Thunderstorms, some heavy during the morning hours, then skies turning partly cloudy during the afternoon. High around 85F. Winds SSE at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 100%. 1 to 2 inches of rain expected..
Tonight
A few clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 68F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph.
Two years ago, as I was headed to Minnesota for a week of summer vacation, news started breaking that Oklahoma and Texas were leaving the Big 12. I was barraged with phone calls and texts, including from Jon Wefald. As one of the architects of the conference, it had to be a painful moment for him; it looked like that conference was about to collapse, leaving K-State dangling.
Even then he was saying that the Big 12 should merge with the Pac-12, that the Pac-12 was weak, and that a merger would benefit everybody. He’d been saying that for years.
The Big 12 actually made that pitch, but the Pac-12 rebuffed it on the grounds that its members’ academic standing was too high to rub elbows with the likes of K-State, Oklahoma State or Texas Tech.
It’s astonishing, but even at that moment. Wefald was right. I thought he was sort of yammering on pointlessly. But he had it pegged. The Pac-12 was weak, for one pretty obvious reason: People out west just don’t care that much about football. And even if they do, their games are on TV so late that the rest of the country doesn’t care much about them. That’s part of why USC and UCLA decided to leave, about a year ago, to the greener pastures of the Big 10. Oregon and Washington followed. Better TV deal.
So now, because their TV prospects got even more wobbly, Colorado bolted back to the Big 12. That started a cascade that now includes Arizona, Arizona State and Utah. So the Big 12 has now added the Denver, Phoenix and Salt Lake media markets. And the Pac 12? Well, Stanford and Cal can certainly brag about their academics. But conferences are athletic leagues; they have nothing to do with academics. So…well, I assume they’ll find another home, but they all missed their chance to line up with the Big 12 – and a Big 12 with OU and Texas, I’d bet.
The real losers at the moment appear to be Oregon State and Washington State, the home of former K-State President Kirk Schulz. He’s right when he recently told ESPN: “College athletics is at its worst with this realignment stuff.” It’s ugly business.
Gonna work out OK at the moment for us here in Manhappiness, what with a 1/8th share of the $100 million exit fee OU and Texas will have to cough up, and with the ongoing revenue of much stronger TV deals for the forseeable future.
Times change. President Wefald is gone now. But he seems smarter than ever, particularly, I would imagine, if you’re Kirk Schulz.
