My Assorted Thoughts on Expansion

Greetings from the 9th circle of hell, Columbia, S.C. No doubt you have wondered why no-one here at Office Tailgate has weighed in on the ongoing talk of expansion of some of the marquee conferences of the NCAA’s Division 1-A. And you’re probably upset that we’ve only had 2 or 3 posts since the middle of last football season. Well, it’s a blog. It’s free. Nobody’s holding a gun to your head, so get over it. Having said that I felt the need to collect my thoughts on the matter that has the potential to be the single biggest development in college sports since ESPN began broadcasting the early rounds of the Men’s D-1 Basketball Tournament.

To recap, this all started with our man JoePa. Paterno (correctly) wondered aloud why the Presidents of the Big Ten (11) weren’t trying to add a 12th member, seeing as how the conferences which have a title game seem to be held in higher esteem, correctly or incorrectly, by the national media. Since the selection process for the BCS is, ultimately, subjective, any such disadvantage is bad for a conference. Well, the Big Ten paid attention and started leaning on Notre Dame.

Now, as Gardner will no doubt recall, this is hardly the first time that these great Midwestern institutions have tried to seduce the Domers. But all the previous times, Notre Dame felt they were better off on their own. After all, the very reason that Notre Dame cultivated a national identity as a football power was their independent status and globe-trotting nature. And it was that “play anyone, anywhere” m.o. that lead to Notre Dame’s more important journey from rinky-dink catholic school to an academic powerhouse. So independence is in a very real sense a part of the school’s identity. So once again they appeared uninterested.

Now, the Big Ten wants Notre Dame bad. Real bad. Sure, they’d have problems figuring out the divisions, specifically how to preserve the significance of Michigan-Ohio State, but come on, do any of the other “candidates” (Syracuse, Rutgers, Texas, AC Milan) really sound like Big Ten schools? No chance. Notre Dame fits the mold: Classically Midwestern and doesn’t give a shit about anything but football.

Here’s where the tale gets interesting. The Big Ten starts floating all those ridiculous rumors that they’re going to essentially destroy the NCAA as we know it by kicking off a domino effect. For those who need a refresher, it would go as follows: 1) Big Ten (11) becomes Big Ten (16) by picking up 5 schools from the Big East. 2) Big East dies, everybody goes their separate ways. 3) ACC picks up a bunch of the Big East rejects, probably something like Syracuse, UConn, Georgetown, and Louisville, to also reach 16 teams. 4) Pac 10 and SEC both panic, worrying they’ll get left behind, and essentially split the Big 12 between themselves. The result: The Pac 16, Super SEC, Super ACC and Big Ten (16). All the rinky-dink conferences (yeah I’m talking to you Mountain West, show me something other than some meaningless exhibition game wins and the career of Keith van Horn and we’ll talk) stay the same but obviously have no chance of competing with these guys in ANYTHING, not just football.

So, the conspiracy theory goes, what incentive would these 4 conferences (apx. 64 schools) have to stay in the NCAA? It’s a completely voluntary organization. They could leave and start a new one. Hell, in essence they already have – the football “national champion” isn’t the NCAA champion – that’s Villanova. No, Alabama is the BCS champion. And once these 4 mega conferences have totally ensured that nobody from outside the club could ever beat them, why do they need to be hamstrung by rules intended to honor that quaint concept (it’s just so 20th century) of the student-athlete? So they break off and convert the BCS from one to all sports. You say you liked the basketball tournament when it was just 64 teams? Well, you’ll love our new tournament – there are only 65 teams eligible in the first place, so EVERYBODY makes the Big Dance! No coaches can get fired! Isn’t it great?

The conspiracy theory has been shaken up in the last week by the suggestion that it won’t be the Big Ten who acts first, but the Pac 10. Already tired of being shat on every year by America’s college football sportswriters and radio call-in mopes (“MY TEAM SUCKS SO I’M GOING TO SCREAM MY HEAD OFF ABOUT HOW GREAT THE CONFERENCE ‘WE’ PLAY IN IS AND HOW MUCH THE PAC 10 SUCKS!!!”), the left coasters didn’t want to be left holding the bill when this is all said and done. So they went after the most coastal school of all – Texas! FYI, I drove all around Austin last weekend and saw exactly 0 members of the Beach Boys, so something here doesn’t quite sound right to me.

That, of course, is because all this is about is money. The ingrates who wax poetic about the majesty and tradition of college football are getting fleeced by the powers-that-be: The heads of ESPN and the BCS. They sell that autumn leaves/girls in sundresses/rah-rah-sis-boom-bah bullshit to try to line their own pockets, not because they give a good god damn about you or what you love about the game. If they cared about “tradition,” I can pretty much guarantee that you wouldn’t be hearing 1 word about the University of TEXAS in the PACIFIC ten!

So after this new association starts up, what happens to what’s left of the NCAA? Answer: It dies. Much as I hate to admit it, all the money the NCAA uses to put on its championships is made from their contract with CBS for the basketball tournament (something like 5% of that figure pays for ALL the D-II and D-III postseasons). Once the BCS schools leave, so too does the money. And the rest of the colleges either get used to much, much worse championship events, or none at all. Don’t worry, it wouldn’t be that hard to get used to…after all, D-1A football fans seem to love not having a champion!

If you’re like me, this isn’t the result you want to see. Then again, you’re probably not like me because you probably don’t actually care whether college athletes LEARN anything, so long as they’re winning. But just indulge me while I note the possible light at the end of the tunnel: What if Notre Dame changed their minds? In this article fanhouse.com reports that the Domers are once again open to negotiations with the Big Ten. Why, you ask? Evidently Notre Dame realized that if the dominos start falling the way people are saying they might, they’d be left out in the cold, no better than your average member of Conference USA. Loathsome as the idea of joining a conference might be to them, if they had to do it at least the Big Ten makes some geographic and cultural sense.

Mike Golic predicted a few weeks ago that the way the Big Ten could force Notre Dame’s hand is by trying to make it appear that the Big East is about to fall apart. The Big East sees it’s only way out as getting Notre Dame to join for football, so they threaten them with expulsion for everything else unless the Irish join in full. Notre Dame vomits at this thought, so they turn back to the Big Ten, thereby saving the Big East. And lo and behold, that may be more or less what is about to happen, albeit by the Pac 10 threatening the Big 12 with extinction instead. The fanhouse article also surmises that, should the Big Ten expand to South Bend, they’ll back off their threat to expand to 16, and stick at 12. That’s all you need for a title game, so if it’s a Big Ten (12) with Notre Dame, they’d be satisfied. I guess Notre Dame > Syracuse + Missouri + Rutgers + Pitt + Nebraska.

Here’s where it gets good: If the Big Ten doesn’t go beyond 12, the other conferences might be less inclined to expand, too. Sure, it looks like the Pac 10 is definitely going to do so, but what if they just grabbed Utah and BYU to reach 12? They’d maintain their character by being relatively Pacific, and having an in-state rival for every school. Seems workable to me, but what do I know. At any rate, that would give all the BCS conferences enough schools for a title game (exc. the Big East, but they’ll probably force Georgetown to step it up any day now). Everybody has a Scrooge McDuck-like swimming pool of gold coins, and the fans continue to use the games as an excuse to get sauced.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to take in some good old fashioned, uncorrupted, truly amateur athletic competition. The only sport that hasn’t yet been ruined by money…cup stacking.