Do you miss the Big 12?

[Kiyoat Husker]

The other question I have for the guy with all the stats..... we knew all these things about the Big 12 from the beginning.... why did we join and why did we stay so long?

https://www.si.com/college-football/2016/08/16/big-12-expansion-oral-history-big-8-swc-merger

There were a lot of forces at play in the B8/SWC merger.  This article is a great one if you have the time.

Basically, after the NCAA was told by federal courts (1986) that individual schools could negotiate their own TV contracts, that changed everything.  Schools found that by pooling conference  TV rights, they could gain bigger TV contracts.  Small-footprint and small-market conferences, like the SWC (Texas only) and Big 8 (small markets) were vulnerable.

Also, remember that Nebraska didn't enter this merger willingly.  We were out-voted.  As much as we pine for the old Big 8, it probably would not have survived anyway.  At least we were able to have the dominating '90s.  Hard to regret anything that led to that.

 

[Mierin]

For me it was never the ruling, it's the feeling (maybe fact) that had the roles been reversed the play would've never been reviewed.  Also, I believe the review of that play was outside the bounds of what was reviewable by the Big 12 at that time, although it's been so long I can't remember if that was true or not at this point.

I don't necessarily disagree with the first sentence, but I still think it's a bad look when people complain about it. I want the right thing to happen. They had time left, so it was right that they had another place.

If that hadn't happen we would've heard forever that they still had 1 sec left and were screwed.