College football & basketball--the revenue sugar daddies for athletic departments--have never in the history of EVER been more popular. March Madness & the flawed-but-fixable BCS games have put both enthusiastic exclamation points and bigger paydays at the end of those seasons. And yet, here you have one clueless Dean Wormer after another lining up to fix college sports? What's Latin for WTF?
There are presidents who were allegedly oblivious to major scandals in major sports at USC, Ohio State, Miami, North Carolina, and Tennessee, among others. (And we won't even get into the Larry Summers no-confidence debacle at Harvard and his conflicts of interest afterwards in the Obama Administration). And now these same geniuses who nodded off want to start "Super Conferences?" All for the love--no, lust--of money. Nothing else. Nice bunch of narcoleptics running these institutions of advanced learnin'.
Let's review: Nebraska--which had already blown off its annual rivalry with Oklahoma years ago--decides to bolt for the Big 10 and the excitement of Minnesota and Northwestern. Then Texas snags a big ol' TV network deal of their own, leaving Oklahoma and Texas A&M to yell "Eff you, we gone!" So the SEC and PAC-12 line up like capped-teeth boys on The Bachelorette, with all the same insincerity and false bravado. If all goes wrong, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and maybe even Texas join the PAC-12. And Texas A&M bolts for the SEC.
None of that is good for college sports, but A&M in the SEC? (Psssst--good ol' boys running the NFL & NBA farm clubs. DON'T mess with Texas. The schools/programs you really want are already in your back yards...)
Seeing as it's the Southeastern Conference, and you have ACC schools Georgia Tech and Florida State--conveniently located IN the southeast--who (a) have both won national championships in football since 1990 and (b) have killer SEC rivals built-in, with Georgia and Florida, wouldn't it make infinitely more sense to invite one or both? Tech has won four national championships, the last being a shared #1 with Colorado in 1990. Florida State has won two titles, in 1993 and 1999. A&M? One national championship, in 1939, before facemasks.
You want more tradition? The Heisman Trophy was named after a Georgia Tech coach, John Heisman. The Ramblin' Wreck. The Noles. The Allman Brothers recorded "Hot 'Lanta." Tyler and Aerosmith screamed "Take me back to a south Tallahassee" on "Rocks." College Station? Aggies? Meh.
They're asking "Why Pink Floyd?" in music circles lately. Well, why A & M?
Texas, A&M and a few others in the Big 12 were in a previous conference called "The Southwest Conference." Why? Because they're all permanently located IN THE SOUTHWEST! Not near the Pacific, not in Dixie, not by the Atlantic coast. The. Southwest. Period.
The things that make college sports special in the first place are rivalries and tradition. And tradition evolves from long-standing conferences. Example: My Western Kentucky Hilltoppers abandoned the Ohio Valley Conference for the Sun Belt. And since going 1-A in football, we no longer can play long-time rivals Murray State and Eastern Kentucky, which always packed the house. Instead, we're supposed to get all goosebumpy over Louisiana Laff-at-it or North Texas playing the 'Toppers. Double meh.
That said, it's still good for Western to be in big-time football. Only now it's all on the verge of becoming too large--so gordito that traditions and annual rivalry games may get pushed aside for the sake of dough. I have a theory that a few "Stupor Conferences" will form, then eventually splinter back into more traditional, fan-friendly ones after realizing the mess they've made and the fans they lost.
And how does college football blow off its fans? Kill the rivalries, add more uninteresting matchups and--especially--start charging more. The latter will start happening first as YOU (and me) soon will begin footing the changes via cable & satellite bills going up year after year, in addition to increased ticket prices. For this, we can thank any the bow-tied type running the U near you.
"The more money you throw at something, the more it gets ruined." Not sure who said it, but I'm pretty certain it wasn't a college president.
(And BTW, I like Maryland's unis. But WKU's new ones are the mack.)
