Watching conference realignment from the confines of the East Coast . . . Yes, the East Coast, where the food chain looks like a Ponzi scheme. The East Coast, where it is dog eat dog. The East Coast, where if you stick your head up and posture, you wind up with an arrow in your neck. The East Coast makes the invented planet where the movie Avatar took place look like a place where the most aggressive creature is the lichen growing on rocks. On the East Coast, the game is played like this . . . "Big12, thinking about adding Pitt? Okay, while you sit around and discuss that, we’ll go ahead and add them. Who else are you interested in?"
That’s where I live.
Argue about what happens between the hash marks all you want, the East Coast is an evolved creature in the board room. From this perspective, I have been amused, bemused, and tickled over the primitive posturing going on out west. It’s like watching two toothless, clawless neon pink amoebas lean on each other in some sort of primitive death match. I’m not wondering who is going to win; I’m wondering when they are both going to go extinct.
Here is my advice . . . hey, Texas . . . you are the fittest; leave your primal brothers to their couches to discuss how all this "makes them feel" and move into the Big City. You have outgrown your sandbox.
The Pac 10/12 made a play for you 16 months ago and wound up stuck with Colorado and Utah . . . but I suppose it worked partially . . . they didn’t get stuck with Baylor.
A&M wants to take their ball and go home. Okay. It’s a Nerf anyway…
Mizzou says . . . "we have an offer to join the SEC too!" Crickets chirp.
Oklahoma says they are going to the Pac12 even without Texas . . . Proooobably should have checked on that before trying to throw your weight around.
It’s hard to push when you are pulling at the same time (that is, pulling OSU along with them). Oklahoma has a small enough TV market as it is; I’m sure the Pac12 wanted it twice without getting Texas in the mix. The about face occurs when Oklahoma realizes nobody wants them (I submit Texas knew this all along). So, Oklahoma returns to the room announcing, "we’ll stay, but some things around here are gonna change!"
Sure they will. Now sit back down.
What prompted this post? It wasn’t the Pac12 commissioner’s comments which, yes, were directed at Texas and its unwillingness to part with the revenue it is solely responsible for creating (that is, TLN). It’s the Twitter-Buzz and the articles which are treating the comment like it is a weapon of mass destruction against Texas. Like, because the Pac12 commissioner has suggested Texas wasn’t willing to share what is clearly theirs, it will cause Texas to do so now.
Pleeeezzz.
Like Texas cares…. It is getting exactly what it wanted all along. That comment is like the arrow shot at Godzilla’s back. Sure, it was intended to inflict damage, but we all know it doesn’t. Even to say Texas is probably indifferent to it may give the arrow too much credit. Meanwhile, the Great White Shark (Texas) and its little pilot fish (Baylor) swim on, headed exactly where they want to go.