You are hereEven the Governor Says Mizzou Should Listen to the Big Ten
Even the Governor Says Mizzou Should Listen to the Big Ten
Don’t look now, Big 12 Commissioner Dan Beebe, but from Missouri Governor Jay Nixon to the Detroit News the air is filled with positive vibes about Mizzou ditching the Big 12 if the Big
10 issues an invitation.
“I’m not going to say anything bad about the Big 12,” Nixon told the Associated Press, “but when you compare Oklahoma State to Northwestern, when you compare Texas Tech to Wisconsin, I mean, you begin looking at educational possibilities that are worth looking at.
“If a significant conference with a long history of academic and athletic excellent talks about you joining them, you shouldn’t just say, `We’re from the old
Big Eight and I remember when. . .
“If they want to talk, we should talk, and we should listen.”
That is precisely what Brady Deaton, chancellor of the University of Missouri, said would happen in a statement he provided to The Star in answer to a blog item on The Star’s web site that suggested doing exactly that.
On Friday, Detroit News columnist Bob Wojnowski published what amounted to a full-fledged recommendation to the Big Ten that Missouri would be the most qualified expansion candidate.
“Here’s your 12th school, commissioner Jim Delany,” Wojnowski wrote. “Missouri.”
Wojnowski noted - like everyone else - that Notre Dame would be the most obvious team to make the Big Ten+1 the new Big 12. But he also noted that Notre Dame has spurned the Big Ten‘s interest so often that the disdain is obvious.
Other candidates listed by the Detroit columnist were Syracuse, UConn, Cincinnati, Louisville. And Wojnowski’s opinion is that none of those schools “bring enough.”
Here’s a salient point raised by Wojnowski.
“The one reason Delany has been so understated about expansion. He sure doesn’t want to get rebuffed again. The next candidate has to fit and has to be willing, and Missouri appears to be both.”
That has been a concerned expressed by some at Mizzou. School officials don’t want to seek inclusion too publicly if the Big Ten might say no.
I spent a little more time on the telephone on Friday, chatting up some people close to Mizzou, and came away with one theory being bolstered.
If Missouri does join the Big Ten, it will be as much about academics and the dollars and cents in that arena as it will be about football or basketball, although that would be a huge draw as well.
Imagine the stadium expansion at Mizzou for home conference games against Michigan, Penn State and Ohio State.
But back to academics and a thing called the CIC, or the Committee for Institutional Cooperation.
The CIC is the collegiate academic equivalent of the athletic BCS. Composed of the current members of the Big Ten and the University of Chicago, the CIC is a consortium of academic cooperation and grant money that each year means millions to every one of its members.
No other athletic-based conference in the nation - short of the Ivy League - has anything like this that is so valuable to all of the league members.
It is why Brady Deaton and Jay Nixon are willing to listen, even eager to listen. It is why the Big 12 better take seriously the possibility that Missouri will take its footballs, and basketballs, and baseballs away from the New Southwest Conference and find a better deal in the Big Ten.
Don’t want that to happen? Then the Big 12 would do well to very quickly change that super majority vote needed to change things like bowl selection and lineup and TV deals so that schools like Missouri - and Kansas and Kansas State, and Iowa State and Colorado and eventually even perhaps Nebraska - have an equal voice and a reason to remain in the Big 12.
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Personally, I hope MU stays put in the Big XII. I think there's issues that the conference needs to address, including revenue sharing and bowl priorities. However, as we analyze the question of "should we stay or should we go," I don't think that "how KU fans feel about it" ranks very high on the list of priorities.
years.
MU will need to be replaced by someone: TCU, Arkansas, CSU. Most likely it will make the B12 more Texas focused, that will be bad for the non-Texas B12.
If MU leaves, KU should not continue the rivalry with MU--doing so would be facilitating the MU move.
MU fans, if you feel like the red headed step child of the B12, a league that contains members of the original Big 6, of which you were a founding member, you will feel even worse being a member of the B10(+2).
The B10 would only take you because they can't get Notre Dame. When ND’s contract with NBC is up in 2015, you could easily get kicked out of the league in favor of ND.
Really Incognito? Your AD has overseen no fewer than three NCAA inquiries into your sports "program", including the "lack of institutional control" designation. So, is he the "best" at failing to control his department? Is that the criteria. Congrats, you win.
And let's assess your view that "KU doesn't get passed over for bowls." Perhaps part of the reason is that you only go to one every few years, making the fan base hungrier for the once-a-decade trip to watch your team play in the Insight Bowl against power Minnesota. Whoa.
Or perhaps your AD is great because your school excels in exactly one sport -- namely, the one that requires your school to hire the parents of recruits to get them to sign (Manning, Chalmers, Henry, etc.). To compare KU's sports "program" to UT is a joke. It's so laughable that it's not worth responding to.
Finally, I wish all you KU fans would stop talking about the MU AD and Mizzou's "failure to travel." It's silly and undistinguished. Alden has 6 teams in the top-30 nationally. He is respected by his peers and is the head of a national conference of AD's. Is Lew? Oh, wait, his nickname is Shaddy. MU packed the Alamodome for the Big 12 championship (that's the game you play in if you EVER win the 6-team North in football) and had a reported 35k fans at the Cotton Bowl a month later. This is about a conference failing to protect its teams. Hence, why Mizzou is considering a better conference. You'll understand when Texas dumps you and you're back in the MVC...
The ranking posted on your schools website has MU ranked higher academically than KU. Your own school uses Forbes/CCAP to brag about its #22 ranking. MU is ranked #13 by Forbes. Links provided morons. Typical stupid KU fans. So your own school doesn't use US News and World Report. Get a clue and stop being jealous the Big 10 isn't considering your school. Probably has something to do with your 95% acceptance rate. JUCO = KU.
http://www.distinction.ku.edu/index.php?option=viewdistinction&statement...
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2008/0519/030_4.html
Gee, I have an idea. For the 10th straight day, let's have 50,000 Jayhawks get on a Mizzou post and talk about Mizzou being a piece of crap school with stupid people, no national championships and unworthy of the Big 10.
WHY EXACTLY DO YOU CARE??? If you are so enamored with the Big 12, stay. If you are such an awesome sports school (a history of exactly 2 national championships in the past 50 years compared with UT's and NB's dozens), the Big 12, err, Southwest plus Kansas, Conference should suit you well.
Go home losers. This is an academic and athletic opportunity for Mizzou to MAYBE partner with a bigger and better conference. Since you think the Big 12 is better and you think MU doesn't bring anything to the tabel for the Big 10, shut the bleep up and go post about your no entrance standards and athletic program that has far more NCAA investigations than championships.
Final, study up on the MVC. Once Mizzou and CO jump, it is only a matter of time before the Southwest conference (TCU, SMU & Ark) look to kick out schools like KU, KSU, NB and ISU that CLEARLY bring the bar down academically and athleticially.
If I touched a nerve. I thought the point of blogs like this was to actually debate the issues, not blindly turn everything into a partisan war.
Jumping ship could be a great opportunity for Mizzou, and if it is, they should take it. The only way it would really affect KU is that they'd lose a non-conference game every year (or end the oldest rivalry west of the Mississippi, which would be a shame IMO), and it would probably ruin the basketball rivalry, because one game in the Sprint Center will never compare to a home-and-home series on campus.
But other than that, Kansas would be just fine. KU doesn't get passed over for bowl games, and KU is one of the most profitable athletic departments in the nation. KU also has one of the best ADs in the country with Perkins, which means they don't have to fear being "pushed around" by the Texas schools.
And that's MU's real issue here, IMO- you want to blame the failings of your AD on Texas. The man can't sell your program to bowl games, and he can't successfully lobby for the changes he'd like to see in the conference. If you think that will suddenly change when you run off to the Big Ten (replace Texas with Ohio State and Oklahoma with Michigan), then I think you're fooling yourselves, personally.
Oh, and Colorado was never part of the MVC. And TCU could only get 30,000 fans to every game this season, despite it being their best season in history, and football being a religion in Texas. So I don't see them making any power moves on a program like Kansas any time soon.
"...Kansas doesn't get passed over for bowl games..." Really? Kinda short memory... cause a 6-6 KU team didn't get a bowl three years ago. All the 6-6 teams that do get bowl bids and one can see that this is a huge snub. Regarding profitable athletic programs - KU isn't (profitable) but MU is one of only 25 programs that is (don't have the link but was recently published). So once again, another KU fan that doesn't have their "facts" straight.
As an MU alum, I would embrace moving to the Big 10. For me it's more about the academics than the athletics. The academic advantage of joining the Big 10 would benefit me directly.
The Big 10 has better academics and the CIC just sweetens the deal. I think joining the Big 10 would only add more clout to degrees I'm already proud to have.
As for the speculation that MU wouldn't be the best candidate to join an expanded Big 10, so what? Missouri has its own advantages. Leagues don't always take the "best" schools, i.e. Baylor in the Big 12. MU is the mix, and that's all that matters.
MU officials would be wise however to do as the article states above, use this opportunity to better our dealings with the Big 12, athletically anyway. We won't have a chance like this again.
BTW, Pitt does have more money but they do have four other campuses. Some MU vs PITT athletic stats:
NCAA Mens B-ball tournaments- MU 25, Pitt 27
Bowl appearances, records- MU 26 (12-14), Pitt 25 (10-15)
Director's cup final rankings:
08-09- MU 36, Pitt 93
07-08- MU 38, Pitt 85
06-07- MU 53, PItt 71
05-06- MU 48, Pitt 91
04-05- MU 41, Pitt 97
Get your facts straight. For the most recent year available, MU only was $180,000 below what they would have received if the league split the money evenly and there was only a $3 million difference between #1 and #12. All this stuff at this point in time is greatly exaggerated.
And as far as Mizzou goes, Mizzou gets passed over time after time because MU is the worst traveling team in the Big XII. 9000 tickets to the Alamo Bowl last year? 5500 tickets to the Texas Bowl this year? Come on Mizzou, quit being a bunch of babies and support your school.
The reason that the Missouri/Big 10 discussion distracts the Rock/Chalk crowd from antique shopping, hanging out at the Yacht Club (in Lawrence, Kansas - really), and trying to make excuses for your point guard harassing an innocent employee in an elevator is that no other conference is courting Kansas. Pointing out a yearly academic ranking where Kansas finishes higher than MU would be similar to an MU fan claiming that Mizzou has a better basketball tradition than KU. We obviously don't and neither do you. Of course, how many actual Kansas kid's are actually major contributors for the lady birds? I apologize. I forgot about that Rockhurst grad that was in High School musical. KU clearly has a wildly talented team and a great coach. Unfortunately, missing on John Wall (he is way harder to "cover" than an elevator operator - maybe the twins could bring their airsoft gun) will cost you a shot at gaining any ground on the Wildcats. Naming your program after a group of criminals and coming up with a mythical bird for a mascot is not cool. At least you have the world's largest ball of twine.
Don't know where your travel stats are coming from. It's a myth that Missouri doesn't travel well. One person says it, but they fail to back it up with sources, yet other latch onto it without checking it out.
The Texas Bowl last reported it had 59,000 tickets sold, nearing a sell out. (only 11,000 left). Those numbers are from the Texas Bowl and can be found on its Web site.
mizzou ranks 8th academically in big 12, behind kansas, of course, and colorado.
instead of switching conferences, tiger students ought to jump to higher quality big 12 schools
You're using US News. Fine.
Someone using Forbes' rankings comes up with a different view. The latest ones I saw on a quick lookup (2008) listed Texas, Texas A&M and MU all in the top 13 for National Public Universities.
I'm not taking sides on the rankings debate. But I will note this: any school accepted into the Big 10 will get a big bump in its academic ranking.
This point seems relative unless you are simply in to tooting the horn of one school over another just for the sheer grins.
Good point, Mike. KU fans' only favorable ranking is the US News & WR undergraduate ranking where one of the ranking criteria is affordability and MU was just one ranking less than KU. Using USN&WR's rankings of five graduate schools, MU's medical, business and engineering were ranked higher than KU's, an even rating for the two law schools, and only KU's education school was ranked higher than MU's. All five of MU's schools were ranked in the top 100 - only 3 of KU's was. Factor in one of the best J-schools in the country and the distance gets wider. On a historical note, during the Big 8 days, only MU and Colorado didn't accept prop 48 athletes. KU's teams were full of prop 48s, huge recruiting advantage.
Let's compare Mizzou to another talked about candidate, Pitt:
First, Endowment, since research programs obviously value this:
MU- $1 billion, shared throughout the 4 schools in the system (MU, UMKC, UMSL, and Rolla).
Pitt- $2.3 billion, shared with no one.
Next, Academic Prestige (based on current US News and World Report Rankings:
MU- 102 (which would make them the only Big 10 school out of the Top 100).
Pitt- 56
Finally, Sporting Tradition:
Pitt- 2 national championships, 1 final four in basketball; 6 national championships, 1 BCS bowl appearance in football.
MU- 0 national championships, 0 final four appearances in basketball; 0 national championships, 0 BCS bowl appearances in football.
I know this is all about money, but is getting a slightly better marketshare in St. Louis (while MU has a major presence there, so does Illinois and other Big Ten schools) really worth lowering their standards that much?
Mizzou has at least one national football championship--1960
Another in baseball--1954, I believe.
Also, from what I can tell the Big 10 picks up NO additional TV markets with Pitt that it doesn't already have with Penn St.
With MU, they get all of Missouri, including KC and ALL of St. Louis TV market.
I'm not trying to dismiss Pitt, it has a lot to offer, but Mizzou isn't chump change either.
Is Karl Rove writing sports history now? In 1960 the college football's national championship was awarded by a vote of sportswriters. MU wasn't given that designation.
Often back then the national champ was referred to as a "mythical" national champ because it was a matter of opinion. In this particular case, it could be called a double myth since MU fans claim that the mythical championship should have been awarded to MU even though MU lost that claim on the field.
And just what body is it that assumes such a mantle of omniscience that it can rate the academic panache of universities? What criteria is used? If there is an objective standard and MU meets those standards and is appreciably better rated than the balance of the Big 12, fine--just trot out those findings so we can look at them.
Frankly, MU in the Big 10 right now seems like a fish out of water. Sorry, but a century of rivalry should not be dismissed. Just whom could the Jayhawks dislike with such intensity?
If MU can use this situation to wrest control of the Big 12 from the hands of the pirates in Texas, the rest of the Big 12 have-nots would owe them a lot. But the Big 12 would not be the same without them.
When I first heard of this I thought of all the football recruits that would be lost from Texas, but a friend of mine explained a few things.For starters MIZZOU gets about $4mil a year less than the super majority schools,a move would increase that number to over $20mil. ( a gain of about $12mil)The Big 12 yet again did nothing while MIZZOU was bypassed in bowl selection by teams with equal or worse records. (you dont see the Big 10 allowing that)Then factor in the CIC for endowments and this is something that the university has to consider.
It's more about academics than anything else. Mizzou is a cut above EVERY Big 12 North team... hands down....3 Years in a row...the Big 12 has let Mizzou slide down to a lessor Bowl game...to opponents that they all won on the football field.
That would not happen in the Big 10.... I'm willing and ready to JUMP SHIP.....
Go Tigers,
Sooka, Class of 75