Osler's Razor

Oddly, none of this seems odd to me.
 

The Big 12 panic is at least kind of funny at times...
 

true--actually, very funny. but not odd. (and I will definitely stay anon on this, for fear of a public lynching) .
 

People are about to have heart attacks if the Big 12 falls apart... the funny thing is that it formed in what... 1996?

At the Minnesota game, I saw banners that the Gophers had won the Big 10 in 01, 03, and 08...

That is, 1901, 1903, and 1908.

Now that's a league with history.
 

Looks like the Gophers are due for a reminder we changed century and add another date up there. With the new prefix.
 

Not likely. Last week I got to see them lose to New Mexico State, which is perhaps the worst team in Div. I-A. The game was punctuated by the Gopher coach having a seizure on the field with 20 seconds left, flailing on the field as the crowd watched in horror. Even at Baylor in 2002 we didn't get that!
 

The Big 10 needs history. When your teams are losing to New Mexico State, Iowa State and RICE, and Ohio State can barely beat Toledo at home, history is all you have.
 

Well, that and a future. Right?
 

well, depends if you're speaking literally or figuratively. Literally, the Big 10 has a future. Figuratively, they can't get the top recruits to come play in cold weather in flyover states anymore, and that will only get harder once schools like Oklahoma can lure kids with the promise of California, and schools like Texas A&M can lure kids with the promise of Florida. The Big 10 is slow, and boring, and mired in the past, and nothing about the current state of college football indicates that is going to change. In fact, it is likely to just get worse. So, no, no future really.
 

Nebraska picked the Big 10 over the Big 12... I guess they had a different take on it.

As a conference, it looks like the Big 12 is history. I wish that wasn't true. I hope it isn't true. But it does seem likely. Meanwhile, the big, slow Big 10 will continue to exist and thrive in the new world that is evolving.

I would add that football aside (and you are right about the lousy start of the year for the big 10 and the recruiting challenge, but it would be an upgrade for Waco to reach "flyover territory" status-- have you ever tried to fly into or out of that place?), one thing that conference emphasizes and revolves around is something other than sports.

The Committee on Institutional Cooperation is a consortium of the Big Ten plus the Univ. of Chicago that is a very strong engine for academic collaboration. Yeah, that means more to us academics than to most, but I like the fact that there is something more than athletics to that grouping of schools.
 

"I like the fact that there is something more than athletics to that grouping of schools".

That should be the quote of the day.
 

It's sad that you have to say that... but it's true. One thing about Baylor that will be very hard is that if it goes to a conference like the Big East, the money will be less and the travel expenses much higher.

As it is, Baylor only nets about $2 million on football, and the athletic department as a whole runs a deficit of about $10 million (using 2005 numbers).
 

That may be true for Baylor, but it is hardly unique. There are only 10-15 schools in the entire country that actually profit on their athletics, and they are all huge State schools like Texas and Ohio State.

Two things though, a Big East in which we are playing in a division with TCU, Kansas, Kansas St., Missouri, and Louisville (assuming the conference went to 14) isn't that much different than a Big 12 travel schedule. We wont be going to upstate New York every week. And, the money might actually be much, much more. The Big East's TV contracts are the next ones up. The PAC 12 and SEC are both locked in longterm deals, and the Big East, especially when packaging football and basketball together, plus not currently having any deals regarding 3rd tier rights, might end up with fairly lucrative contracts given what the PAC 12, SEC, and Big 12 contracts all looked like. There are some pretty good articles out there on this.

Bottom line, no matter where we play we will be alright. I would like to be in a big conference, I would like to play schools like Texas and Texas Tech and Oklahoma (I don't ever want to play Fake Army again). But my worth, and Baylor's worth, is not tied to athletics or what conference we're in. The oldest school in Texas, and the only one established by the Republic of Texas, is far too grand to let such a silly thing stand in our way.
 

Excellent point, RRL. It is more than sports, and I think that gets lost too often.

The other complication with the Big East is that if the movement is to just 4 super-conferences, then the Big East in turn will have to merge with the ACC, so there is more tumult down the road.

Do you think TCU is for us or agin' us regarding the Big East?
 

I think the administration, athletics department, and money people at TCU are for it. For the same reasons you've identified. TCU gets a team close to home, which means every other year a road game that isn't 500 miles away, and a clear cut geographic rival. I think TCU fans may be against it out of some sense of revenge for 1994, but honestly, if you attended any of the four games those teams played in the last six years, then you can't deny it would be fun.

And I don't know if this all ends in superconferences. I read somewhere that the idea was these 64 teams would get into conferences, then leave the NCAA, then form their own league, and they would have all the best TV contracts. Well, that all sounds well and good except somebody would have to get rid of 100 years of antitrust law in this country. I think people are way out ahead on the superconference idea. Look how much trouble it has been for the SEC to add one team, much less three more.
 

Superconference are to conferences what super-models are to regular models. Even more drama, more tv time, and eventually all that is left is supermodels.
 

I'm more interested in the Lariat's political cartoon. I can't tell if they are advocating for more acceptance and open discussion of the LGBT community, the Siamese twin community, or the LGBT Siamese twin community. There's an awful lot at play in that pencil drawing.
 

I thought this post was supposed to be about the bear mascot shaking hands with Baylor LGBT Big 12 fans.
 

Back to your first point: glad to see that the Baylor Lariat ran an editorial on this issue. I too do not agree with all they said, yet it strikes me as significant that they ran the editorial ... and more so, I love how they concluded it: So we can start with communication – listening to one another and trying to understand one another – and follow that with the unconditional love we are called to give. It may not come to us easily or quickly, but being a Christian will always be work.

At risk of speaking for you, it strikes me they are making your point and are engaging in the very process you were seeking to engage the campus in. Good stuff.

And with regard to your fourth point, as I have tried to express before, the greater trauma is in college hockey realignment … albeit this may be a minority point of view (myself and the two guys without teeth sitting next to me at the bar) … nonetheless, we are passionate in our support of the cause.
 

At school today, I gave a talk recounting the whole story of the article and trip to Waco, and found it both exhilarating and exhausting. Both Neil Alan Willard and Susan Stabile were there, and neither booed me, so that is good.

[I left out the part about Scruffy's]
 

1) I don't trust that bear (blame RRL). It looks like he's just trying to win over the trust of the LGBT guys while he's got a stockpile of things in reserve to hit them with.

B) In dallas we have now broken the record for more 100+ days in a summer 70 and counting. Take that 1980!!!

#)I didn't even realize that place existed while I was at Baylor for 3 years.

quatro) This post has caused the most level head, football discussion from RRL....ever. While I share his sentiment that A&M should never play Baylor again and help prop up the Waco economy to the tune of a gazillion dollars, according to the Perryman group, I don't share his sentiment that Baylor will find itself in an esteemed conference such as the ACC or BigEast after all of this shakes out. However, I'll defer to him for now since he's one of those big money donors to Baylor. All I did was donate a few bucks to put up a billboard in Waco.
 

DDA-- Thank you for sticking to the approved Razor numbering nomenclature. I look forward to seeing your billboard on my next visit to Waco.
 

"This post has caused the most level head, football discussion from RRL....ever"

I'm not going to get into specifics here, but lets just say that I'm not the one that has gone a bit off the deep end when it comes to conference realignment talk. For the last 2 weeks I've pretty much operated under the assumption that Dallas_Defense_Attorney is constantly yelling, "THEY CAN'T DO THIS TO US!" and sticking pins into his Ken Starr voodoo doll.

"While I share his sentiment that A&M should never play Baylor again..."

Thank God.

"...and help prop up the Waco economy to the tune of a gazillion dollars, according to the Perryman group"

I know Ray Perryman, and all I'll say is this. If you think he would put his credibility and reputation on the line to lie or produce a false report on behalf of Baylor you're crazy. And he wasn't just talking about the Waco economy, he was talking about the economy of the State of Texas. And even you, with your unfortunate undergraduate educational limitations, can understand that when UT, Tech, Baylor, TCU, and Fake Army are all playing in conferences that do not have a significant number of teams in Texas that will result in fewer games per year in Texas for those teams, which will be a bad thing because Texas dollars will go to California and throughout the Southeast. But Fake Army has made it abundantly clear they don't care about Texas, so why am I even bothering with this.

"I don't share his sentiment that Baylor will find itself in an esteemed conference such as the ACC or BigEast after all of this shakes out"

And that is based on?? I assume we can go ahead and cite, "Random Internet Message Board Rant" as the basis of such speculation, correct?

And by the way, I didn't say we would end up in the Big East or the ACC. What I said was we will end up somewhere, and wherever that is, it will be ok. Mostly because I don't believe that conference affiliation is the most important thing about my school and I'll still enjoy going to games and seeing the team play whether we are playing Texas or Tulsa. But also because no matter where we go Fake Army and its army of fat chicks wearing bedazzled overalls will not be there.

Smoke 'em if you got 'em.
 

"Fat chicks wearing bedazzled overalls."

Well, that image ruined my day.
 

Ah there's the off-the-hinge RRL I like so much.

First, you are right, you never claimed you were going to either of the conferences I mentioned, but to be fair, your posts weighted the merits of such a move and, I would say, made it sound as though it were a positive and a likely scenario.

Second, while you may know Mr. Perryman, I would also think thatyou wouldn't defend that report knowing that it does not account for any visitors coming INTO Texas from other states, which spend more money than Ags visiting waco or the 800 (!!) Bears set to go to College Station this year.

And yes, all of my assertions are based on my newly discovered hatred for all things Baylor and Ken Starr. Not nearly as influenced by message boards but rather by a visceral contempt for the actions of a group of people that can't own up to the fact that those actions are not about "tradition" or "for Texas" but rather saving their own ass when it comes to money and stature.
 

@DDA:

What if it is a Texas tradition to save your "own ass when it comes to money and stature?"

If that were the case, their actions would absolutely be about "traditions" and "for Texas." Would you then feel some love for Baylor and Ken Starr?
 

Interesting premise Anon, but I think it's a bit of a catch 22. You see, while it may very well be a Texas tradition to look out for #1, it's not actually meant to benfit the others in Texas.

In either case I would be okay with it. I just need Ken Starr to come out and say "yes, we are greedy too, and are doing this so that you too may be greedy in the future! Pro Texana!"
 

that was me by the way