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NCAA hits USC with nuclear winter

June 11, 2010
Filed In Feature Stories, Football

Fire up the grill! The NCAA is throwing a barbeque on behalf of all the folks in college football who either play by the rules or just haven’t been caught yet. On the menu: sacred cow. Cooking time: three years.

By Franz Beard — GatorCountry.com

Just when you thought the NCAA had gone soft on you — and that’s the general consensus after Florida State pretty much skated after an academic scandal that gripped the entire athletic department — the men in blue suits stuck it to Southern Cal Thursday. To the surprise of those who have come to think of the NCAA as a toothless lion, the NCAA came down hard on a school that acted like it was above the law for so long that many observers elevated USC to sacred cow status.

The penalties for Southern Cal’s transgressions? Try two years with no bowls, a loss of 10 scholarships per year for the next three years, 14 wins vacated including the 2004 BCS championship win over Oklahoma and that dreaded “lack of institutional control” label that will affect the way USC’s athletic department does business the next five years.

Additionally, the Football Writers Association of America, which awards the Grantland Rice Trophy to the national champion, is set to review the Southern Cal case and either vacate the national championship or award it to Oklahoma. The Heisman Trophy Foundation has said it will also review Reggie Bush’s Heisman Trophy in 2005 since improper benefits to Bush and his family are at the heart of the NCAA findings. No player has ever been stripped of a Heisman Trophy.

Southern Cal avoided the television ban, which would have not only kept the Trojans off television for the next couple of years but also from sharing in Pac-10 Conference television revenues, and more significantly, avoided the death penalty. Because the transgressions that got Southern Cal in trouble this time occurred in 2005, they fell during the five-year lack of institutional control window that was already in place from the last time USC went on probation in 2001.

Of course, Southern Cal acted shocked and dismayed by the penalties. No big surprise there. Isn’t that how every school that gets caught reacts?

Remember Alabama back in 2001 when the NCAA had the benefit of Federal Court transcripts to back up its case? Caught red-handed and hit with a two-year bowl ban and a loss of 21 scholarships over a three-year period, Alabama appealed and lost but continues to whine to this day that it was wronged by the NCAA.

Expect the same from Southern Cal, which has already hired lawyers to appeal the sanctions. You can also expect the same result that Alabama got.

* * *

How will the sanctions hurt Southern Cal?

Since the television ban isn’t in effect, the sanctions won’t be that bad from a monetary standpoint unless the Pac-10 Conference decides that since it can’t go to a bowl Southern Cal shouldn’t share in bowl revenues. There is precedent for that. Just go back to 1984 and again in 1990, the last two times the University of Florida was on probation. In both situations, the Southeastern Conference piled on the penalties. In addition to the bowl and television bans and the scholarship reductions, the Gators had the 1984 SEC championship, which was won on the field, stripped and then wasn’t allowed to compete for the SEC in 1990, Steve Spurrier’s first year and a season in which the Gators would have won the SEC.

The Pac-10 might demand that Southern Cal return bowl revenues from 2004 and again in 2005. The school has already had to return more than $206,000 earned in its NCAA Basketball Tournament appearance that year. The NCAA did accept Southern Cal’s self-imposed penalties for basketball which include a reduction in scholarships and no NCAA tournament either last season or the upcoming 2010-11 season.

There is also a chance that some of Lane Kiffin’s first recruiting class, which was one of the three best in the nation for 2010, might change their minds and opt out of their letters of intent, which is their right since the Trojans are in the NCAA jail. There is a real possibility that stud offensive tackle Seantrel Henderson, who was considered the best offensive lineman in the nation, could opt out. Henderson reportedly signed financial aid papers but not his letter of intent.

The Trojans have a loaded roster for the 2010 season but the scholarship cuts will do a fairly good job of sending USC back into the dark ages once they kick in with the 2012 recruiting class. Southern Cal can’t sign more than 15 players for their 2012, 2013 and 2014 recruiting classes and they can’t have more than 75 scholarship players (85 is the limit) on the roster at any time during those years.

While a 75-man roster might not sound like a big deal, this is devastating. The Trojans have approximately 63 non-freshmen on the 2010 roster (20 seniors, 22 juniors and 21 sophomores) to go with 19 freshmen and one juco transfer signed for the recruiting class of 2010.

So let’s do some math.

Southern Cal will be able to sign 22 freshmen for the class of 2011 if there are that many who want to be part of a program that has been nuked. In 2011, Southern Cal will lose 22 seniors bringing the scholarship numbers down to 63. They can’t sign more than 15 and can’t have but 75 on the roster, so if there is no attrition, USC will be only able to sign 12 in its 2012 recruiting class.

Let’s go to the next season. Southern Cal has 75 on scholarship but will lose 22 (remember there was a juco in the 2010 class) which drops the number to 53 and the Trojans can only sign 15. That means 68 on scholarship. Georgia Southern, which plays in D-1AA, can have as many as 70.

And let’s go to the final year of the sanctions. The Trojans will lose 19, dropping their numbers to 49 and they can only sign 15. So, they’ll play 2014 with something in the neighborhood of 64 on scholarship. Try competing at the highest levels of college football with 64 on the roster.

Remember this … none of these numbers include attrition such as players leaving early for the NFL, flunking out of school or just getting tired of the tomfoolery of the boy blunder, Lane Kiffin. Injury numbers aren’t included, either. What happens if there is a rash of injuries?

So think of Southern Cal football in this term — ground zero. That’s what it’s going to feel like in Los Angeles. Southern California football is about to endure nuclear winter.


* * *

It is also worth asking what Southern Cal’s sanctions will do for proposed expansion plans by the Pac-10? Colorado bolted the Big 12 to join the league Thursday and it has been reported that five other Big 12 schools have been invited to form a 16-school mega-conference.

The 16-team Pac-10 model has no conference championship game and the league is demanding that the BCS invite the champions of its two divisions to play in BCS bowl games.

With Southern Cal banned from bowls the next two years and likely to be in no shape to go to a bowl game until perhaps 2015 or 2016 at the earliest, the league will lose a marquee player in the postseason picture and that could have a serious affect on television packages. With the Pac-10 or whatever they decide to call this intended mega-conference trying to negotiate a contract with the networks that will rival what the Big Ten Network has or what the SEC has with ESPN and CBS, it’s best to have all guns blazing.

Will the Southern Cal sanctions cause teams like Texas and Texas A&M to consider staying where they are in the Big 12 or perhaps asking their cousins to the east in the SEC if there is room for two more?

* * *

Several years ago, Southern Cal landed stud linebacker Keith Rivers from Lake Mary. Rivers was thought to be a Gator lock until he went to Los Angeles. There were tall tales about the recruiting parties, the limos, etc., enough to make you wonder now if Reggie Bush was indeed just the tip of the iceberg.

Pete Carroll whined and cried about the severity of the sanctions Thursday, claiming that it was unprecedented for a school to go down for one player with such harsh penalties, but perhaps the sanctions are the result of a long laundry list of allegations that the NCAA knows are true but can’t necessarily spend the time, money and effort to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt.

* * *

The penalties against Southern Cal should also send shivers up and down the spines of every Kentucky Wildcat fan. If the NCAA will come down this harsh on Southern Cal, just how hard will they come down on Kentucky and John Calipari. The NCAA has been licking its chops and trying to get at Calipari at both UMass and Memphis. Now it seems to have a smoking gun in the form of Eric Bledsoe and his infamous Swiss cheese transcript.

The guess here is that the Southern Cal sanctions are just the beginning of a tough new image that the NCAA wants to present and whoever is standing in the way better watch out. Especially if that school standing in the way is a sacred cow. So fire up the grill. The NCAA barbeque might just be getting started.

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The West Coast Offensive

June 11, 2010
Filed In Baseball, Basketball, Feature Stories

By Buddy Martin — GatorCountry.com

In almost 45 years of covering college football, I don’t ever remember a wilder ride than we’ve had in the last 72 hours. It all began with the story about Nebraska’s probable choice to flee the Big 12 on a day that blew up the landscape of college football like a shock-and-awe invasion.

With all the events still spinning around our heads, it’s difficult to see how college football has helped itself with what looks like a major power grab at this point designed to stir the money pots. But unfortunately, money is the fuel for college sports today.

We’ve got to tip our hats, first of all, to the great state of Nebraska. We knew Warren Buffet of Omaha was powerful, but we never realized that the tipping point for The Great Conference Wars was in Lincoln.

Even though Colorado announced first, it was the Cornhuskers who triggered the whole thing by beginning negotiations to join the Big Ten, but that was merely the first brick of the Big 12’s foundation of that shook loose. Even before that, however, the Big Ten was flirting with Notre Dame and Colorado was packing its bags to join the Great Land Grab, a move that would provide the king-check for expansion.

The aftershocks are yet to come and until then the damage cannot be assessed. Gary Danielson of CBS likened it to the first strikes of a war when nobody knows where the fire is coming from – and why.

“There is nobody in charge — no plan,” Danielson told GatorCountry.com. “That could be very dangerous.”

Don’t look now, but I think Pac-10 Commissioner Larry Scott just dunked on Big 12 (R.I.P) Commissioner Jim Beebe, juked Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delaney and fleeced everybody West of the Mississippi all in one move. Great Scott! Where did this guy come up with such moves?

Even more remarkable was that Scott pulled this off while Beebe and Delaney were asleep at the switch and the Pac-10 marquee team was being disgraced for cheating. USC got a two-year probation — no bowl games — and the loss of 30 scholarships, but will be rewarded by millions of dollars in TV money that will come from the Great Scott Deal.

Meanwhile, most of the other conference commissioners and a couple of schools which are left behind for dead are in somewhat of a tizzy now, trying to figure out whether to buy more real estate (the SEC, ACC and Big East) or, in the case of some teams (Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State, etc.), just downsize to a mid-major (Mountain West?).

There’s a bit of a buzz around college campuses and, despite their public stance the matter, clearly there have been scenarios discussed. Some experts are holding on to the theory that until Texas and other members of the Little Six actually sign the papers to get married to the Pac-10/16, there is hope that the SEC has a shot to talk them out of it.

One report from a Kansas City TV (KCTV5) station claims Texas and Texas A&M are still interested in the Big Ten, without Texas Tech or Baylor, and that Oklahoma is interested in joining the SEC and is looking for another team to go along. There’s a late report that Oklahoma State hasn’t made up its mind about going to the Pac-10 — yet.

An Atlanta radio station (790 The Zone) is reporting that the SEC is offering invites to both Virginia Tech and Texas A&M.

None of this is been confirmed – or denied.

Previously I was in favor of the SEC standing pat, but given the freight-train momentum of the four 16-team mega-conferences – and looking at piles of ashes that once was the Big 12 – I’m thinking maybe it’s time to reconsider. No doubt conversations with other schools have taken place, but considering what happened to the Big 10 for not fast-tracking Nebraska or Notre Dame, one wonders about the wisdom of delaying what may be inevitable.

SEC Commissioner Mike Slive remains closed-mouth. Reports out of Gainesville are that Director of Athletics Jeremy Foley has not even discussed expansion with his staff. “He has complete faith in Mike Slive,” said one source.

Urban Meyer told a South Florida radio show that the other conferences were “having to do things just to keep up with the SEC.”

Meyer’s old boss, Lou Holtz, had a different view. A longtime opponent of Notre Dame joining a conference, Holtz admitted on ESPN that maybe the school in South Bend “may have to start looking into it” – meaning the Big Ten. Holtz also suggested the SEC might revisit the idea.

SEC fans are busy penciling in names from the ACC, like Clemson and Georgia Tech and Virginia Tech – and even FSU and Miami. It’s doubtful those last two would wash with Foley and the Florida folks, but it doesn’t take a unanimous vote to add a school.

Danielson felt that if the SEC should offer this plan at the last minute to salvage the Big 12: Add Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech and Baylor to the SEC West, joining Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Arkansas and LSU. Move Auburn and Alabama over to the SEC East with Florida, Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina, Kentucky and Vanderbilt.

Even then, Danielson feared the dissolution of heated rivalries and possibly the game of college football.

“You can almost feel the intensity of SEC football coming through the TV screen,” said Danielson. “What makes college football is passion and conference rivalry. The SEC hates the Big Ten, Big Ten hates the Big 12, the Big 12 hates the Pac-10 … that’s what the game is all about!”

Kirk Herbstreit was horrified about the idea of the SEC merging with anybody. “They could put all the rest of the conferences in one and it wouldn’t be as good as the SEC,” said Herbstreit.

Another ESPN host was mortified at that notion. “The whole state of Texas is in shock,” said Craig James, who said he and others are still trying to figure out how an “inferior football conference” came in and invaded the Texas football palace.

Another famous Texan, TCU grad and huge college football advocate Dan Jenkins, said he was disgusted with all the changes.

“I think,” said Jenkins, noted author and Golf Digest columnist, “I’ll go back to loving golf again.”

Even some of the harsh critics, however, said something like this was inevitable.

“I’m not against change,” said Danielson. “It’s about the 16-team super conferences and money. I get that.”

There will be big winners and losers. Until the dust settles, some schools maybe left out in the cold.

Nobody expected the catalysts to be Nebraska or the Big 12 or a guy named Larry Scott, who comes off as the new boy genius.

Out of the 16 teams, the new league would have these Top 25 TV markets: Los Angeles, Dallas-Forth Worth, Houston, San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose, Phoenix, Seattle-Tacoma, Denver, Sacramento-Stockton and Portland.

They may be celebrating in parts of the West, but they are mortified in parts of the Midwest.

Somebody apparently forgot there are other sports in college.

“Right now, it’s a very nervous time,” Kansas basketball coach Bill Self told ESPN. “Football is obviously driving the buggy as far as dollars are concerned.”

Once the shot was fired from Nebraska, the war was on. And that meant there would be casualties. We just don’t know yet how many there will be – and who.

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USC gets hammered; the facts

June 10, 2010
Filed In Uncategorized

The NCAA handed down a severe punishment to the University of Southern California, knocking its football team from bowl games for two years, vacating its’ 2004 national championship, citing major violations by the football and men’s basketball programs.

The harshest penalties stem from improper benefits given to the Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush and the basketball player O. J. Mayo, which the NCAA said struck at the heart of the association’s amateurism principle.

Here’s hard facts on the type of punishment meted out on USC (ouch):

  • Public reprimand and censure.
  • Four years of probation from June 10, 2010, through June 9, 2014. The public report further details the conditions of this probation.
  • Postseason ban for the 2009-10 men’s basketball season (self-imposed by the university).
  • Postseason ban for the 2010 and 2011 football seasons.
  • One-year show-cause penalty for the assistant football coach (June 10, 2010, to June 9, 2011). The public report further details the conditions of this penalty.
  • Vacation of all wins in which the former football student-athlete competed while ineligible, beginning in December 2004. This vacation includes participation in any postseason competition, including football bowl games.
  • Vacation of all wins in which the former men’s basketball student-athlete competed during the 2007-08 regular season (self-imposed by the university). The committee also stated this vacation must include participation in any post-season competition, conference tournaments and NCAA championships.
  • Vacation of all wins in which the former women’s tennis student-athlete competed while ineligible between November 2006 and May 2009 (self-imposed by the university). The committee also stated this vacation must include participation in any post-season competition, conference tournaments and NCAA championships.
  • Reduction of football athletics scholarships to 15 initial grants and 75 total grants for each of the 2011-12, 2012-13 and 2013-14 academic years. This represents a decrease of 10 scholarships for each of the three seasons.
  • Reduction of men’s basketball athletics scholarships from 13 to 12 for the 2009-10 and 2010-11 academic years (self-imposed by the university).
  • Reduction of the total number of recruiting days in men’s basketball by 20 days (from 130 to 110) for the 2010-11 academic year (self-imposed by the university).
  • A $5,000 financial penalty (self-imposed by the university).
  • Remittance of the $206,200 the university received for its participation in the 2008 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship Tournament (self-imposed by the university). In addition, the committee noted the university must also forfeit all future distributions scheduled for this appearance.
  • Disassociation of the former football student-athlete, the former men’s basketball student-athlete and the representative who provided extra benefits to the former men’s basketball student-athlete. This disassociation includes the refusal of any financial or recruiting assistance, as well as other conditions, which the public report further details.
  • Release of three men’s basketball prospective student-athletes from their letters of intent (self-imposed by the university).
  • Prohibition of all non-university personnel, including boosters, from traveling on football and men’s basketball charters; attending football and men’s basketball team practices; attending or participating in any way with university football and men’s basketball camps, including donation of funds; and having access to the sidelines and locker rooms for football and men’s basketball games.

The public report further details appropriate exceptions for these limitations.

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The real truth about expansion — maybe

June 10, 2010
Filed In Baseball, Basketball, Feature Stories

Never before have so many known so little, but said so much. Problem is, the wrong people are talking. Conference expansion by college football lands somewhere between mythology and madness. Some people know everything. Most people know nothing. And yet the fires of controversy burn hotly.

By Buddy Martin — GatorCountry.com

This is the perfect Internet story. And so we bring it to you through the blogosphere, with opinions from everywhere.

Ordinarily we could stand back and wait for the chips to fall, but in some corners of the college football universe there is already pure hysteria.

Just as it is with the stock market, it’s not so much the facts that drive the story as the perception. It wasn’t the bad economy that caused the market to semi-crash last time, but rather the fear that it might.

And so we begin with the story of college football’s self-inflicted pain today which all began because the Big 10 decided it wanted to actually have an even 12 teams instead of 11 – and invited Notre Dame to join the league. We still don’t know the outcome of that on-again-off-again scenario, but as of Wednesday, it had reared its ugly head again.

Now comes a report by Orangebloods.com that Nebraska has already made an informal agreement to join the Big 10. The writer of the story, Chip Brown, also reported on ESPN-TV that the Texas coaching staff was told Wednesday that “we did everything we could to save the Big 12” but that it had failed. Brown said he understood Texas would leave the Big 12 and take five other members to the Pac 10, forming the first “Super Conference.” Brown said Missouri would join Nebraska in the Big 10.

So we await the fallout. http://texas.rivals.com

About every other week somebody quotes “a source” as saying Notre Dame wants in the Big 10. The latest is NCAAF Fanhouse, claiming the Irish have a renewed interest in expansion and that the Big 10 would be one of four 16-team conferences.

http://ncaafootball.fanhouse.com/2010/06/08/big-ten-notre-dame-are-talking-again/

Notre Dame, Texas and Nebraska. What we have here are three market-movers who seem to be shaping the future of mega-conference football, the most popular scenario being four 16-team leagues. For the life of me I can’t see how such a cumbersome, unwieldy format wouldn’t kill off some of the flavor and intensity of the game, create major financial problems for spring sports travel and dilute the rivalries. (More on this with Gary Danielson later this week.)

This might already be spinning out of control.

The conferences are devouring each other. So how did this cannibalism all start? According to Mike Herndon of the Birmingham News, it was self-inflicted. He wrote:

“The Big 12 has brought all this on itself through a lopsided revenue-sharing plan that guarantees Texas and Oklahoma, among others, a bigger share of the pie. By splitting half the conference’s television revenue evenly and the other half based on appearances — particularly network appearances — the conference has opened itself up to defections by programs on the downside of the scale.”

http://blog.al.com/mike-herndon/2010/06/college_football_expansion_starts_and_ends_with_texas.html

For the SEC, the end game looks different. Reports out of Gainesville are that the Gators and their conference are sitting tight, really not all that concerned.

As Clay Travis reported, the ESPN/CBS deal has already proffered the greatest amount possible for a smaller core group. Expansion won’t help the SEC all that much – in fact, expansion could be subtraction by addition, while the Big 10’s situation is different. Travis wrote on his Fanhouse blog, “Big 10 expansion, from a business perspective, is a no-brainer. But the SEC’s position has been more uncertain.

“That’s because the league has a 15-year contract with CBS and ESPN and, until now, no one has explored whether television revenue would increase in the event of SEC expansion. If television revenue would not grow, then it would be hard for the SEC to expand because any expansion would dilute the amount of payments each school would receive from the league. But thanks to Slive’s answer, in combination with the fact that he’s too damn smart not to protect the league in the event of expansion and the fact that CBS and ESPN are too damn smart not to protect themselves in the event of league contraction, we can now be virtually certain those two networks would pay more money to the SEC in the event of league expansion (and less in the incredibly unlikely event of contraction).”

http://blog.al.com/mike-herndon/2010/06/college_football_expansion_starts_and_ends_with_texas.html

I checked with ESPN, which reminded me that the contracts are protected by the clause which says if the teams change – fewer or more – the contract could be voided.

The real disadvantage of not being in the group of expanding conferences is that your scheduling could suddenly look a bit lean. (See Kansas, Kansas State, etc.)

It’s anybody’s guess as to what will happen, but one ESPN.com report says Nebraska will get the “Pros and Cons” about the Big 12 vs the Big 10 on Friday. Tom Osborne, the former coach who is helping guide the Cornhuskers through the murky waters, said, frankly, he was “tired of talking about it” and would be glad when it was over.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=5268408

Meanwhile, Mike Bianchi of the Orlando Sentinel warns FSU to heed the past words of Bobby Bowden and “run as fast as you can away from the SEC.”

I think Bianchi has good advice for the Seminoles and I can’t imagine Jeremy Foley sitting idly by and letting the SOW scoop up some of the goodies from right under the Gators’ nose. In fact, I cannot see one single advantage of Florida allowing FSU to come in the back door now – even if the ‘Noles get a bloody nose every Saturday from playing SEC competition.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/os-bianchi-florida-state-sec-0609-20100608,0,5384199.column

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Laboring in dark on expansion issues

June 9, 2010
Filed In Baseball, Other Sports

By Buddy Martin – GatorCountry.com

It’s about money, about leverage, about TV exposure and a little bit of fantasy league building. Yes, there’s a certain sex appeal to the notion of a mega conference.

Unfortunately it’s beginning to look like this thing may be about to break apart if the conferences start cannibalizing each other.

The SEC may not even have a choice anymore but to join the madness. Oh, Lordy, spare us folks the sacred ground on which the best football in America is being played and don’t let the interlopers turn its purity into a mongrel league.

This is all beginning to feel like a bad dream.

We are all laboring in the dark here, including the conferences themselves, which appear to be making it up as they go along.

In the end, what will drive some of the conference expansions is the fear of what will happen if they don’t. And that kind of thinking has even permeated the SEC, which never had it so good.

The epicenter of the first rattle came out of the Midwest and the Big 10, which is actually following a plan. Now comes news out of the West that half of the Big 12 is in danger of being devoured by the Pac-10 monster.

There is too much commotion to ignore now and the first pebble will come tumbling down the mountain any day now.

The Big 12 scramble has everybody in a tizzy. And it may turned out to be an avalanche.

Can somebody please give us a program with the lineups? Quick!

Texas has asked Nebraska for a loyalty pledge to stay in the conference. The Cornhuskers have been issued an ultimatum. Reportedly they, along with Missouri, have been targeted by the Big 10. If Nebraska doesn’t do a pledge of allegiance to the Big 12, Texas is threatening to go to the Pac-10 and maybe take a big chunk of the Big 12 along.

If the Big 12 crumbles, it would leave Kansas and Kansas State – among others—on an island with no major conference. That may be a good thing for the Mountain West, which has just decided not to offer a spot to Boise State.

Getting dizzy yet?

I’m still trying to get over the shock of the Southwest Conference being gone.

We thought Boise State might be the first to go, jumping from the WAC to the Mountain West, but Monday afternoon the MWC announced not to expand the nine-school league. That would have made sense. Now it makes more sense as to why it didn’t happen. The MWC would benefit greatly from a split of the Big 12, with several teams left on the scrap pile and looking for an ally. Although there is a strong rumor that Utah is considering the Pac 10 if invited.

Somebody appears to have forgotten that the conferences also play other sports, such as basketball, and there is a team in Lawrence with a fairly good history — it’s about Dr. James Naismith and the peach baskets.

Meanwhile, Kansas has reached out to Nebraska, asking that it not jump ship to the Pac-10 and end their 100-year old football rivalry in the dust. Kansas chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little contacted her counterpart in Lincoln, asking the Cornhuskers to remain in the Big 12.

This is an important warning sign. There is a valuable lesson to be learned here: Don’t throw the tradition out with the baby’s bathwater.

I go back to the territorial imperative of college rivalries — the football border wars like Florida-Georgia, Texas-Oklahoma and Ohio State-Michigan. None of these will be impacted of course, but when you start tampering with the chemistry of the game, the karma can go bad.

Geography is as much a part of college football and basketball as Augusta National is to the Masters and Broadway is to the theater. I just find it odd that Texas would be playing every other year in The Horseshoe or in Happy Valley, or that Michigan would be regular visitor to Norman, or even that USC or UCLA would be fixtures in and around places like Boulder and College Station.

Inevitably the contagion will spread to the SEC because if the Big 10 starts usurping the ACC, then teams like Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, Clemson and maybe even Florida State will become attracted to the league. After all, the SEC has always been known for its defense.

Hopefully sanity will prevail, but it’s beginning to sound like it’s too late for that.

This is the new world of order for college football.

And I’m beginning to think I don’t like it so much.

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Expansion dominos starting to fall

June 9, 2010
Filed In Baseball, Basketball, Feature Stories

By Robert McRae – TheClemsonInsider.com — For months there has been talk and speculation about conference expansion that would change the college landscape. This week the talk will turn to reality as the first dominos start to fall.

It all started with the Big Ten as they made it clear that they plan to expand to 14 or 16 teams and form the first Super Conference. Two of the Big Ten’s targets are Nebraska and Missouri. According to reports the Big 12 gave those two schools a deadline of this Friday to decide if they will stay with the Big 12. That move may have backfired as it appears Nebraska may be on the verge of announcing they will move to the Big Ten.

As the Big Ten plans became clear other conferences began to consider how they would react to the changing landscape. Over the weekend the PAC-10 gave their commissioner Larry Scott permission to explore expansion. The PAC-10 is rumored to be considering the possibility of raiding the Big 12. Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Colorado appear to be the targets.

The entry of the PAC-10 into the expansion battle will accelerate the timeline for the Big Ten.

The SEC has said that they plan to be reactive, not proactive as conference expansion begins but that they will do what is necessary to keep their dominant position in college football. With the dominos starting to fall this week expect the SEC to move into the expansion battle sooner rather than later. The Big Ten and now the PAC-10 are marching toward forming Super Conferences. The SEC won’t be far behind.

Texas may be the biggest domino to fall as the Big Ten, PAC-10 and SEC would all like to add Texas. If the Longhorns decide to head to the PAC-10 or Big Ten that will increase the chances of the SEC coming after ACC schools such as Clemson, Florida State, Miami and Georgia Tech. The SEC will need to move quickly if they want to get Texas as the PAC-10 and Big Ten court the Longhorns.

Now that the dominos are starting to fall the wave of conference expansion will move in days and weeks, not months and years. The changing landscape will certainly impact Clemson and the ACC. The impact and the decisions that the league and Clemson will need to make will now come much sooner. Will the ACC expand? Will the SEC raid the ACC? Will Clemson join the SEC? With the dominos starting to fall those answers will become clearer over the next few months.

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John Wooden: A lesson in greatness

June 5, 2010
Filed In Basketball, Feature Stories

By Franz Beard – GatorCountry.com


I got a lesson in greatness on March 24, 1974, the day after UCLA’s incredible streak of seven straight NCAA basketball championships came to an end in Greensboro, North Carolina. Because there was a consolation game in those days at the Final Four, all four coaches were at the Sunday press conference. Coach John Wooden took his turn before Al McGuire, whose Marquette Warriors would face North Carolina State the next night, and he spent the entire press conference talking about what a marvelous game North Carolina State had played to beat his Bruins and how excited he was to be able to watch the championship game between State and Marquette.

There wasn’t the first hint of bitterness or even a slight tone of disappointment. When it came time to talk about what his Bill Walton-led team had and hadn’t done in their 80-77 double overtime loss to David Thompson and North Carolina State on Saturday, Coach Wooden only had praise for his team playing as hard as they could and giving their best effort. He said something to the effect that sometimes two teams play the best they can and unfortunately, one of them has to lose but it doesn’t diminish the greatness of the effort.

Coach Wooden was so genuine and so sincere that it prompted Al McGuire to open his press conference to open by saying, “I just want to congratulate Coach Wooden for showing so much class. If it had been me, I would have been obnoxious.”

There wasn’t an obnoxious bone in John Wooden’s body. Even though they were the most dominant college team of any sport in any era in history, Wooden demanded that his teams show a winner’s grace at all times and rather than complain about a loss, praise the other team instead.

John Wooden won 664 basketball games and lost 162 in his collegiate coaching career. He was 44-15 in two years at Indiana State before taking the UCLA job. In his 17th season at UCLA he won his first NCAA championship, the first of 10 over a 12-year span, an unprecedented record in collegiate team sports. The tenth national championship came on the last game he ever coached when the Bruins beat Kentucky, 92-85.

* * *

The 1974 Final Four was my fourth encounter with John Wooden. My first was in 1972 when I was writing for the Savannah Morning News. One of my weekly assignments was a feature story on someone famous who wasn’t from Georgia. When I told my boss, Marcus Holland, I wanted to do a story about John Wooden he laughed and said, “Good luck getting him on the phone.”

To my surprise, when I called Coach Wooden at his office, the secretary put him through to me and for the next 30 minutes he talked very little about basketball and more about the things that it takes to be successful, not just in basketball but in life. At one point he said that I should always remember that success is never final and failure is never fatal. When I told him that my grandfather had been telling me that same thing for years, Coach Wooden laughed warmly and told me that his dad had told him that and it was something he would never forget.

He asked me to send him a copy of my story, which I did, and about two weeks later, I got a handwritten note on UCLA stationary thanking me for saying such kind things about him.

A year later after UCLA beat Memphis State for the NCAA title in St. Louis to cap a second consecutive 30-0 season, I met Coach Wooden in person for the first time. When I introduced myself, I was floored that he remembered my name and remembered the story I had written. He encouraged me to write good stories about deserving athletes that describe the effort and determination it takes to succeed, telling me he was dismayed that too many writers wanted to write very negative stories.

In December of 1973 I was the sports editor of the Evening Telegram in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. I flew into St. Louis on a Saturday, arriving just in time to watch unbeaten UCLA embarrass unbeaten North Carolina State at the old Checker Dome. After the game, Coach Wooden was his usual gracious self, praising North Carolina State while thanking his team for playing at such a high level. When I got a chance to speak to him briefly, he shook my hand and reminded me once again to write good stories about deserving athletes.

In March, UCLA came to Greensboro for the Final Four and nobody expected the mighty Bruins to lose. They had won seven national championships in a row and they had already beaten semifinal opponent North Carolina State. I got a chance to watch UCLA practice on Friday afternoon, the first time I had ever seen a UCLA practice and I was shocked at what I heard and saw.

Coach Wooden never once raised his voice the entire hour. He told his team he wanted intensity, the same kind of intensity in practice that they would show in the game the next day. There was more time devoted to fundamentals than anything else. Players were only allowed to shoot the same kind of shots they would shoot in the game; i.e., if you couldn’t make 20-footers with consistency, you didn’t shoot them in practice or in a game.

When the practice was over, Coach Wooden told his team that North Carolina State was going to be a tough opponent but he trusted that they would give their best effort so no matter the outcome they could be proud of what they had done. No rah-rah. No yelling. No screaming. Just a calm voice asking his team to play hard and do their best.

What a concept.

The next day, North Carolina State rallied from 11 points behind to send the game into overtime. In the second overtime, the Wolfpack rallied back from 11 once again and they were down seven in the second overtime when they staged one last rally to win by three (80-77). Throughout the game, Coach Wooden sat calmly with a program rolled up in his hand. He never once screamed at the officials or at his team. During time outs, he was the picture of calm.

But somehow, North Carolina State won that game. David Thompson was magnificent and Monte Towe played one of the best games I’ve ever seen a point guard play. When the game was over, Norm Sloan could barely contain himself. Norm wanted this one so badly because he always coached with a chip on his shoulder, hoping people would recognize that he was a very good basketball coach.

Coach Wooden had no chip on his shoulder and I’m not sure he ever thought of himself as great. I think he believed that he was successful and certainly he was, but I always got the impression that he was far too humble to ever think of himself as a great coach.

* * *

A year later, Coach Wooden coached his last game and went out on top with a championship. He spent the next ten years devoted to the only girl he ever dated or kissed, his lovely wife Nell. Friends who knew Coach Wooden tell me that every week for the 53 years they were married, Coach Wooden got down on his knee and asked Nell if she would marry him once again on the weekly anniversary of his marriage proposal. She, of course, said yes.

When Nell died in 1985, Coach Wooden wrote a love letter to her on the monthly anniversary of her death. He wrote her poems and told her how much he loved her and how he longed for the day when they would be united once again in heaven.

* * *

Coach Wooden once said, “Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.”

He is a man whose character spoke far more than all the wins and championships combined. Friday night when Coach Wooden passed away at age 99, he and Nell were reunited for the first time in 25 years. Heaven’s gain was our loss for we have truly lost a great, great man.

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SEC Meetings: What was accomplished?

June 4, 2010
Filed In Feature Stories

By Franz Beard – GatorCountry.com

DESTIN, FL — The Southeastern Conference held its annual spring meetings at the Sandestin Hilton this week with an agenda that ranged from how to deal with league expansion to an early signing period for football to re-seeding all 12 teams for the SEC Basketball Tournament. While there were no earth shattering agreements, the conference did make some progress on all three fronts.

Expansion was the hot topic when the meetings began on Tuesday and it didn’t take Commissioner Mike Slive long to let it be known that (a) he was in control and (b) don’t expect him to leak or even hint the agenda that he has planned.

“I’m not going to say any more about it than what I’ve said,” Slive said. “I think I’ve said all I really want to say. I’m going to continue to say we’re going to be strategic and thoughtful in dealing with any conference paradigm shift and I don’t want to go beyond that.”

Later in the day at the SEC party poolside by the Gulf of Mexico that was attended by coaches, athletic directors, school presidents and administrators, Slive was asked to comment off the record about Big Ten, Big 12 and Pac-10 rumors. Again he declined.

“I said all I’m going to say this morning,” Slive said. “We have looked into expansion, we’re continuing to look into it and we have options. We aren’t going to comment or speculate on what other conferences are going to do or are rumored to be doing.”

Longtime SEC observer and expert Tony Barnhart of CBS Sports, who continues to blog for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution said earlier in the day, “He won’t say it, but you can bet he’s got a plan A, B, C and D ready to go. He won’t get caught by surprise no matter what the Big Ten or any other conference does.”

Most of the expansion speculation has centered around the intentions of the Big Ten, which has 11 teams and is considering options to add one, three or five more. While everybody agrees that Notre Dame would be the ideal option for the Big Ten and would end the need and speculation for further expansion, Notre Dame hasn’t budged off its stance that it will remain independent, which might have something to do with the Big Ten’s announcement that expansion is still in the works but might take awhile to set in place.

Other Big Ten options would require raiding other conferences. A move that would siphon Syracuse, Rutgers and Pittsburgh from the Big East would destroy that conference. A move that would include either Nebraska or Missouri or both would drastically change the Big 12.

The Pac-10, which has remained very quiet since announcing its intentions to look into conference expansion back in April, might have made the pre-emptive strike that will force the SEC and the Big Ten to react quickly. Rumors began surfacing Thursday that the Pac-10 will invite Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Colorado to form a 16-team super conference.
Such a move would fuel speculation that Nebraska and Missouri have already agreed to move to the Big Ten.

So where would that leave the Southeastern Conference? Slive isn’t saying but there are rumblings from Texas that both Texas and Texas A&M would jump at an offer to join the SEC and that ESPN has the money in its contingency plans to add the two Big 12 teams without diluting the pool of money ($17 million per year) shared by the 12 school sin the SEC.

Coaches wouldn’t speak publicly on the idea of expansion in Sandestin, mostly likely at the orders of Slive and their athletic directors, but one SEC coach speaking off the record said he felt the other coaches in the league were more amenable to a 14-team SEC than a 16-team super conference. And, apparently the Texas option is the SEC ideal because of the state population (more than 25 million), large metro television markets such as Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Austin and San Antonio, and proximity. Under that scenario the likely divisional split up would have Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Auburn and Alabama in the East with Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Vanderbilt, LSU, Arkansas, Texas and Texas A&M in the West.

Speaking off the record, an SEC athletic director indicated that plans to raid the Atlantic Coast Conference of Florida State and/or Miami and Clemson are further down the list of priority even if the league were to consider expanding to 16 teams. In a 16-team expansion model, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State would most likely be the other two teams the SEC would target.

* * *

The early signing date was debated for the third straight year and once again there was no uniform agreement about how to implement the plan so it will be at least one more year before that debate is brought up again. The biggest obstacle to getting the early signing period passed seems to be the date. Some coaches are in favor of an early signing period at the end of spring or beginning of summer while other coaches would favor one that is in August.

The problem with the late spring/beginning of summer date is that coaches would prefer to see kids practicing with their teams during the May evaluation period and bring them on campus to their camps in June. The August date interferes with preparation for the season opener.

An early signing period during the season is uniformly rejected by coaches since they feel they have enough on their hands in preparation for their next game.

Most coaches agree that there will be an early signing period but it won’t happen until they can agree on a date that works for everyone.

* * *

The idea of re-seeding teams 1-12 before the SEC basketball tournament seemed to have some momentum heading into the Sandestin meetings but like the early signing date proposal for football, it was tabled until next year.

“As I understand we’re going to leave it as it is,” Mississippi State coach Rick Stansbury said.

By and large, the SEC coaches like the idea of two divisions and that’s where the issue of how to re-seed becomes a sticky wicket.

“I’m in favor of divisional play. I think it’s wonderful that you have a West champion and an East champion and I think it’s better to finish sixth than 12th,” Tennessee coach Bruce Pearl said, but Pearl also stated that the SEC is one of only three (the Southland and Mid-America conferences are the others) leagues that don’t re-seed.

The problem of divisional play is that teams play their divisional rivals twice and the teams in the other division only once. Stansbury and Florida coach Billy Donovan both brought up potential problems when considering re-seeding.

“Who’s got the strongest division?” Donovan asked. “It’s not always the same and if you don’t play everybody twice, you have some problems.”

In 2010, it was the SEC East where Kentucky (14-2), Vanderbilt (12-4) and Tennessee (11-5) had the top three records. Florida, Mississippi State and Ole Miss all finished 9-7 and tied for fourth place but the Gators beat Mississippi State and Ole Miss head-to-head. In a re-seeding process, the Gators would have been the fourth seed which would have meant Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Tennessee and Florida would have all had the first day off of the SEC Tournament while the other eight teams played to advance four to the quarterfinals against the four eastern powers.

Re-seeding would have worked in 2010 but not every year. Stansbury believes the only way that re-seeding would work every year is if the SEC went to a 22-game conference schedule in which all teams play home and home. But even that creates a problem, the Mississippi State coach says.

“The bad thing about is if you re-seed you could open up with somebody for the third time right off the bat,” Stansbury said. “The way it is now that doesn’t happen very often because it’s east vs. west. I don’t think that any coach is in favor of opening up with a team for the third time.”

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Meet Urban the 2nd

June 3, 2010
Filed In Feature Stories

DESTIN — Who was this guy? He looked exactly like Urban Meyer although maybe 10-12 pounds heavier than he was in the spring. He sounded an awful lot like Urban Meyer but then he did things that Urban would never think about doing. Whoever he was up there on the podium at the SEC Spring Meetings at the Sandestin Hilton, he was laughing, cracking jokes with the media and having a rather good time. Urban Meyer would never do such a thing. Or would he?

There are three potential explanations for what we saw Tuesday afternoon — (1) we imagined it and it never actually happened; (2) aliens have abducted the real Urban Meyer and replaced him with a very relaxed, having fun with the media version; and (3) this was actually the real Urban Meyer simply showing off what happens when you (a) take care of your health; (b) take some time to smell the coffee in the morning and (c) start spending more time with your family.

There were 50 witnesses in the room and nearly everyone had either a digital recorder or a video camera going so we know positively that we weren’t imagining what we saw.

The aliens theory is somewhat plausible. Having attended and written about more Urban Meyer press conferences than anyone on the planet the last five years, I can attest that the guy on the podium was far more relaxed and had far more fun than anything I’ve seen since Urban made his first appearance on the Florida campus in December of 2004. This guy looked like a natural in front of the cameras and he fielded question after question with grins and laughter. Suspicious? You betcha.

The fine folks in Alabama who are regular listeners of the Paul Finebaum Radio Show might find this both troubling and incredulous, but theory number three is the right answer to the question, who was this guy? This was not the stressed out, burned out, on the verge of becoming a certifiable psychopath coach that Finebaum in his silly radio rants would like us to believe Meyer has become. Instead, this was a coach who by rediscovering the things that are truly important has tapped into the secret of longevity in a profession that demands, drains and leaves even the strongest people lying in the tall weeds on the side of the road.

This new and improved version of Urban Meyer didn’t go into a whole lot of detail about the health problems that surfaced publicly in the early morning hours following Florida’s loss to Alabama in the Southeastern Conference Championship Game back in December and led to his shocking decision to resign one day only to change his mind in favor of a leave of absence to get his health back in order the next.

Back in December Meyer thought he was dying. Now, he knows better.

“The biggest thing is I wanted to find out what those darn chest pains were and I did,” Meyer said. “It’s esophageal spasms and they’ve got me on some medications. I’ve just got to be smarter in the future and I’m going to be. I’m not going to let that happen again. But the biggest thing was all that was related to what the heck were those pains going through my chest. When you find out what it is, life gets a little better quickly.”

He’s had only one bout with the chest pains since the Sugar Bowl and that was just prior to National Signing Day when he was still very actively involved in the recruiting process that brought the Gators the number one class in the nation and maybe the best class that has been signed anywhere in college football the last decade or so.

Meyer said the pains were like “waking up every morning with a toothache in your chest for the last three years” and that “late January is the last time I had any issues at all with that.”

With the chest pains issue resolved, Meyer could have gone back to being the same old Urban, so detail driven that there is rarely time to have fun and enjoy the fruits of success that a $4 million a year salary can offer.

But after spring football ended, Meyer took advantage of the leave of absence that was offered by University of Florida athletics director Jeremy Foley and president Bernie Machen when he was teetering on the verge of calling it quits back before the Sugar Bowl. Once he stepped back a little, Meyer discovered that lots of successful coaches figure out ways to put some balance into their lives.

“I’m not quite sure ‘leave’ is the right word,” Meyer said. “I’ve talked to a lot of coaches and a lot of them do it without saying ‘leave.’ They take a couple of weeks off here and a couple of weeks off there. What I’ve got to learn to do is trust our staff, empower people and give them the opportunity to grow. They’ve done a great job. We’ve got a great staff.  I’m very pleased with the way things are going right now.”

Meyer said he’s leaned heavily on strength and conditioning coach Mickey Marotti and his entire staff since they have more day-to-day contact with the players than any of the coaches. Steve Addazio runs the day-to-day football aspects when Meyer is away and both he and Meyer lean heavily on Chuck Heater, Dan McCarney and Brian White, who have proven their loyalty and value time and time again.

If further proof of Meyer’s resolve to delegate more authority was needed, all one had to do was take a look at special teams during spring practice. Special teams are Meyer’s personal baby and his close attention to detail is one of the reasons why Florida’s special teams have ranked among the top two or three in the nation all five years of the Meyer era. During the spring, Meyer turned special teams over to staff newbies D.J. Durkin and Zach Azzanni, who were graduate assistants at the first whistle stop of Meyer’s head coaching career at Bowling Green. With Durkin and Azzanni handling the bulk of special teams coaching, Meyer had the luxury of watching for a change.

In the past few weeks, Meyer has gone to a golf tournament with one of his daughters (Nicki, who plays volleyball at Georgia Tech), watched volleyball tournaments (GiGi plays high school volleyball), little league baseball (Nate plays) and taken his family on a vacation to Rome and Israel.

Reports surfaced that Meyer and family had an audience with Pope Benedict while in Rome. Meyer denied it but shot back, “[The pope is a] big Gator fan … we talked about third and six.”

There will be more family time in the weeks ahead, but Meyer won’t lose sight of the big picture at Florida. Camps are coming up and that is where the Gators do the bulk of their recruiting. The start of August practice is just nine weeks away so there will be planning sessions with the staff to make sure all everybody is on the same page with the same agenda.

Urban Meyer is not going to spend his days eating cheeseburgers while the football program crashes and burns around him. He’s feeling good about his family, about himself and he has a real appreciation for the coaches he has in place. The talent — from top to bottom of the program — might be the best it’s ever been in Florida football history.

All that bodes well for 2010 and beyond.

“I feel fantastic,” Meyer said. “I think I’ve got a better appreciation for the guys around me. When you just bolt for five days … I’ve never done that in my life. I just say, ‘hey you guys got it, handle it.’ And the stadium’s still standing. As a matter of fact guys are working out, getting faster, graduating. It’s going well.”

Sometimes the more things change, the more they stay the same.

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Sherrill Talks Expansion

June 2, 2010
Filed In Feature Stories

Expansion talk was actually started all the way back in the 1970′s, at least that’s when the conversations started. Back then, the CFCA (College Football Coaches Association) was an association started outside of the NCAA for college football. They had a lot of people that did a great job for the CFCA. They were responsible for many of the rules we have today, like academic reforms and recruiting schedules.

Those rules originated out of the CFCA. But the NCAA was so powerful and used their political power to squash those original expansion talks. But in the 1970′s, expansion was talked about by the CFCA with the idea of coming up with four major conferences, and that was way before the Big East expanded into its huge basketball league they have now. The idea was to have four big conferences with 70-80 teams and have those four conferences play for the national title.

Years ago, the Big 10 expanded to get Penn State because in the past, the Big 10 was shut out on the eastern seaboard with the Big East basketball league. Penn State had the largest television and radio networks on the eastern seaboard so it made good sense. Plus, with Pittsburgh, Syracuse and Maryland coming on strong, it forced the Big 10 to go after Penn State.

And when the SEC expanded (with Arkansas and South Carolina), the original plan was to get 16 teams. The SEC wanted to add Florida State and Miami to the east side and then get Texas and Texas A&M to the west side. But what happened, because of political pressure from state legislators in Texas, the governor would not let Texas and Texas A&M leave unless the SEC also took Texas Tech and Houston. And the SEC didn’t want to take Texas Tech and Houston, so that deal got squashed.

You also look back in the late 80′s when the old Southwest Conference dissolved. The Big 12 came about with more political pressure from the state of Texas, which is the biggest politically-driven state when it comes to college athletics. The legislators said teams could go to the Big 12 but with the governor being a Baylor graduate, they said the Big 12 had to also take Baylor. And that is how Houston got left out, again.

Fast forward and today, expansion talk is out there again. When the SEC and Big 12 expanded, and then the Big East expanded in basketball, it left the Big 10 and Pac 10 behind. We also saw the expansion of the ACC and now those conferences all have championship games. As I said, with the Big East basketball league so big, it still controls a lot of the eastern seaboard. So basically, the Big 10 doesn’t want to allow that to happen anymore and why they are talking of expansion, and possibly expanding to 16 teams.

And make no mistake, the Big 10 is going to expand and likely do so soon. So who are those teams? Well, Notre Dame is obviously the biggest target out there and then you have Missouri, Nebraska, Syracuse and Pittsburgh. They need five teams to get to 16 teams and those are the five top choices with Notre Dame as the icing on the cake.

As soon it that happens, and it will for the Big 10, you will see the SEC expand. In fact, the SEC and Pac 10 are already talking and having those thoughts. They fully understand that the Big 12, the ACC and the Big East can’t rival the SEC, Pac 10 or the Big 10. So those are your three big conferences with the next one being the ACC.

So we could possibly have four, or although unlikely six, major conferences. Out of those likely four big conferences, you will have a playoff system arleady in place. You grab those four conference champions and the two winners play for a national championship.

If and when all that happens, you will see the Big 10 go after Notre Dame first, and then the other schools. Then you will see the SEC go after Texas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State. The SEC may also go after Miami, Florida State, Clemson or Virginia Tech. And there is nobody out there in this area that doesn’t want to be part of the SEC. In the east, there is nobody that doesn’t want to be part of the Big 10 and nobody in the West, like Utah or Colorado, that doesn’t want to be in the Pac 10.

Whenever this process ends down the road a bit, I think you will then see that group of major conferences pull away from the NCAA and have their own association. Once the Big 10 expands, I see the SEC grabbing four teams as soon as possible. The SEC could also go to 18 teams and have nine-team divisions. The original SEC plans were to go to 16 teams anyway and give room to still have some cross-over league games. In other words, you would still see Georgia play Alabama or Tennessee play Alabama.

So everybody is basically waiting on the Big 10. The two big targets on the board are Notre Dame and Texas. Once the Big 10 decides to go with their plans, then it starts the whole process. I think it will happen within a year because the Big 10 won’t sit back much longer without expanding.

And right now, you have the commissioner of the Big 12 saying they need a commitment from everybody. But Texas is saying they have no problem by not making that commitment and will go independent if they have to go that route. Texas will always do what’s best for Texas, even if it means they go independent for a bit. And of course, it’s all a threat right now because Texas won’t go anywhere without Texas A&M. They are joined at the hip much like Oklahoma and Oklahoma State. Wherever Texas goes, so will Texas A&M.

Now, it’s all about waiting for the dominos to start falling.

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