it the fifth-largest city in the state of Missouri.
With an enrollment of 32,415, the University of Missouri boasts a strong academic resume, as it is one of only five universities nationwide with law, medicine, veterinary medicine and a research reactor on one campus. Six of Missouri’s sports teams last season led the Big 12 in graduation rate for their respective sports.
Culturally, Missouri is as well known for its barbecue, country music, history and rich tradition as the majority of the current states of the SEC.
Missouri is one of only 35 public U.S. universities invited to membership in the prestigious Association of American Universities (AAU). It will become the fourth SEC school that is part of the AAU, joining Florida, Texas A&M and Vanderbilt.
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Monday’s announcement marks just the fourth time in the history of the conference that the SEC will expand its membership. In a landscape that has seemed ever-changing in recent years, the SEC has exemplified stability as 10 of its original 13 members remain.
The league began as a 13-team league until Sewanee’s departure from the conference in 1940. After Georgia Tech’s move to independent status in 1964, the league had 11 members before Tulane departed in 1966, leaving the SEC as a 10-team conference for more than two decades.
At the start of the decade of the 1990s, a similar shift in conference alignment allowed Arkansas and South Carolina to join the SEC. The benefits have been nothing short of outstanding.
Soon after joining the league, the Razorbacks claimed the 1994 NCAA Championship in men’s basketball and finished as the NCAA runner-up the following year. They made their first appearance in the SEC Championship football game in 1995, appearing again in 2002 and 2006.
The Arkansas women’s basketball team made its first-ever Final Four appearance in 1998 before winning the WNIT the next season. The level of track and field in the SEC was quickly raised with the addition of the Razorbacks. Arkansas’ men won cross country national titles in 1992, 1993, 1995, 1998, 1999 and 2000. Men’s NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships came every year from 1993-2000 and again in 2003, 2005 and 2006. The men also claimed NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships from 1993-1999 and again in 2003.
South Carolina won the Women’s NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championship in 2002, becoming, at the time, just the second different SEC team to claim an NCAA Women’s Outdoor Track and Field Championship. The past two seasons have been magical ones for the Gamecocks, as they have captured back-to-back NCAA Championships in baseball and advanced to the SEC Championship game in football for the first time in the program’s history.
On September 25, 2011, Texas A&M was announced as the league’s 13th member, beginning with the 2012-13 academic year.
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Missouri took to the field for the first time in 1890, making it one of the first SEC institutions to begin playing football. Kentucky played a three-game schedule in 1881, but didn’t play again until a decade later. Vanderbilt also began its football program in 1890.
Don Faurot was one of the early founders of Missouri athletics, as he was a three-sport standout for the Tigers from 1922-24. He served the school as its football coach from 1935-56 and continued on as the athletics director until 1967. Faurot is known for the creation of the Split-T formation in 1941. The formation’s option play still today serves as the basis for many present-day schemes, including the Wishbone, Wingbone, Veer and I-Formation.
Faurot compiled a record of 101-79-10, making the school’s first modern-day bowl appearance in 1939 when it advanced to the Orange Bowl. Until 1994, the year prior to his death, Faurot was heavily involved in the annual Blue-Gray football game in Montgomery, Ala.
The Tigers rose to national prominence under head coach Dan Devine in the 1960s, when Devine’s winning percentage of .767 was the best in the nation during that decade. In 13 seasons at Missouri, Devine posted a record of 93-37-7 and eight players earned First-Team All-America honors.* His 1960 Missouri squad finished with an 11-0 record and defeated Navy 21-14 in the Orange Bowl. The 1965 squad went 8-2-1 and defeated Florida in the Sugar Bowl. The Tigers won the Big Eight Conference in 1960 and 1969 under Devine.
Since 2007, the football Tigers have claimed three Big 12 North Championships. Under current head coach Gary Pinkel, Missouri posted a 12-2 record in 2007 and defeated Arkansas in the Cotton Bowl.
The Tigers began playing basketball in 1906 and enjoyed the greatest amount of success under legendary head coach Norm Stewart from 1967-99. In 32 years, Stewart led Missouri to 634 wins and 333 losses for a .656 winning percentage, the best in program history. Stewart’s teams won 20 or more games 17 times, including a school-record 29 wins during the 1988-89 season. He won eight Big Eight Conference championships and six conference tournament titles.
Missouri started competing in the sport of baseball in 1891 and won the College World Series in 1954, marking the school’s first national title in any sport. The Tigers have made six CWS appearances in the program’s history, including three national runner-up finishes (1952, 1958, 1964).
The Tigers also have had great success in the sport of track and field and won the NCAA Men’s Indoor Championship in 1965. The soccer and softball teams have been proficient as of late with soccer winning the 2009 Big 12 Championship and softball claiming that title in 2011.
