When the news of the day requires it, or I just feel like popping off, I’ll drop in here with a few takes.
1. Congratulate your nearest Big 12 chum. In less than one year, the Big 12 has gone from the edge of extinction to a super conference.
That’s what happened this SEC-Big 12 bowl agreement means. The “Champions” Bowl is their Rose Bowl. The SEC just “made” the Big 12 into a super power.
The Rose Bowl in the west. The Champions Bowl in New Orleans, Dallas or whoever wins the bidding game. Beginning in 2015, those are the two bowl games that now matter most.
Yes, there is a four-team playoff on the docket. The Rose and Champions Bowl may be on the outside of that. And, like the Rose, the Champions Bowl may have the Big 12 and SEC runners-up some years. Kind of like the Cotton Bowl now.
(What happens to the Cotton Bowl now, anyway? Is that a bowl the Big Ten should look at if affiliations change?)
The four-team playoff aside, feel free to connect the dots. Two games. Four leagues. There are your four super conferences, Big Ten, Pac-12, Big 12, SEC. And there are your two semifinal games.
Four leagues who rule college sports? Four leagues who could pull away from the NCAA at some point and do their own college sports thing?
It has to be considered. It may not happen soon, but if the poaching of the ACC and Big East’s football teams begins, it may not take long, either.
That’s what may have happened, probably happened, on Friday. Pretty big day, huh?
2. What a way for Chuck Neinas to go out as Big 12 interim commissioner. If Neinas isn’t the all-time greatest conference commish, he’s most certainly the greatest interim commissioner in history.
3. Paging Florida State. Please pick up a white courtesy phone and call the Big 12. If you have any interest in being a player in college football.
4. Paging Notre Dame. If there are four big boy leagues and this becomes the playoff, where do the Irish fit in? The Big 12 thinks they have dibs. Boss Delany?
5. The Big Ten doesn’t look so silly for its allegience to the Rose Bowl anymore, does it? And the Rose Bowl doesn’t look so antiquated.
6. So who should the Big Ten cherry pick out of the ACC or Big East? Pitt? Rutgers? Georgia Tech? Maryland? Those are my guesses. Virginia Tech would be a great choice. I’m betting the SEC will snatch up the Hokies. And I have to think the SEC is re-thinking its stance on FSU and Clemson. They better be.
7. Omaha got the Big Ten baseball tourney, but in 2014. I had heard Target Field might get a nod, so I’m not entirely surprised the Twins’ home got 2013. That’s a good pick. Target Field’s location is terrific and the event will fit well there. With Target and TD Ameritrade, I like what the Big Ten wants to do with baseball.
I guess this means the Valley tourney won’t be returning to Omaha until 2015.
