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Maybe Harbaugh dodged a bullet - Redrum - 06-08-2010

Remember last year when Harbaugh absolutely, no way, did not
get to the final stages of negotiations to become the new head coach of the Kansas Jayhawks?

Well, if any football team is going to get on a train to Nowheresville,  this ESPN blog stakes KU\'s claim.   And,  the way it\'s laid out,  doesn\'t even control how its fate works out.   Lucky Harbs...oh, I forgot.  He\'s gone to Michigan next year anyway.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=5265439



Re: Maybe Harbaugh dodged a bullet - Kathy - 06-09-2010

The KU chancellor has gone begging to her Missouri and Nebraska counterparts.

Groveling jayhawks = Sweet karma

http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2010/jun/08/kansas-urges-nebraska-to-stay-in-big-12/



Missouri, FWLIW - Redrum - 06-09-2010

I\'ve spent a fair amount of time working in  Missouri.  Can\'t speak for Kansas City,  but the parts I experienced, around St. Louis and the SW   (general Rolla vicinity) and the people I hired out of Missouri  sure felt like the Midwest and Midwesterners.  The people seemed more like the people in Ohio and (non-Chicago) Illinois than those in the football heart of the Big 12 ( Texas/Oklahoma).

And, because everything centers on US, naturally - Redrum - 06-09-2010

This year Stanford lost a pretty good RB,  Brandon Bourbon,  to Kansas in the last days before LOI day.   I don\'t want to sound petty,  but I do wonder what\'s going through his mind right now.  He switched partly because of the nearness and comfort factor ( Midwest trait) but also because he was going to be the centerpiece of new coach Turner Gill\'s run-oriented offense.  But the idea was that the Big 12 would be his showcase against the likes of Nebraska,Oklahoma and Texas.   Now he might be joining a program that doesn\'t know whether it will be cobbling together a schedule in a couple of years that will feature Ohio Valley Conference schools, and playing Kansas St. four times a season.

Makes you wonder, once again:  If coaches can just walk away,  and whole conferences can just walk away,  shouldn\'t the players also be able to just walk away?   Not advocating it, I know the negative side of such a policy.   Just curious how long the practice can hold out with these tectonic shifts going on.

More on Missouri - 97fan - 06-09-2010

I grew up in the St. Louis suburbs, and in that part of the state I don\'t think many tears will be shed if Missouri joins the Big 10. Redrum is right -- the St. Louis area has a lot more in common with Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota than it does with Oklahoma, Texas and Colorado. The Missouri-Illinois rivalry is a big deal in St. Louis, and in part because there are a lot of Illinois fans in the area, there has long been a lot of Big 10 coverage in the St. Louis media.

Kansas City is a different story. There the Missouri-Kansas rivalry reigns supreme, and I\'m sure that breaking for the Big 10 would result in a bigger backlash there.

Re: Maybe Harbaugh dodged a bullet - Pastor - 06-09-2010

and then there is the tradition of the Border War between the Illini and Missouri.

Re: And, because everything centers on US, natural - fullmetal - 06-09-2010

Quote:This year Stanford lost a pretty good RB,  Brandon Bourbon,  to Kansas in the last days before LOI day.   I don\'t want to sound petty,  but I do wonder what\'s going through his mind right now.  He switched partly because of the nearness and comfort factor ( Midwest trait) but also because he was going to be the centerpiece of new coach Turner Gill\'s run-oriented offense.  But the idea was that the Big 12 would be his showcase against the likes of Nebraska,Oklahoma and Texas.   Now he might be joining a program that doesn\'t know whether it will be cobbling together a schedule in a couple of years that will feature Ohio Valley Conference schools, and playing Kansas St. four times a season.

Makes you wonder, once again:  If coaches can just walk away,  and whole conferences can just walk away,  shouldn\'t the players also be able to just walk away?   Not advocating it, I know the negative side of such a policy.   Just curious how long the practice can hold out with these tectonic shifts going on.

I think Bourbon\'s story should have been in Najvar\'s mind when Najvar decided to move to Waco, TX.  I also think that if Najvar couldn\'t hack it at Stanford, playing at Baylor will not impress NFL scouts that much more if he plays against Texas versus playing against USC.  Plus the Baylor degree has nothing on the Stanford degree, and if Najvar really thinks home is that important...then I can only hope that the move goes well for him and the rest of his life.

Well, that\'s why I asked about Baylor\'s OTHER... - Redrum - 06-09-2010

possible attractions,  like a possible Baptist connection.

I don\'t criticize Najvar for transferring.  If he wants to play college ball it didn\'t look like he was going to do that at Stanford.   It\'s a value judgement. If playing football was weighed and found more important than a Stanford degree,  nothing wrong with that.  At Baylor he might have more chance to a) play football and  b) play it in front of friends and family.  

But Najvar may be the harbinger of more to come.  The Stanford staff seems bent on getting their hands on the best football players they can.  If the academic reputation helps get them to sign on, great.  If they stick to graduate,  even better.  It follows that this guys with this mindset came to Stanford to play football, not coast on a great scholarship ride.  The coaching staff is focused on winning and that involves getting the best and better players on the field.   We already lose recruits who look at our position depth chart and go elsewhere.   We might lose more team members who were stars when they signed but now aren\'t as good as the other guys at their position.   Seems crazy to give up a Stanford education, but the staff  is going after guys who want to play and are capable of playing championship football.

Life in the fast lane.   So far, I like it.  Maybe that approach will even...work.

Re: Maybe Harbaugh dodged a bullet - Kathy - 06-10-2010

Quote:How do the Missouri fans feel about this, Kathy? I would be extremely unhappy if Stanford left the Pac-10, even if it was for some new superconference that meant an extra $50 million a year.

My personal preference is to leave the Big 12 alone. Missouri is a founding member of the conference going back to the Big 6, Big 7, Big 8 and Big 12. The rivalry with Kansas is the second-oldest college rivalry in the country. (It is so intense that when many Mizzou teams travel to Lawrence to play away games -- a three-hour drive at most -- hotel stays and meals are taken on the Missouri side of Kansas City. Tigers spend as little time & money in Kansas as they can.) The Civil War may be a century and a half in the past, but so much of the two schools\' tradition is tied up in that event -- even their mascots are derived from the war.

I wouldn\'t care if the Texas schools left the Big 12 -- the alignment is only 14 years old (scandal-plagued SWC was in tatters) -- but I would regret losing the old conference ties. (Latest scuttlebutt: Texas & Texas A&M looking at joining the SEC.)

The so-called rivalry with Illinois isn\'t. (And Pastor, the Border War is MU-KU; Arch Rivalry is the moniker for the Illinois series played in St. Louis.) The annual basketball game is played in St. Louis because that\'s where the money is -- same with the less-traditional football game the teams have played over the last decade. No one wants to travel all the way to Champaign-Urbana (or to Columbia) for a game. St. Louis has been a convenience and a money magnet, just as Arrowhead Stadium has been for MU-KU football (unless you\'re a business owner in one of those college towns who has watched revenue from one of your biggest fall weekends get siphoned off to the big city). In fact, Illinois pulled out of the MU series (2010 is the last year), citing the need to play home games at home (also, the Illini had never won a game in the modern series played in the Dome).

The Big Ten started this madness in an attempt to pressure Notre Dame into joining the conference. The Big Ten wants a conference playoff game and it needs 12 teams to do that. ND is the real prize (and the most logical new member). All this is moot if ND comes to the table (and judging from the Irish\'s fortunes in recent years, that might be prudent). Missouri saw the opportunity to negotiate for a bigger slice of the TV money that Texas has hogged since the Big 12 formed. Nebraska, too, whose on-field fortunes have sagged recently, sees a golden opportunity, although at last week\'s Big 12 meeting, AD Tom Osborne indicated he wished for the Huskers to stay put. (Of course, none of these folks is above prevarication -- Mizzou\'s duplicitous duo of chancellor and AD are universally reviled and the most disliked people in Columbia, yet they\'re Teflon when it comes to escaping controversy with their paychecks intact.) Nebraska is Mizzou\'s second most-hated rival (in football) but it\'s only about the sports. I can\'t see the Omaha TV market pulling in more viewers than St. Louis & Kansas City, though. Oklahoma AD Joe Castiglione (former Mizzou AD and arguably one of the most powerful people in OK) has pleaded passionately to keep the Big 12 intact. Frankly, I don\'t want to see OU in the Pac-10 because I don\'t want Stanford to have to play OU all the time -- it rarely seems to turn out well for us.

Fans in Columbia are mixed. Some see MU in the Big Ten as a financial opportunity and a chance to tell Texas to kiss off. But it would kill recruiting in the Lone Star State. Fans of basketball & some minor sports (wrestling, swimming but not baseball & softball) would see better competition. Originally, before the Pac-10 raider bombshell, the thinking was that if MU left, Arkansas would join the Big 12. And there are rumors that Texas would go independent like ND.

Let\'s face it: This is all about the money. We\'re looking at the eventual formation of four 16-team superconferences and a playoff series for the national championship (bye-bye BCS, bye-bye gazillion bowl games). What started out a century ago as a pleasant form of student entertainment based on regional pride has morphed into a TV revenue plan that knows no bounds for greed. This crap about academic similarities and Tech\'s nonmembership in the American Association of Universities is all a smokescreen. Athletic departments don\'t care about the students anymore, and broadcast companies sure as heck don\'t. Travel among these non-geographical alignments is going to eat up budgets and more importantly, student class time, but that isn\'t going to stop the big dogs. They might as well spin off the sports programs as independent businesses and rename the athletic complexes as business incubators (hey, MU\'s incubator is right next door to the sports park). That\'s one way to fill the economic development mission of a land-grant university -- they call it "entrepreneurship" these days.


Re: Maybe Harbaugh dodged a bullet - needle - 06-10-2010

Kathy, the strongest argument I\'ve heard about why the mega-conference won\'t happen is that political office holders in the left-out states (e.g. Kansas) will suddenly think of college football as something that\'s too big not to tax...

Re: Maybe Harbaugh dodged a bullet - fullmetal - 06-10-2010

A&M is a member of the AAU, I think.  Tech sure as heck better not be.  Only two SEC schools are (UF, Vandy).  This gathered from the A&M importance link on the first page of the other thread.

I\'m still waiting for ND to punk Nebraska by jumping into the BigTeleven first (you know ND is better than Nebraska $$-wise), thus preserving the Big12.  How awkward would that next directors\' conference be?

Re: Maybe Harbaugh dodged a bullet - slide - 06-10-2010

Garvin -- the transferee to Duke was one of Perky Plumlee\'s kids.  may be Miles?

Re: Maybe Harbaugh dodged a bullet - Kathy - 06-10-2010

My mistake on A&M, fullmetal. Columbia paper had claimed A&M wasn\'t in the AAU, but A&M joined in 2001, becoming the third Texas member (Rice & UT also belong).


Najvar vs Bourbon - JohnR34231 - 06-10-2010

My guess is their defections were for basically the same reasons. Specifically, earlier playing time and proximity to home.

At least Najvar gave us a shot for a year before he pulled the trigger.