DCDuck

And so it begins...

I can't bear to think what this will mean for college athletics as a whole. Football drives everything; Men's Basketball is the red-headed stepchild, and every other sport is irrelevant. Goodbye, NCAA Tournament. Goodbye, College World Series. Goodbye, Frozen Four.

If I'm the AAU, I won't let the B1G strong-arm me when my membership includes MIT, CalTech, Rochester Tech, Johns Hopkins and the entire Ivy League. At least there is one association of schools where academics still trumps football.

It's also worth mentioning half the AAU MI's don't have FBS football programs. I dunno if the AAU cares enough about the B1G to get strong-armed into giving Nebraska it's MI status back. They'll probably say something like "you shoulda invited Tulane, LOL! U MAD, B1G?"

The B1G keeps waving around the flag of "All our schools are AAU M.I.'s! We're smarter than you are, SEC!" It's kind of strange that they'd completely abandon that now that Nebraska's membership got rescinded.

I wonder when someone will come out and just admit that it's all about the money. I remember back when conference affiliation used to mean something other than simply being in the right place to attract the most TV viewers.

Isn't that what has already started to happen (Nebraska to B1G and then having their AAU Member Institution status rescinded)?

i mean i know football is driving this madness,but does any of TPTB stop and think for one second about what this does to the non-revenue sports?

Cut them to pay for the travel costs. Problem solved.

South Carolina would fight tooth and nail to keep Clemson out, and Florida would fight tooth and nail to keep FSU out of the SEC.

My bet would have been Miami to the SEC but they have that whole "death penalty? srsly?" thing going on in South Beach.

Notre Dame already said no. Besides, why would they join the Big XII when they've already turned down the Big Ten (rivalries, geography) and Big East (where they play all of their other sports except hockey)?

Just invite Rice, Houston and SMU. SWC reunion, and it gets the conference membership back up to twelve.

Those schools are way too small and have way too little fan support to be in a BCS conference.

Both of the schools you bolded have larger enrollment than Wake Forest and Vanderbilt.

One could say the same about Baylor. How did they get into the Big XII and not Houston or Rice (SMU I could understand)? Baylor's football program was the laughing stock of the Big XII up until a couple of years ago, and they weren't exactly setting the world on fire in (men's) basketball either.

Just invite Rice, Houston and SMU. SWC reunion, and it gets the conference membership back up to twelve.

I think it would be neat if Tulane got a nod, but they haven't been good in football in years, and have never really been good in basketball. Ever.

They do have some top-notch academics, though.

UTEP and appealing do not fit together

In anything. I have a friend who lived in El Paso growing up and even they used to laugh at UTEP. Heck, I think the Big XII would rather take Prarie View A&M than UTEP at this point.