From Big 12 to Sweet 16? Pod Squad?
Published: 9/29/2011 3:34 PM
Last Modified: 9/29/2011 3:34 PM
Online reports have surfaced today placing BYU, West Virginia, Cincinnati, Louisville and TCU in the Big 12. Like it's a done deal.
OK, then. The Big 14 it is.
Not buying it. Not quite selling it yet, because there are obvious things this league can’t agree on. Forget consensus, they can’t even come up with a “plurality,” interim commissioner Chuck Neinas says.
But I do think the Big 12 won’t cast such a wide net whenever it does expand.
Still, let’s have some fun.
If the Big 12 welcomed all the schools I mentioned, what would those divisions look like?
Start with the obvious.
Keep Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas Tech and Baylor together. Keep West Virginia, Cincinnati and Louisville together.
Keep Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State and Missouri together.
Goegraphically, TCU fits in Texas. Duh. But the Longhorns, already reluctant to let in the Horned Frogs in the first place, probably would bristle big-time at having TCU in the same division.
Let’s do this the easy way. The South is well stocked. But sticking TCU in the North is ridiculous. Too bad, Texas. You can’t have everything.
So that’s six in the South.
And if there’s a South, then there has to be a North.
KU, KSU, ISU, Mizzou, West Virginia, Cincinnati and Louisville make up the North.
BYU, then, becomes the South’s seventh team.
Geographically, it works. Sort of. All the states, except Utah, are somehow bordering another. (That gap out west could be fixed by bringing in Air Force instead of TCU — which, hey, might make Bevo happy after all.)
Could even call it an East-West instead of North-South. Or get creative (stupid, some might say) and come up with something unique and confusing — like Legends and Leaders, for instance. Oh, never mind. Seems that bit of brilliance has been taken.
Theologically speaking, do BYU, TCU and Baylor all fit in the same division? I’d have to ask our religion writer on that one.
Or how about this: the Big 12 brings in Air Force and TCU . . . and Houston! It’s the Big 16! And they play Pods, or Quads, or Four-Square, or whatever! Beat those other fink conference commissioners to the punch! (That’s what some Big 12 presidents call them, anyway.)
So while we’re riffing (that means I’m not really thinking this through; I’m just going off the tips of my fingers, so save the angry letters and phone calls), here’s mine:
East Pod: West Virginia, Cincinnati, Louisville, Iowa State.
West Pod: BYU, Air Force, Texas Tech, TCU.
Central Pod: OSU, Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri.
South Pod: Oklahoma, Texas, Houston, Baylor.
Give one school a permanent rival from another pod to create/preserve rivalries. OU-OSU, Texas-Texas Tech, Baylor-TCU, for example (some would seem like a stretch at first, but we’d get used to it), and play teams from the other pods either for two successive years or on a three-year rotating basis (say, OU at Kansas in 2012, then the Jayhawks come to Norman in 2015). OU-West Virginia or Texas-BYU every year could be pretty fun.
Not ideal, I know. But neither is clinging to each other like flotsam while sharks from other conferences pick off your buddies one at a time until the whole group sinks.
— John E. Hoover
Written by
John E. Hoover
Sports Columnist
