Dan Beebe might have just saved his job. Interesting to see what aggy will do if everyone stays. Damn, I was really hoping for Pac-16.
Damnit. I was just warming up to watching us dominate the new Pac16, while watching aggy flounder in the SEC, like the not-so-lovable losers they are.
Trusting the Big XII solution to the leadership who let the conference get to this point is a mistake.
Chip Brown will be on Houston Radio 1560 the Game in the 9:00 hour to talk about Texas staying in the Big 12!
My guess is this was to keep aggy from bolting. They didn't see this coming from us, and now they have to reconsider...leave and pay 10M or stay like everybody else.
I really thought we had the most capable leaders in control of this fiasco, now I think we have screwed the pooch. The big12 is done. Why do we want to resurect it now? If you win the conference who have you beat? Once Tex and OU play what other marquee game is left? No championship game, no other big game opponent. If I was a voter I would never put the winner of this conference in the BCS champ game because who the heck have they beat. Victory over OU and Tech. Our leaders almost look like the gov to me, keystone cops.
This really undercuts Aggy's plans to the SEC the most. Texas' range of options will remain open even if a sweeping change gets punted for another year. For Aggy, I don't know how long that SEC window stays open. If they choose to bolt leaving only 9 teams, the decisive blow ending the conference will fall on aggy.
If we stay the Big 12 (really 10) (and without a title game), it's just going to be a question of whether Texas or Oklahoma wins the championship each year. None of the other teams will be able to have a better overall conference record than both Texas AND OU in any given year, especially having to play both those schools.
This is excellent news, if it's true. Nothing else felt remotely right, as knee-jerkily attractive as it might have sounded to be part of a mega conference.
The only reason I like this is it gives all the schools more time to analyze the situation and make a more informed decision. The Big 12 is dead. This is just a delaying action.
aggie eric, couldn't Texas just agree to let every school try to run their own network, and let demand determine the outcome for each school? this would smash the bird in atm's hand on this issue, it seems. also, if the conference remains with 10 teams, my vote for renaming it is Tornado Alley 10. Or, "Seriously, Iowa State is still in our conference?" conference.
If true, a very smart move to undercut aggy's plans. It shuts their window of opportunity in the near term, as they'd be silly to leave when all the in-state rivals stay. And even if they decide to leave, where is their athletic department going to come up with 10M? Who knows if this is really even the long-term plan. But it just might serve it's purpose for now. Genius if you ask me.
Eric - the most key element in all this for Texas is that we don't HAVE to do anything today. If the decision for a multi-team move to the PAC 10 is postponed a year and Aggy doesn't agree go to the SEC immediately, how likely is it that the SEC will be waiting with open arms for Aggy in the future ?
If we could vote KSU and ISU off the island and stick with 8 (which we can not), we would have more OOC flexibilty and fewer mouths eating our TV pie. We would be a regional conference, but at least a fairly sound one. Keeping the B10/12 together, though, leaves us regional, top-heavy, and unstable.
Short term this may be good. Rather than jumping too quickly, lay back and see how things shake out. The Pac10 opportunity will still be there in 2 years. Long term though I don't see this flying, unless somehow the Big 12 could add some heavy hitters. And realistically I'm just not sure who that could be. It's easy to sling names out there (ND, Arkansas), but much more difficult to convince those teams they'd be better off in Big 12 than what they currently have. And adding TCU/UH/etc add little more than additional mouths to feed.
If this is true then we are now the weakest BCS conference, even weaker than the Mt West. This conference is Texas, OU, and nobody. This is a total embarrassment if it goes through.
Chip hasn't exactly been batting high percentages with these reports recently. And, already there have been conflicting reports to this one from people like Joe Schad. Just saying.
Eric - while i agree with you that the SEC would like to have a footprint in Texas, what they have now isn't broken. Finding that second team to add is another moving part that changes the SEC brand and shifts money around. I think the incentives for the SEC standing pat as a counter to expansion remain strong.
From Joe Shad's twitter: The departure of Texas, Texas Tech, OU and OSU to Pac-10 is imminent, four Big 12 sources say two minutes ago
