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Thanks to RPT at Rock M Nation for the picture.

After an expected lull on the heels of the "Big 10 may expand!" announcement, talk of conference realignment has heated up once again.  It started on Tuesday, when the Pac-10 made it known that it will explore expansion.  Then, it continued when it was leaked that Texas has held preliminary discussions with the Big 10 regarding expansion.

When the news about the Pac-10 expansion hit the wire, Colorado fans predictably fell all over themselves to make it known that they would happily kill a few social conservatives for the chance to join the Pac-10.  The main reason, apparently, is that the alignment of tectonic plates underneath their state makes them vastly different from the rest of the Big 12 in some way other than altitude.

The reaction of Texas fans was a bit more mixed.  Some are just dying to move to the Big 10, while others don't see the benefit.  Now, some writers are even talking about the Pac-10 taking a look at Texas.  It's enough to make your head spin.

If you haven't already had enough of this issue, then click the jump for some discussion of my thoughts on both these schools, their options, and what it means for K-State and the rest of the Big 12.

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Last week, we discussed extensively Big 10 expansion, and what it could mean for the Big 12.  While any action by the Big 10 is probably at least a year away, and there's no certainty that they are even interested in poaching Missouri, we should waste no time getting together a contingency plan in case that happens.

In my first post last week, I discussed several schools that have been bandied around as possible replacements should Missouri leave.  In general, I dismissed each school as an inadequate replacement for what Mizzou brings to the table, especially in terms of TV markets.  Despite my thousands of words, a certain group of fans believes that Colorado State, TCU or Houston would be more than serviceable replacements.  Given the corporate cliche that if you're not a part of the solution, you're part of the problem, I decided I should dig a little deeper, get a little more creative, and offer up some real, concrete solutions for this conference.  Hit the jump to see my suggestions.

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The continuation and conclusion of our series examining the possible effects of Big 10 expansion on the Big 12.

In Part I of this post, we examined the possibility that Big 10 expansion could target a Big 12 school, specifically Missouri.  That post should have demonstrated that Missouri would consider a move to the Big 10, the Big 10 would be likely to consider Missouri, and that if Missouri left, the Big 12 would almost certainly end up a weaker conference.  Today, we'll discuss this topic further, and offer a few conclusions.

5.  Aren't we wasting our time discussing Missouri?  Won't the Big 10 take Notre Dame?

As mentioned in Part I, my outsider's opinion is that Notre Dame is probably the school coveted most by the Big 10.  It's been mentioned elsewhere, and I believe it's possible that the Big 10 is trying to force Notre Dame's hand.  The conference is basically telling Notre Dame that it's considering the addition of a twelfth school, and that if Notre Dame is not that twelfth school, it will never get another chance to join the Big 10.

Currently, NBC's TV contract with Notre Dame pays the school $15 million per year.  If Notre Dame could ever get eligible for a good bowl game again, any profit from the bowl payout would be Notre Dame's to keep, unlike in a conference where each bowl payout is pooled and shared by all conference members.  Remember also that Notre Dame receives $1.3 million each year from the BCS, whether it makes a BCS game or not, and would get $4.5 million if it could ever rebound to go 8-4, thereby guaranteeing itself a top-eight BCS ranking and, thus, a BCS bowl.  In other words, Notre Dame is guaranteed $16.3 million every year under its current arrangement, and could receive as much as $19.5 million per year if it made a BCS bowl.  That's not too far away from the payout Big 10 schools receive from the conference each year if it makes a BCS bowl.  Even if it doesn't, Notre Dame may place sufficient value on its independent status that an extra $5-6 million wouldn't be worth it.

The real question at this point is whether Notre Dame believes it can continue to garner such a TV contract.  In the article linked above, NBC claims it has no qualms about its deal with Notre Dame at this time.  Its ratings for Fighting Irish games are also competitive, though not outstanding, when compared with the rest of televised college football games.  Basically, if the Big 10 extends another invitation, and the Irish say no, they are gambling that they will improve in the near future, or that NBC will continue pouring money into South Bend.  As Dawg Sports' T Kyle King so eloquently put it, Notre Dame is likely in the throes of a manic episode, believing that Brian Kelly will lead them back to domination, so this might be a bad time for the Big 10 to ask.

As you can see, I think it's entirely possible that either Notre Dame turns down the Big 10, or the Big 10 is looking elsewhere.  Notwithstanding all that, the mere fact that Missouri could be interested were the Big 10 to look its way is sufficiently concerning for the Big 12 that it needs to be ready to deal with that possibility.

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This post will be the first in a two-part series discussing the ramifications of the recent talk that Missouri could move to the Big 10 in the not-too-distant future.

As you've no doubt heard, the Big 10 has announced that it will explore the possibility of adding a twelfth school in the next 12 to 18 months.  For a conference that clings to the past like dress pants to your leg on a dry winter day, this was big news.  For the rest of the college sports world, this is also big news, because Big 10 expansion would likely lead to a chain reaction with far-reaching effects.

If Notre Dame is interested this time after turning down the Big 10 in 1999, and if the Big 10 is over that little rejection, then it stands to reason that the Fighting Irish would be the most likely addition.  The Big 10 wanted ND before, and I doubt enough has changed that they wouldn't want them now.  We'll discuss the situation surrounding Notre Dame in Part II.

It's big news to the Big 12, too, because it has long been known that Missouri has more than a passing interest in the Big 10.  After it became known this week that the Big 10 was looking to expand, Mizzou officials released a statement saying they hadn't been contacted, but would consider the situation if they were.  It wasn't just Missouri officials who were discussing the possibility.  Several of SB Nation's Big 10 blogs hypothesized on who would be added, with most concluding that Missouri was most likely a candidate, and some others concluding that the Tigers make the most sense.

Given that Big 10 expansion could be the first domino to fall in a long chain, this raises a lot of questions for Missouri and the rest of the Big 12.  This post will be dedicated to discussing and trying to answer those questions.  For the sake of keeping these posts to manageable length, we're going to assume that the Big 10 is only going to add one school.  Also, we're going to limit the discussion as much as possible to the more measurable factors, like money and academic prestige, rather than amorphous concepts like "ties" and "nostalgia" and "fan sentiment."

And for those of you who are a little more uninformed about that conference that hugs the Great Lakes, the title "Big 10" is a misnomer, as the conference actually contains 11 teams; thus, adding one would get them to the magical 12 that would make divisional play and a cash-grab conference championship game possible.

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Unless you've been living in a cave for the last 48 hours -- and in some areas of the northern Great Plains, a cave would be preferable to the weather outside -- you know that Texas didn't lose to Nebraska, 13-12, in the Big 12 Championship game, played at God's Stadium in Arlington, Texas, on Saturday night.  Chances are also good that you know there was a fair amount of controversy involved in the end of that game.  Despite declaring that he knew full well how much time was on the clock, Colt McCoy's last pass bounced off God's Turf with somewhere between 0.3 and 0.5 seconds left on the clock.  Had he put another three feet of air under the ball, no Big 12 referee could have put time back onto the clock, no matter how badly Dan Beebe and Walt Thompson wanted Texas in the national title game.

But, as you know, a second was put back on the clock, Hunter Lawrence bought himself a lifetime pass of free tail in Austin -- no small accomplishment, that -- and Texas will advance to Pasadena to play the Alabama Crimson Tide for the MNC.  Such events unleashed unending wailing and gnashing of teeth to our immediate north, and not because the state is going to be buried under a foot of snow by daybreak Tuesday, but because the clock had read 0:00, their team had been ahead, and somehow they still lost.

The first of the wailing came shortly after the game, as Carl Pelini loudly instructed Texas' players and coaches that they should not be proud to accept the trophy.  It continued in the locker room as Bo Pelini did his best Mark Mangino impersonation.  Onward it went, as Bo, sounding a little like the kid on the playground who knows he's about to get into a fight he can't win, summoned the principal Tom Osborne.  Dizzying heights of obvious frustration and disrespect were reached when Osborne failed to shake Beebe's hand.  Today, even neutral arbiters took up the cudgel for the Huskers, while the locals tried -- and failed -- to make a single coherent point in their own defense.

Nebraska wants you to believe it's the victim in all of this.  They want you to believe they got jobbed by the monied elite in Austin, who have pretty much gotten their way with everything since 1995.  They want you to believe that, but they leave out the most important fact: they themselves are also the monied elite.  While they will complain to no end about Texas' humongous budget and ridiculous facilities and air of entitlement, they'll hope everyone overlooks the fact that they have a budget nearly as obscene, facilities nearly as sparkling, and a fanbase that feels at least as entitled to success as Texas does.  This isn't the Yankees and the Royals.  This is the Yankees and the Red Sox.

Nebraska, including Osborne and Harvey Perlman, will play the role of the downtrodden for the unexamining eye of the national punditry, but we know better.  We know that if Nebraska ever really wanted to do something about "the system," it would add its vote to the other eight schools who want equal revenue sharing in the conference to take money away from those greedy bastards in Austin.  But Nebraska won't do so, and in fact has publicly declared that it won't do so, because it benefits from the same system it now deplores.

Look between my thumb and forefinger, Pelini, Osborne and Perlman.  I think you know what it is and what it's playing for you.

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This week's Roundtable is brought to you by the boys at Crimson and Cream Machine. Since I have temporarily usurped TB's mod powers for the day, I get go first. Mwahaha.

1. What is the biggest Big 12 game this weekend not involving OU and Texas? Why?

BracketCat: I'll approach this from a statistical angle. There are five games this week pitting a Top 5 scoring defense (all allowing less than 10 points per game) against an offense scoring more than 32.6 points per game (my thanks to Rivals.com for that tidbit). They are Florida vs. Arkansas, Nebraska vs. Texas Tech, Oklahoma vs. Texas, USC vs. Notre Dame and USF vs. Cincinnati. Not coincidentally, those are some of the best matchups on TV this week, as well.

By the process of elimination and in accordance with the stated parameters, I'll throw out the Red River Shootout (bite me, political correctness) and the non-Big 12 games, leaving me with my answer: Texas Tech at Nebraska. It will be fascinating to see if Ndamukong Suh can wreak the same kind of havoc on Texas Tech's offensive line and passing game as he did to Missouri.

Plus, after having the image of Steven "Sticks" Sheffield lobbing TD passes like grenades against the K-State secondary burned into my brain seven times last Saturday, I am eager to watch him eat some Memorial Stadium turf - even if that means rooting for the Huskers, a team of which I am not particularly fond.

Runner-up is Missouri at Oklahoma State, two evenly matched teams who played a classic last season in Columbia.

TB: This is probably everyone's answer, but Nebraska vs. Texas Tech intrigues me. While the popular storyline out of last Thursday's win over Missouri seemed to be ZOMG 'SKERZ BE ROLLIN!!!, I was a little more reserved in what I think that game meant. Some Husker fans are talking about this being a potential "trap" game, but I think that title is inaccurate. They're playing a high-powered, South division opponent, and in the last five years or so, none of the North teams have proven they can beat even the middling South teams consistently. In other words, this game is sort of a referendum. Can Nebraska beat one of the better South teams?

For that matter, the Missouri-Oklahoma State game serves the same purpose on a smaller level. Mizzou is not the top dog in the North this year, but with injuries and suspensions, Oklahoma State is in the pack with Texas Tech as the teams closest to OU and UT in the South. If the North teams win both of these games, it will go a long way toward reversing the tide of talk about realignment and other silliness we heard too often last season. Of course, if the North teams lose, all that talk will only fire right back up again.

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This week's Roundtable is hosted by Husker Mike at Corn Nation.  Excellent questions this week, and I'm sorry we didn't get our answers posted in time for the recap.

1.  I'm sure everybody had preseason predictions for their team.  Now that we're a few games in, revise your predictions with your best and worst case scenarios (being reasonable on both sides), and then revising your prediction for the season result.

TB: My preseason prediction for K-State was 6-6, with a 3-5 conference record.  The overall record projection should be adjusted downward at least one game because of the loss to Louisiana in the non-conference schedule.  I think 3-5 is still attainable in conference after the win over Iowa State.  We have home games against Colorado and Texas A&M remaining.  Neither will be easy wins -- nothing will come easy for this team this year -- but neither of those teams is very good.

BracketCat: Well, I sipped the Kool-Aid a little bit back in August and said 7-5 (+/- 1), but that was before Brandon Harold and a host of other players got hurt. At this point, things definitely are shaping up for a 5-7/6-6 type season, but there's no denying that considerable progress has been made over last year, even if the record ends up the same. And I still think if things continue to progress for the next month as they have over the last month, we could jump up and bite somebody nobody thinks we will (hopefully, the Jayhawks) and maybe squeak out that seventh win after all.

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Seasoned BOTC readers know that discussing Big 12 policy is as big of a topic here as actual on-field action.  Maybe that would be different if we were operating this blog circa 1998-2003, when there was a ton to brag about and analyzing every single detail would be interesting.  As it stands, I doubt any of you care to hear a detailed analysis of whether we can expect significant improvement out of our linebackers or whether next year's recruits will contribute at that position.  Feel free to let me know if I'm wrong in the comments.

Anyway, last week I ran across this interesting post from the Texas blog Barking Carnival, home of the best team previews you'll find.  As you'll see in reading it, and the associated comments, the topic was the Big 12 TV contract and other associated issues, topics we have discussed not infrequently here. 

The author's essential premise is that the Big 12 contract is bad because our mid-level games don't stack up with mid-level games from the Big 10 and SEC, the two conferences with the best TV contracts in college football.  It's an interesting point, and unfortunately it wasn't further developed by the author beyond looking at a relatively small sample size of Big 12 games.

As part of the potential solution, TaylorTRoom proposes as follows:

What does the Big 12 need to do to get better TV contracts? For one, it could schedule better non-conference games. I know that several teams (TT, KSU, and KU in particular) have openly adopted a strategy of playing creampuffs in non-conference, in order to ensure reaching the 6 win threshold for a bowl invitation. Some Big 12 schools play a D-1AA team every year! They have to understand that in doing so they are giving up potential guaranteed TV contract money in order to gain speculative bowl money. These programs have no right to complain about lack of TV revenue from football.

Several aspects of this deserve a response.

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