That unavoidable, annoying elephant in the room was impossible to ignore here at the annual Bowl Championship Series meetings. The news was that its gestation remains on schedule.

If the Big Ten expands, SEC commish Mike Slive says his conference wont back down. (Getty Images) A new Big Ten wont be born for another 12-18 months. We wi a bigger, broader, more dominant Big Ten to rule the college landscape and rip it apart. Expansion talk had become so, well, expansive that reporters hopped on planes from literally all points of the country to gather at the sedate Royal Palms resort this week.

In his first public comments in months that big elephant, er, Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany felt compelled to formally announce Wednesday that nothing was imminent in terms of expansion by his conference.

Now try to find one of his peers who can relax.

SEC commissioner Mike Slive intimated for the first time that a war of titans might be on: “If there is going to be a significant shift in the conference paradigm, the SEC will be strategic and thoughtful to make sure it maintains its position as one of the nations pre-eminent conferences.”

Thats another way of saying that if the Big Ten expands, the SEC is ready to throw down. The conferences are No. 1 (Big Ten) and No. 2 (SEC) in revenue produced and they didnt get that way by being timid.

The Big Ten has the biggest contract, the SEC has the best football. Together they control the hearts, minds and viewership of 50 percent of the population. Apart, though, they are rivals on the expansion issue.

For the first time, Delany suggested publicly that the conference might add more than one team. The latest scuttlebutt is that the Big Ten, eventually, may add these five: Nebraska, Missouri, Syracuse, Rutgers and Pittsburgh.

“Youre not trying to find somebody you want to spend a year with,” Delany said, “youre trying to find out who youre going to be for the next 25-50 years.”

The SECs answer? Try Miami, Florida State, Clemson and Georgia Tech. Or if you want a bigger earthquake, throw Texas into the mix.

“I wont sit back,” Slive said, “and just ignore what is going on around me.”

Notre Dame? Out of the Big Ten picture, according to this blog.

All of it could change tomorrow which kind of rankles everybody here. We may have to endure 1 1/2 more years of this fear and loathing. As much as Delany tried to tamp down the net effect of his conferences supposed expansion, it has everyone else walking on egg shells.

“The sense of what his commissioner colleagues would appreciate is, What is the timeline? What can we tell our members?, WAC commissioner Karl Benson said. “[Delaney] said he is still on the same 12- to 18-month timetable. I hope we can narrow that or shorten that.”

Why? Because there are humongous budgets, rights fees and, really, the future of college football at stake. Whatever the Big Ten does will trickle down to perhaps the remaining 10 Division I-A conferences. The Pac-10s TV deal expires in two years. The Big East is worried about its very existence. The Big 12 is wants to hold on to what it has.

“I still think I have a lot of friends and colleagues in that room,” Delany said referring to one of the resorts conference rooms where the commissioners met most of the day. “Theres not really a lot of tension, theres a lot of interest.”

The kind of interest that is generated when everyone is looking out for their jobs. About the same time Delany was speaking to reporters Wednesday afternoon, the Big East sent out a release stating former NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue had volunteered to offer “strategic advice on future television arrangements.”

Tags advice to Big East commissioner John Marinatto: Hire five consultants.

No, really. It worked for Tagliabue in the NFL. The former commissio technology, crunching numbers, etc. His advice this time is an act of charity. Tagliabue is chairman of the board of directors at Big East member Georgetown, doesnt need the money and saw a cause to work on. This one could use a telethon.

“If the whole world is going to change, the definition of competition may change too,” Marinatto said. “Its like E.F. Hutton. If Paul Tagliabue says it, we start to think how Paul T thinks. He did a pretty good job in his previous job.”

Marinatto might be the most sympathetic figure in this ongoing “conflict”. He remembers the exact date and time that Delany called him to alert him to possible Big Ten expansion (6:32 p.m., Dec. 15). That was the night his life changed but, strangely, he has nothing but respect for Delany.

And nothing but dread for the Big Ten commissioner might do.

Marinatto, a rookie commissioner, took over for the respected and powerful Mike Tranghese. His first job is to save his conference. Pull up a chair to hear his story, or maybe not.

“I know Im the most boring person in America,” he told reporters, “so cut me off please.” You have to root for Marinatto and his conference which has gone through this already. Beginning in 2003, the ACC picked off Boston College Miami and Virginia Tech. The Big East added Cincinnati, Louisville and South Florida to stay relevant and keep its automatic BCS berth.

It might not be able to survive another hit. The Big Easts football demise has been predicted for years. The league, it was theorized, was too unwieldy with 16 members in basketball and eight in football. It was thought that football might eventually go away because it couldnt rebuild again.

What a dichotomy. With the ACC having diluted its product after expansion, the Big East became the best basketball conference in the country. Meanwhile, its football could be on life support.

“Weve lived through it,” said Marinatto, a senior associate commissioner for the league since 2002. “Weve come out in better shape than weve ever been in our 30-year history. All the people who exaggerate the future in a negative way, I cant buy into it.”

They are not exactly dead men walking around this resort but they are looking dazed and confused.

“How do you keep a school?” Craig Thompson asked. The Mountain West commissioner could see his league poached by the Pac-10, Big 12 or some unseen force, all because of the Big Ten.

“You dont keep an institution. If there is a better place, its like marriage. You try to make the best house and home for your family but if there is something else that looks better you move on.”

Theres going to be a lot of marriage counseling, then, in the coming months. Its going to be public and for a lot of the participants, its not going to end well.

“Youre not here to cover the BCS. You guys are here to cover [expansion],” Marinatto told reporters. “Its not the elephant in the room anymore.”

No, its the entire agenda

Posted on April 22nd, 2010 by admin
Filed under: College football news, NCAA college football