TSipper

Ty. For the record, I will never argue that Texas is innocent of all charges or that some of the issues that Nebraska and others had against Texas specifically weren't reasonable. Moving the football game permanently to JerryWorld would be an issue for Nebraska as that's a drive. The flipside of that is that the money Jerry paid for the game combined with the large number of people who could see it, offset the issue in terms of conference payout. But again, if you're a Nebraska fan having to drive 8 hours and incur hotel costs, etc. I can see where that would be an issue, especially since everything seemed just fine when the game was played in KC or St. Louis. Ending the OU-Neb game was the single worst decision the conference ever made. For Nebraska fans to forever hold that grudge against the conference, I perfectly understand. Why that decision got made and/or was responsible ultimately, I do not know. But no rationale argument can be made that it didn't forever hurt the conference. Crown jewels programs can't quit a crown jewel rivalry and Neb-OU is/was a crown jewel game. Moving the basketball tournament...heh, I just don't care! Probably not a good idea as KC was perfect for it. But we were trying to grow basketball in the South and in fact, the Big 12 south did get really good albeit, never as good as Kansas. If this is a complaint that Nebraska had, I can't argue against you. But then again, I don't really think of Nebraska and basketball, so I wouldn't take this complaint that seriously either. I always thought the world of the Texas-Nebraska games, I was in the stands in '99 in Austin (WOO HOO) and in the stands in '99 in San Antonio (Oh crap!). I really enjoyed our games, Nebraska baseball got really good in the early-2000s at the same time we did and that was outstanding as well. But above all, I understand why Nebraska left as the Big 10 payout is a massive step out both now and in the future. I do wonder if Nebraska misses recruiting Texas, but money is money. I also don't imagine Texas joining the Big 10, so barring a random bowl game, these type of conversations will be the only our two fan bases get to have both now and in the future.

Understand the economic dynamic going on with the Big 12. We had no conference network, we had already voted one down and we were being pulled in all areas. If you want to mention Texas specifically, you have to also remember that the same economic imbalance that Texas enjoyed, Nebraska did as well. In fact, when it was discussed at the 2010 meetings about splitting revenues equally, Nebraska took issue with that if only because they argued that deserved a larger share of the pie than Iowa State or Baylor. Under the originally agreed upon contract, Nebraska was right. But it wasn't until the Big 10 and the SEC swooped in with the siren song of equality that the Big 12 started yelling at each other. I always laughed at that because Texas and Nebraska made the same amount of money, we just both made more than Iowa State. Ultimately, Nebraska took the much more profitable Big 10 route. I applaud you for that decision. Again, it was Missouri flirting with the Big 10 that got the party started on the demise of the Big 12. About SMU, TCU, Houston, etc., the Southwest Conference was a noble idea in the 1940s, it was economically prohibitive in 1992. The same reason that the Big 8 needed Texas TV sets, is the same reason the Texas 4 needed 8 new conference members to bring in a large geographic footprint and fresh blood. The demise of the SWC was always going to happen, Arkansas just beat us to the punch with the move to the SEC. The biggest issue with a conference is a similar one to the country, you cannot have a conference with a membership that has more hands out than earners putting in. Case in point, the Big 10 has definitive welfare members. Minnesota, Indiana, Purdue, NW, Rutgers and Maryland are all welfare queens. They will never generate the revenue that an Ohio State, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Penn State will. But as long as those schools play their role, try and break even, stay out of trouble and win some basketball games, everybody is happen. SEC has Vanderbilt, South Carolina, Arkansas, Ole Miss and Miss State. Fewer welfare queens, but queens none the less. The schools need to be seen and not heard. The ACC and Pac-12 are FULL of welfare queens. The Big 12 has two earners and eight with their hands out. OU and Texas earn, the rest take. Well, we all know what's eventually going to happen to the Big 12.

The balance of power flipped because the North lost really good coaches as well. Osborne retired, McCartney retired, Neuheisal left and then Gary Barnett, who won a big 12, got run off by Boulder SJWs. Pinkle took forever to get Mizzou going and Bill Snyder couldn't quite get over the hump. Similarly, the Big South trades Spike Dykes, John Blake and John Mackovic for Mike Leach, Bob Stoops and Mack Brown. Again, one side got a lot worse in coaching while the other got a lot better. Nebraska's decision to go away from the an option based offense never really made sense to me but had Nebraska hired a coach like Chip Kelley, no reason to think he wouldn't have been as successful at Nebraska as he was at Oregon. So, this just in, hiring coaches matter. About the votes going against Nebraska, as I said previously, not everything the Big 12 did was the right decision, obviously. But getting rid of wholesale recruitment of partial qualifiers was always the right thing to do. That Tom Osborne was upset by that, I understand. But that was ultimately a losing battle for all conferences, Nebraska just lost that one much later than everybody else.

We were getting information that Tom Osborne was moving Heaven and Earth in Chicago to get Nebraska into the Big 10. But it wasn't until Mizzou balked at paying the conference fee to update the signage that Nebraska seized control. Mizzou hesitated, Nebraska wrote a check. Thus, Nebraska got the invite. Whatever the reason of cancelling the yearly game between OU-Nebraska, it was a massive mistake. The Big 12 lost a premier game and the conference couldn't afford to do that, we just didn't know it in 1996. The entire thing is about money. The Big 10 will play the title game in Indy, but the HQ will remain in Chicago. Why? Because Chicago is the 3rd largest city in America and the amount of money in that town is too large to ignore. Proximity drives relationships, relationships drove sponsorships and sponsorships drive revenue. Again, that's all that matters. Cut the crap. The Big 8 couldn't get a TV deal, regardless of how successful the conference was. After SEC expansion and Big 10 expansion, the Big 8 was getting left behind in TV revenue. They needed TV sets and guess which state in your time zone had TV sets? So, please, don't act like you did us a favor, we both did what we needed to get paid. Again, if you can't understand why it's better to a conference in Dallas than Kansas City, then you probably think it would be better for the Big 10 to be in Omaha instead of Chicago. Nebraska lost every single vote 11-1 during the formation of the conference. Texas didn't get all 11 votes, we only got 1. Maybe, JUST MAYBE, the other seven Big 8 members got tired of Nebraska and saw that the changes the conference wanted to make were the right ones? Obviously, we didn't get everything right or the conference would have survived. But again, let's not act like the entire demise of the Big 12 is due to the forces of evil in Austin. Nebraska benefitted dollar for dollar for every move that the conference made and then Nebraska got a better deal. I applaud the Huskers for it.

For the purposes of honest discussion, I am a Texas alum/fan, so when reading this, keep that in mind. My conference realignment prediction is as follows. I don't believe Texas will be able to join the Big 10 as I do not imagine a way that we are able to untangle ourselves from Texas Tech. To that point, I don't see how Oklahoma gets away from Ok State, but that's an Oklahoma government issue. So, it's my belief that Texas, Tech, OU and Ok State end up in the Pac-12 as a pod. To the thread at large: 1) Texas did not end the Southwest Conference. Arkansas legend Frank Broyles did that on a golf course in Alabama with SEC commission Harvey Schiller in 1988. http://m.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2003/12/20031208/Special-Report/Arkansas-Pleased-With-Decade-Old-Move-To-SEC.aspx The Southwest Conference, of which Arkansas had been a member since the league was founded in 1914, was in trouble. League attendance in football was down and a divide had formed between the league's large state schools and its smaller private schools. By the 1980s, it became apparent the league's problems weren't getting better, so Broyles got permission from his president to look elsewhere. "The [professional teams in Texas] changed it," Broyles said. "They started coming in in the early '60s and started taking away the entertainment dollar, newspaper space and the fans." Broyles recalls meeting then SEC Commissioner Harvey Schiller in Birmingham, Ala., in 1988 over a round of golf to tell him that if Arkansas were to receive an invitation from the SEC, it would accept immediately. "Doug Dickey [Tennessee's AD at the time] went there with me and we acted like we were there to talk about other issues," Broyles said. 2) Texas did not end the Big 12, an off hand comment by Jim Delaney did that. The moment Delaney mentioned conference expansion, Missouri threw up its skirt like a slut on prom night and begged to join. Missouri's desire to leave spooked both Colorado and Nebraska. Larry Scott of the Pac-10 seized the chance as he wanted a shiny, new TV deal as he was a shiny, new commissioner. Scott moved on Colorado and then put out the word that the Pac-10 was open for business. 3) To Nebraska's credit, Tom Osborne was a much better deal maker than Missouri's Mike Alden. Osborne saw a great opportunity for Nebraska and he seized it in the hopes of moving the Cornhuskers forward. Selfishly, I miss playing Nebraska and being in a conference with you and I wonder how much you miss a yearly game in Texas that Nebraska used for recruiting purposes. 4) Texas was ready to move to the Pac-10 with Colorado, OU, Ok State, Tech and A&M, but A&M nixed that deal. Thus, the Pac-10 move was killed. 5) Spring of 2011, the Longhorn Network was supposed to be a joint venture between Texas and A&M, but A&M didn't want to put the money into a venture it felt wouldn't pay off. When ESPN came back with a $300 million offer, A&M freaked, former Husker AD $Bill freaked, Bowtie Bowen freaked and most importantly, the A&M fanbase freaked. The SEC then came calling, A&M tucked tail and ran away, Missouri was still smarting from the Osborne spanking and they jumped at the SEC offer. 6) Right now, Texas is stuck in a dead conference that has zero sex appeal and no way to get away from Tech. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. About the Texas-Nebraska relationship in the Big 12. 1) I never understood why Nebraska was upset about moving the conference HQ to Dallas. Dallas buys and sells Kansas City, everybody reading this knows it, why not have your HQs in the city with the most money in your territory? SEC is dealing with that issue now as forces really want to move the HQ from Birmingham to Atlanta. Remains to be seen if it happens. 2) The conference title football games moved between North and South until 2009, when Jerryworld came on-line. Bottom line, having the game in that stadium yearly was worth significantly more money to the conference. Of course, that became academic after 2010 when the conference lost membership. 3) The decision to get rid of partial qualifiers hasn't been said accurately on this thread. Each athletic department was allowed to take 2 a year for men and women, they just couldn't take 2 football players and they couldn't take a football player in back to back years. That Nebraska was so against this was surprising as the vast majority of players that made up the 93-97 teams were full qualifiers that were fantastic players. Nebraska's downfall had more to do with HS offenses going away from ground based/option attacks that produced Tommie Frazier, Scott Frost and Eric Crouch. 4) The Big 12 made two huge mistakes, a) not maintaining the Neb-OU game as an annual game and b) turning down a conference network in 2009. Texas played no huge part in the ending of the OU-Neb game and the only school that said yes to the conference network was Colorado if I am not mistaken. Kudos to Boulder. 5) The biggest crime that Texas committed against Nebraska was consistently beating Nebraska and that's the truth of it.