SLATE: It’s Monday, and the Big 12 is still alive...for now.

Conference Realignment

Since we last brought you the news of the day, despite all the commentary, not a lot has really changed. But that doesn’t mean that there hasn’t been news.

We have learned that Oklahoma and Texas’ talks with the SEC have (supposedly) been going on for months, but SEC leadership was careful to avoid letting Texas A&M find out (mostly because of Texas). And guess what, when the Aggies found out, we all found out, because now the kids in College Station are pissed. Not that it really matters as far as the SEC is concerned. Texas is a big enough name that a lone objection from A&M doesn’t move the needle (and A&M would need three more votes to keep the Longhorns out), but it’s created waves across Texas regardless. To the point that (no surprise here) a representative from Lubbock has filed legislation in Texas to prohibit a Texas public college or university from switching conference affiliation without legislative approval.

Of course, there’s no shortage of the Big 12 showing it’s skirts to OU and UT to try and keep the two behemoths from bolting. On Sunday, the Big 12’s executive committee met with the two university presidents in an attempt to find out what it would take to keep the two schools with the Big 12, including putting the potential of OU and UT getting even more money than the rest of the Big 12 schools (1.5 TV shares each) to sweeten the deal. Yes, because continuing to bend over backwards for OU and UT has really worked out well in the past....

From the K-State side of things, HoFHC Bill Snyder chimed in via Twitter (yes, he’s really on Twitter), and wants you all to keep the faith, because the Big 12 has survived this kind of thing before. Over at Trojans Wire (a USC-focused are of USA Today), Matt Zemek takes a look at K-State from the prospective of their possible addition to the Pac-12 (should the Big 12 actually fold and/or the Pac-12 decide to expand). Basically, we’ve got a good football team here, but footprint and lack of media market and presence really hurt us (tell us something we don’t know), but probably not enough to keep us out if they really want to expand to 16 teams (which would likely be us, OSU, Tech, and one other Texas school (probably TCU or Houston)).

Oh, and KU hasn’t talked to the Big Ten (ha), regardless of what one guy on Twitter wanted you to believe.

Other Things

BracketCat continues our countdown to kickoff (though slightly behind because #RealLife gets in the way sometimes), and we’re down into the 40’s. We’re about six weeks from kickoff (against possible future conference mate Stanford), time to start conditioning for tailgating.

Kansas State sophomore men’s golfer Cooper Schultz had a good week, breaking through a stalemate heading in to 27th hole to win four of the next seven holes of the 36-hole event to win the 111th Kansas Amateur championship in Wichita yesterday. Schultz had also previously qualified for the 121st US Amateur championship, and will head out to Oakmont Country Club in Verona, Pennsylvania in a couple weeks. The event can be seen on the Golf Channel and Peacock beginning August 9th.