Big 12 Armageddon could be only a few days away.
Multiple sources are reporting that the conference has issued a 5 p.m. Friday deadline for Nebraska (and Missouri) to decide if they're going to explore moving to the Big Ten.
And really, the only decision that matters for the league's future is Nebraska. Should the Cornhuskers decide to bolt, then Big 12 members (Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, Texas A&M and Colorado -- or Baylor, depending on which report you believe) could jump to the Pac-10.
Enter University of Kansas chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little, who is urging Nebraska to stay in the Big 12 (and save the Jayhawks' asses). Gray-Little dialed up Nebraska chancellor Harvey Perlman to convince him to stay.
Gray-Little also plans to make a similar call to Missouri chancellor Brady
J. Deaton. Will it make a difference? We should know Friday. That's
when Perlman is expected to meet with Nebraska's regents.
Meanwhile,
Baylor president Ken Starr
is "cautiously optimistic" the Big 12 will stick together and
the school "emphatically supports the Big 12."
Then again, Starr
also made sure to mention that he hopes the league's four Texas schools
stick together, which just might get the Baylor Bears in the Pac-10
instead of Colorado.
The Mountain West Conference -- seen as a
landing spot for potential Big 12 refugees like Kansas, Kansas State and
Iowa State -- decided not
to expand on Monday.
Check back in the next few days. The way this story is going, this
information will be outdated by the time I hit "publish."
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Kansas just does not have the TV market to be an attractive target for conference expansion by other leagues. While Kansas has a reasonably rich sports tradition, the new collegiate sports landscape is being dictated by TV revenue, not athletic tradition. It IS entertaining to read message board posts of Nebraska and Missouri fans gloating over leaving the Kansas schools in the dust, but I think ku and K-State will end up in a good conference alignment.
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