It's not hard to run across a column or blog post this morning, discussing the winners and losers of the Big 12's survival.  Guess what: Missouri's a huge loser!  They were Korean opportunists! They begged and pleaded for the Big Ten to take them!  They were embarrassed!  LOL!

I thought about directly challenging somebody, anybody, to find a quote from an actual Mizzou decision maker in which they did anything other than say "We're proud members of the Big 12," not from the last week, but from the last six months.  Did they complain about conference inequality?  Sure.  Did they complain about the Big 12's horrendous TV contract?  Absolutely.  But guess what: the Big 12 has terrible inequality and had a horrendous TV contract.  If you're stating a fact with which nobody disagrees, while still claiming total allegiance to the Big 12, then I'm not sure how that's batting your eyes at the Big Ten.

Trust me, I could go on as long a rant as anybody about the current perceptions of Mizzou and how ridiculous and unfair it all is.  I could also go on a rant about how this supposed "tier" system is a complete and total embarrassment for everybody involved.  (In fact, I might still end up ranting about the latter. It's that bad.)

Instead, I'm going to point something out.  In the last five years, in a conference built around inequality, while making infinitely less money from television than their counterparts in the Big Ten and SEC, Missouri has won big at football, basketball, softball, baseball, wrestling, and volleyball.  They had a former track star almost win gold at the Olympics.  They had a golfer qualify for the Masters and US Open.  They upgraded their football, basketball, baseball and swimming/diving facilities to some of the best in the country.  They've made home run hire after home run hire after home run hire through the years, and despite the comparative lack of money, they've kept all of those hires too.

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Thought about what you said to me the other day, about my painting. Stayed up half the night thinking about it. Something occurred to me... fell into a deep peaceful sleep, and haven't thought about you since.

-- yes, I just quoted Good Will Hunting

Yesterday, 60% of Rock M readers responded to a poll by saying that they were in favor of keeping the band Big 12 together, because the fear of the alternative was pretty jarring.  Now that it appears to have happened, the reaction from Mizzou fans is ... less than enthusiastic.  Why is that?  Pretty easy, really.

Yep, quite easy.

Source: Texas making good faith effort for Big 12

...

Texas Tech and Oklahoma State would be in a position to offering a lifeline to Missouri, which started all this mess by openly flirting with the Big Ten. Even the Missouri governor. dismissed Tech and Oklahoma State as academic institutions while pining for schools like Wisconsin.

The official storyline does seem to be settling in pretty well -- Mizzou begged and pleaded for Big Ten inclusion, got turned down, and was going to end up in the Mountain West or Conference USA until the South schools, particularly Texas, saved them by keeping the Big 12 together.  It doesn't matter that there is no evidence that Mike Alden, Brady Deaton, or Gary Forsee actually said or did anything akin to "begging or pleading"; this is the story we apparently have to get used to.

This was driving me crazy earlier this afternoon.  If conferences were all expanding to 16 teams, then Mizzou still had a very good chance at landing in one of them.  All hope was not lost.  And now, with the rumored deal ready to roll, Missouri still gets to deal with the revenue inequality that one doesn't have to deal with in more stable conferences like the Big Ten or SEC.  Frustrating, to say the least.

But now that I've had some time to wind down and detach from the situation, I think there are three things that Mizzou fans needs to keep in mind about today's developments.

1. This is still a pretty good deal. 

Despite the unequal revenue sharing, Mizzou now looks to make between about $6 million and $10 million more per year than they currently do.  If they don't pull down what the average SEC program does, it's close.  Now they can pay their basketball coach and continue to upgrade their facilities and overall athletic program, and when the Big 12-Or-So falls apart in a few years -- and it almost certainly will -- Mizzou will be that much more attractive to potential suitors.  This is the healthiest way to look at this.

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UPDATE, 2:02pm: POLL ADDED.

I'm not going to dive into this too much because ... well, it comes from Chip Brown, who has been right AND wrong more often than everybody else in the last two weeks.  That said, this is interesting.

Three different sources at Big 12 South schools being targeted by the Pac-10 told Orangebloods.com Sunday morning that Dan Beebe's attempts to secure a new TV deal on par with the SEC's $17 million/school payout for the 10 remaining schools in the Big 12 is in play.

If somehow Beebe really does have something lined up that can raise revenue that much ... well, then things get interesting.  Clearly there is a draw for Texas to keep the Big 12 together -- they can rule over it, and they don't have to risk going to another conference (Pac-16, for instance) and losing their clout.  Plus...

Individal [sic] institutions would be allowed to pursue their own networks, which has been a goal of Texas. If the Longhorns went to the Pac-10, they would have to forgo their own distribution platforms, including a network, because the Pac-16 would seek to have a conference network in which all inventory is shared.

(Consultants have put Texas' ability to generate revenue from its own network at between $3 million and $5 million after a start-up window of about three years.)

Obviously, only Texas could probably make a viable "network" of sorts, but this would likely allow the other schools to make sure every game is televised at least locally, which is a decent fallback.

The Big 12 would proceed with 10 teams. Everyone would play everyone in football, providing a nine-game conference schedule. And the option to save or dump the conference championship game would be determined by the institutions.

Like I've been saying, the Big 12's goal has to be to outlive the Big East.  If they can do that, then some really interesting teams become available, and just by surviving, the Big 12 might actually be able to eventually expand to 16.

This doesn't qualify as a true breakthrough yet, because it will require A&M to pass on the SEC's advances and everybody else to pass on the Pac-16 concept.  Both of those are obviously very appealing.  But if the money satisfies everybody, and the thought of further control and their own network satisfies Texas, then it becomes a viable alternative.

In other words...

Big 12

First things first: no, Kansas and Missouri have not been offered by the Mountain West.  No, tonight's curators meeting isn't about considering a Mountain West offer.  Reading comprehension is a good thing.  Yes, Mizzou and Kansas could end up in the Mountain West, but we are weeks or months away from that scenario coming to fruition.

Really, not a ton went on yesterday in the world of conference realignment -- just some commissioner visits and rumors. But I think we can say that the odds seemed to shift for at least a couple of the conferences on Mizzou's list of possibilities.

Big 12

Reading Material:
-- Tulsa World: Pac-10 commissioner visiting OU, OSU, Texas, Texas Tech and Texas A&M this weekend
-- SI.com (Andy Staples): Reading into Oklahoma's meeting with Pac-10
-- Burnt Orange Nation: What Is Texas A&M Thinking?
-- Team Speed Kills: Texas A&M to the SEC Goes Mainstream
-- Dr. Saturday: SEC bid divides A&M, heightens prospects of Aggie-Longhorn split
-- College Football Talk: SEC realizes 'Horns, Sooners likely a pipedream
-- Daily Oklahoman: Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scott meets with OU, OSU officials
-- Daily Oklahoman (That Fruity Guy): There's no saving the Big 12
-- Daily Oklahoman: Expenses and revenues for potential Pac-10/Big 12 merged superconference
-- Mountain West Connection: Utah to Pac-10 Monday?
-- KC Star: Officials from five Big 12 schools confer by phone on conference's future

Yes, the Big 12 could still survive.  Technically A&M's AD said that he would still like to keep the conference together, and we've read that sentiment being expressed by most of the conference's teams at some point in the last couple of days.  But ... pretend you are Texas A&M for a second.  Right now you are being wooed by the Pac-10 (soon to be Pac-16) and potentially the SEC.  If saving the Big 12 came down to your vote, do you honestly think you would choose to stay in the Big 12 or go off to the land of either the country's first mega-conference (maintaining your true, long-term rivalries) ... or heading to the strongest conference in college football?  You're probably going to leave.  And while everybody is saying the right things (sometimes), with each day that passes, the Big 12's hopes of survival dim.  Until it dies, it is still a possibility for Mizzou's future ... but it might not be a possibility for more than another day or two.

(And if you really want to know why the Big 12 can't survive, the esteemed Senator Blutarsky has the answer.)

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I told a buddy of mine last night that, to follow up on what I said about Twitter being the "Internet of the Internet" a couple of days ago, that we saw all the best and the worst of the Internet over the past few days.  When news is breaking quickly, like it did on Thursday, the Internet is amazing.  I mean, we caught everything in real time.  Something happened, and we knew about it within about 45 seconds.  And with everything that happened on Thursday -- Colorado, USC, Masoli, etc. -- it was just a whirlwind.

Wednesday and Friday, however, it was a debacle.  Why?  Because the narrative now moves at 115 miles per hour, even when nothing is really happening.  When we woke up yesterday morning, we knew one thing was likely to happen: Nebraska was going to agree to join the Big Ten.  At the end of the day, Mizzou fans and others were dizzy with dismay and dread because ... Nebraska agreed to join the Big Ten.  That's really it.  There were a few small surprises -- 1) Boise State joined the Mountain West after all, 2) NU announced that they would be leaving after one year, not two (meaning their last trip to Faurot Field was their last ... which is depressing in so many different ways), and 3) NU stuck a shiv into Mizzou's ribcage on the way out the door with the "Well, we didn't want to leave, but Mizzou said nice things about the Big Ten a couple times, so we were forced to leave," nonsense.

But nothing happened that changed the overall plot line, and yet it felt like things were falling apart.

(By the way, I don't at all blame Nebraska for leaving for the Big Ten.  They agreed to make the jump for all the reasons that Mizzou would have almost certainly accepted an offer.  But using Mizzou as part of an excuse, for both leaving and ludicrously attempting to avoid paying the early-departure fee because they were "forced out" is absolutely bush league, and I expected much better than that from Tom Osborne and company.)

So where do things stand right now?  Around the same place they stood this time yesterday.  I said in my last post that I'm done making predictions -- I'm sticking by that, but I can at least drop some hints as to whether I feel options are more or less likely than they were yesterday.  I'm adding an option here just because of a story that came out yesterday, but I'm not pretending it's very likely.

Big Ten

It's odd to say it, but I don't feel any different about Mizzou's chances getting into the Big Ten than I did yesterday, and for two main reasons:

1) I didn't read anything whatsoever into Beebe's "My understanding is there isn't any other conference institution being considered by the Big Ten" comment, and I would hope that you do not either.  For those who did not think Mizzou was going to get in anyway, this clearly reaffirmed their viewpoint, and that's fine -- they might eventually be proven right.  But whatever Delaney said to Beebe was a formality.  A month or two ago, he told Beebe he wasn't looking at any Big 12 team ... and yet, Nebraska still made the move.  No matter how you feel about Mizzou's chances, good or bad, Beebe's comment last night should not have had any impact on you.

2) I didn't feel amazingly strong about Mizzou's chances yesterday.

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The chaos of realignment that has unfolded over the last few days is probably rather enjoyable and amazing to watch if you don't have a dog in the hunt.  But Missouri fans do, so enjoyment really isn't an option.  Mizzou is about to undergo its largest identity change since they helped to form what would eventually be known as the Missouri Valley over 100 years ago.  And with options seemingly breaking down to 1) Big Ten euphoria and 2) hell, it has set nerves justifiably on edge.

But what we've started to see over the last 24 hours or so is that things are not nearly that simple.  There are still many possibilities for where Mizzou ends up -- it's not simply the Big Ten or, as I've been saying recently, the Great Plains Division of the Mountain West.  Let's explore what appear to be all of the options, from the realistic ones to the ... not as realistic ones.  I was going to assign odds to each of these scenarios, but I'll let you do that.  I'm done making predictions.

Big Ten

Depending on who you talk to, Mizzou is either as much of a sure thing as Nebraska (it has just been played close to the vest), Mizzou is on the borderline and might make it in, or Mizzou has no chance on God's green earth.  We all know the draws of Big Ten membership to Mizzou -- no need to go into it again -- but what we still don't know is the draws of Mizzou to the Big Ten.  And it's sounding more and more like we won't know about that for a while.  For that reason alone, and the fact that so many other factors could come into play (Texas, Notre Dame, other conferences' moves, etc.), you simply cannot rate Mizzou's chances for getting into the Big Ten very high.

One of my goals here is to envision what a sample schedule would look like for each of these options, so even though I just played down the odds, let's go ahead and look at what sample schedules might look like in, say, 2012 and 2015 (spaced out so we get variety in the inter-division matchups), if Mizzou ends up in the Big Ten.  At this point, Nebraska is (presumably) in.  If Mizzou joins them, then Rutgers probably does too (right now, I have no reason to be supremely confident that Mizzou gets in over Rutgers).  That leaves two openings -- likely for either Texas and Texas A&M or for Notre Dame and ? (Maryland, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, etc., are all options).  Or, technically, for Texas and Notre Dame (if A&M goes to the SEC).

Just for brevity, we'll avoid the Texas-ND option below (just replace ATM with ND, and there you go) and focus on what 8-team divisions would look like in each of the two main scenarios.

With Texas & Texas A&M ...

So assuming nine-game conference schedules (which might not be an accurate assumption to make -- I've heard plenty about keeping it at eight even though that means you barely ever play inter-division rivals), that would mean that two example schedules in Mizzou's future might  look like this:

A Big Ten that includes Texas and Texas A&M would be absolutely insane from a money standpoint.  Which is good because ... look at that schedule.  Missouri now plays Texas every year, likely splits home/road with Nebraska and Iowa (meaning, they're playing one at home, one on the road each year), splits home/road with Wisconsin and Minnesota, etc.  Plus, they get either Ohio State or Penn State for four of every eight years.  You want big-time opponents?  This schedule's for you.  (You want conference title game appearances?  Not so much.)

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I hinted in today's links that I wanted to expand a bit on one of the links provided.  The Dallas Morning News' Kate Hairopoulos uncovered a DMN article from 1994 discussing the SWC's ongoing breakdown and possible realignment scenarios.  It really is fascinating.

By any scenario, SWC unlikely to survive
Randy Galloway
Publication Date: February 21, 1994

Within the next few days, it may simply die. Dead and gone after nearly 80 years.

Or it could be granted a stay of execution, but that would be strictly temporary, and only prolong the inevitable.

Or - and be advised to stay tuned on this last option - what happens next might involve a nuclear attack of political and financial warheads. Only the strong will be left standing. Nobody else gets out alive.

Nuclear attack of political and financial warheads.  Sounds rather familiar.

[B]usiness is business. And the cold-blooded question of the moment is this:

Do the University of Texas and Texas A&M owe it to the state's heritage, or to Austin politicians, to preserve and protect the other six SWC members?

And if not six, how about Texas and A&M looking out for the best interest of say, well, two other members?

My answer is "no" on both counts.

Well ... mostly no.  Two of the remaining six were salvaged.

But first, as we enter what should be a critical week for all eight SWC members, let's review how the scoreboard currently reads.

To begin with, the recent demise of the College Football Association means the Southwest Conference has no TV contract beyond 1995. That alone tells us the SWC is sitting in a boat that won't float.

But there are two different television proposals - from a combination of ABC and ESPN - being offered the SWC, and both come in conjunction with that once unfriendly neighbor from up north, the Big Eight Conference.

In one deal, there would be an alliance with the Big Eight, meaning the SWC stays fully intact, at least for now. This is a temporary thing, however. It brings instant TV money, but officials at Texas and A&M will tell you it's like slapping a Band-Aid on a bazooka wound. It doesn't stop their bleeding.

Meanwhile, TCU, SMU, Houston and Rice are praying for the alliance. It buys them more time. As the conference schools with the least to offer, overall, they need time to sell themselves.

Just like the Big 12 / Pac-10 TV alliance.

What those four don't want is what's behind Door No. 2. The second proposal with the Big Eight is a merger, and with this a blackballing would take place.

The inside word from Big Eight country is if that conference is going to restructure and lose its identity, it wants to call the shots on a 12-team league.

It would start with Texas and A&M, obviously. It would include Texas Tech, and then, from the troubled Western Athletic Conference (which also has been shut out of TV money), Brigham Young is eager to jump. And is wanted.

Baylor then would be cold-shouldered. But a second version of the merger has Baylor included in the mix, meaning either a 13-team conference or the addition of another school to make it 14, resulting in two seven-team divisions.

In the protect thy own butt process, Texas Tech and Baylor officials want the merger, like right now.

I almost missed the BYU mention because I was too busy wiping the tears from my eyes, laughing at the "Big Eight wants to call the shots" piece.

Sources say it could have happened last week. But, and here we go, Texas, for sure, and maybe Texas A&M, threw out an anchor. They say they still are studying all options, and for them, a Big Eight merger might not be best. Might not.

What if both thought they would be better suited in a "southern division" of the Pac-10 with Arizona, Arizona State, UCLA and USC? What if Colorado jumped the Big Eight and also went to the Pac-10 and that southern division? Texas is known to be a favorite of the Pac-10, and there are Austin whispers about Longhorn honchos also talking up A&M with that conference. Both schools have the high academic standards sought by the Pac-10.

The more things change...

You also hear that Texas Tech made Pac-10 overtures on its own, but found zero interest.

Well ... yeah.

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"'Rome is burning,' he said as he poured himself another drink."  – Californication

The world watches as the Big 12 continues its hellbent path to self-immolation. As has been noted on numerous previous occasions, the public sentiment about formalities, attitudes, and blame have all shifted dramatically in the past few months and especially in the past week. But as the college football landscape awaits its rebirth from the presumed ashes of the smoldering Big 12, it's important that we note that neither  Missouri, nor Nebraska, nor Texas shoulder the blame. And, it is the truth behind that fact that inspired me to create this musical tribute to the absurdity of Big 12 football's brief history after the jump.

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