Nebraska Denying Reports That They Are Heading To Big 10 At This Time

by Jeremy Mauss on Jun 9, 2010 9:09 PM PDT in Conference Expansion

Good thing I found this report regarding Nebraska denying the are heading to the Big 10, because I was in progress of writing about the future of the Mountain West and that will take at least a day off until some stuff settles down. The news earlier in the day was that Nebraska was for sure heading to the Big 10 which in return lead six Big XII teams -- being anchored by Texas -- going to the Pac-10 for a 16 team mega-conference.

While Nebraska is denying the report as of present time it does not mean the invite will come Friday. Here is the denial statement from the University:

"A report being circulated this afternoon among sports media stating that the University of Nebraska Board of Regents 'met informally' today and have 'agreed to move to the Big Ten' is not accurate. Members of the Board's executive committee met via conference call to discuss the agenda for Friday's meeting. Such meetings routinely take place prior to Board meetings. At its meeting on Friday, the Board will be briefed on UNL athletic conference alignment and consider a resolution. No action was taken during today's conference call, and none will be taken prior to Friday's meeting."

Then there is this from Nebraska's Board of Regent chairman Bob Phares who laid out some factual errors:

"First of all, there are several factual errors. No. 1, there's been no vote by the board at all. No. 2, as I understand it, there are no invitations that are extended. You decide if you wish to make an application and then they react to your application.

"And I heard that there were reports that Tom Osborne had advised all of his staff that it was a done deal. You can talk to Tom and see what his comment is. I would be immensely surprised if that was the case, because as I said there's been no vote by the board and no formal decision."

No vote has been taken yet, but they are meeting Friday so expect the move to be hopefully finally official, and then perhaps once something is official then something can be written about what the next move for the Mountain West will be.

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Comments

This stuff really needs to get sorted and soon if we’re going to be able to invite the castoffs for our BCS criteria.

by HawkeyedFrog on Jun 9, 2010 10:58 PM PDT reply actions

AGREED!

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by Jeremy Mauss on Jun 10, 2010 8:28 AM PDT up reply actions

That's an issue that I think no one's been talking about.

But I don’t think anyone realizes that the Big 12 has a rule where you must give 22 months notice before leaving the Big 12. Any Big 12 left overs we invite would simply not mean anything for the BCS. They would only be able to help for the next evaluation period from 2014-2017, I don’t want to wait that long. What I think we should do at this point to add good programs that will help us in our BCS quest is we add Boise St. (surprise, surprise), Missouri (will help us keep that BCS AQ once they get here, plus they are in a big media market), and Houston. Houston is expected to finish really strong this year, some polls have them in the top 25 to start the season and if they win at least 10 games, they will pretty much lock down that BCS Bid for us. If we want to go to 16, we also add KU, K-State, Fresno St. and UTEP/Nevada. Should be interesting. But the main point is that any Big 12 left overs we add can not help usin our BCS quest.

UNLV is going all the way this year!

by rebelfan1 on Jun 10, 2010 11:04 AM PDT up reply actions

I’ve been reading some of the Big 12 rules, and it seems that a majority of nine teams is needed to call for things like payouts upon leaving the conference and such. Since more than three schools are departing, it’s somewhat possible/plausible that the Big 12 dissolution could take place soon, perhaps after this season. Then would be possible to include Mizzou’s Big 12 North champion seasons and KU’s orange bowl season in with our criteria as well.

If we offer and secure commitments from KU, KSU and Mizzou(If they’re not picked)/Houston/Boise, worst case scenario we’re in a strong position to win our appeal.

by HawkeyedFrog on Jun 10, 2010 11:34 AM PDT up reply actions