The Big XII-minus-2 Debacle
Forgive the burst of candor, but . . just how in the hell did we get here?
How in the wide, wide world of sports does a power football conference like the Big XII, which has had a team in the Bowl Championship Series title game seven times since 2000 (including this year’s!) and which had seven of our schools in bowl games last season end up on the edge of extinction? How is it that the athletic programs at Missouri, Kansas and Kansas State, so important to the successes of that same conference and so vital to this region’s sports identity, could be written off as little more than expansion fodder for a second-tier conference?
I’m sorry, but all the hoo-hah and rejoicing about the Big XII being “saved” with a reduced number of teams simply doesn’t wash with me. What happened here in the past few weeks just wasn’t right. It would be nice to know that, whatever forces were responsible for the near breakup of the conference, steps were being taken to ensure its long-term viability. And that our three regional schools will be guaranteed seats the next time any conference-expansion music stops playing.
It’s easy enough to blame the influence of television, and broadcast-rights money, for the macro forces that are driving conference realignment in college football across the nation. But those forces were at work years before this month’s speed-of-light events overtook us in Kansas City and throughout the conference and left us dumbfounded and feeling utterly powerless. Conference officials, particularly Commissioner Dan Beebe, should have been doing more to head this one off.
Way more, and much sooner.
Officials at MU and Gov. Jay Nixon certainly saw something coming long before this. Their public speculations about how MU might fit into the Big 10, however indiscreet, have been used to cast them as the bad guys in all of this, as the trigger for Nebraska’s exodus. Hogwash: They were doing exactly the same thing the conference should have been doing: Pondering all options in their institution’s own best interests.
And, forgive me, but the Hypocrisy Fairy must live in Lincoln, for anyone in Big Red Country to argue that NU needed to be in the Big 10 because Missouri was somehow being disloyal to the Big XII—by considering what life would be like in that same conference. Huh?
Most shocking to me as a college sports fan was that, had the five South Division schools flirting with the Pac-10 actually bolted, our regional schools could have been left without a conference structure that would support their hard-earned status as programs to be dealt with in football and basketball. That’s especially true with KU, which stood to lose enormous clout as a basketball program had it been consigned to the Mountain West Conference—and I say that as a proud Mizzou guy.
As one Internet pundit postulated: “If they can do this to Kansas basketball, they can do it to anybody.”
For fans in the Kansas City region, that’s the scary—and frustrating—part.
So now that the hand-wringing about a breakup is perhaps over, now that the confetti has drifted down from the Big XII-minus-II salvation celebration, perhaps it’s time the conference leadership turned its focus a little more toward the horizon, if not over it. They should work overtime to lock up all 10 members, and for a good, long time. I, for one, would also like to see Arkansas, Iowa or Illinois recruited to join the Big XII, since it appears to be open season for raiding other conferences.
And it’s time to get aggressive with the TV networks about broadcast fees—none of this comparatively chicken-scratch compensation the conference has settled for with ABC and Fox Sports. Finally, how about a serious poison-pill penalty to prevent the bigger-name programs from walking out on the smaller schools that have helped them burnish their reputations over the last 14 seasons. Texas and Oklahoma in particular have a lot of wins under their belts thanks to smaller-budget programs; they didn’t get those by playing intramurals.
As a college football fan whose allegiance to the conference dates back to the days of the old Big 8, I’m going to miss the annual clashes with Nebraska. I’m genuinely sorry to see the Cornhuskers go.
And then, of course, there’s Colorado—Nobody cares about Colorado. 
Joe Sweeney
Editor-In-Chief & Publisher
JSweeney@IngramsOnLine.com