Texas AD says it's not disloyal to Big 12 to listen to expansion talks

[Nexus]

Texas athletic director DeLoss Dodds doesn’t figure Missouri and Nebraska are being disloyal to the Big 12 Conference for considering possible options with the Big Ten. Texas will listen to the same sort of offers that come its way in this emerging era of possible realignment in major college conferences.
“We did not start this,” Dodds told The Kansas City Star in response to questions put to him Tuesday afternoon in the lobby of the InterContinental Hotel on the Plaza. “If we need to finish it, we’ll finish it. We’re going to be a player in whatever happens.”

Asked directly about criticism of Missouri and Nebraska within the Big 12, Dodds denied either school was being disloyal.

“Everybody stays ready,” said Dodds, the head of the Big 12‘s most successful and powerful athletic program. “Everybody figures out what’s best for them and get options."

That includes Texas, Dodds said.

“We’re watching what’s happening with the Big Ten, probably to a lesser degree to the Southeast Conference,” Dodds said. “If the landscape is going to change, we’re going to be a part of it and be a viable part of it. Texas will come out of it in good shape.”

Dodds said several times, just before going into meetings with the other Big 12 athletic directors, that he wanted the Big 12 Conference to remain a viable entity, that the league had been good for Texas and that Texas had been good for the league.

He also said Big 12 Commissioner Dan Beebe was simply doing his job when he issued his who’s-on-the plane statement about trying to gain commitments - possibly at these meetings in Kansas City - on which schools planned to remain in the Big 12.

“He’s commissioner of the Big 12 and he’s being proactive and I like that,” Dodds said. “That’s what he’s paid to do. He’s paid to keep the conference together, keep it viable. Move it forward. I see him doing those things and I like that.

“But when there’s a lot of moving parts and people are talking and we’re not privy to some of the conversations,” Dodds said, “you have to put things up there to where you’re ready to do something if you have to do something.”

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[knapplc]

Well, he's right about the fact that Texas will come out on top of whatever happens. Texas is way too valuable of a commodity to be left in the lurch if conferences shuffle around. They'll land on their feet, and so will Oklahoma.

There are teams out there that are, for lack of a better term, branded. Nebraska, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Michigan, Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Penn State, USC, Georgia, LSU, Oregon, blah, blah, blah. None of these schools are going to be outside looking in when all's said and done.

 

[RedNeckHusker]

Well, he's right about the fact that Texas will come out on top of whatever happens. Texas is way too valuable of a commodity to be left in the lurch if conferences shuffle around. They'll land on their feet, and so will Oklahoma.

There are teams out there that are, for lack of a better term, branded. Nebraska, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Michigan, Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Penn State, USC, Georgia, LSU, Oregon, blah, blah, blah. None of these schools are going to be outside looking in when all's said and done.

I agree and I wonder sometimes if we don't ultimately end up with an NFL-style league with all of the big boys set up in different divisions, etc.

I'm an old fart so I don't like that idea that much. If I want to watch the NFL I'll just get home from church real early.

I kind of enjoy watching the Ball States of the world take on the big boys - that's a big part of college football and I wonder if we are moving away from that and into the land of corporate sports. Probably have anyway and I'm just in denial - these last shufflings might be the final nails.