Due to developing landscape, MWC decides not to expand at this time
Per Bruce Feldman on Twitter. Not much of a surprise until they know exactly who is available.
Translation: Colorado might become available next week, sorry Boise.
So could Kansas, Kansas State, and Iowa State.
It's a longshot, but if Nebraska and Missouri get left out of the move West and the B10 doesn't pick them up, this could mean one or both of these teams would be available. Would they rather go to the SEC (if invited) or be among the top dogs in the MWC or an entirely new conference formed by combining the best of the leftovers of the B12 and the best of the MWC and Boise State?
If either one of Missouri or Nebraska gets left out of the Big Ten (or Colorado by the Pac 10), you're going to have a Big 12 that survives with 5 or 6 teams and adds from schools like Utah, BYU, Air Force, Colorado State, et. al.
The talk is that Baylor would get to go to Pac 10 while Colorado, ISU, KSU goes to the MW.
translation: "We may be dissolving our conference so that our top members can join the new Big 12 with their grandfathered BCS slot"
Supposedly there is a penalty fee of 50%-100% (depending on notice given) of conference revenues that must be paid by any team that leaves the B12. If the entire B12 South leaves but the B12 North stays and tries to grab teams from MWC and WAC, they might find themselves sitting on a pile of cash.
The thing to watch in all this when/if it happens is how the Big 12 separates... if the 6 members (Tex, TTU, TA&M, Bay/Col, OkSt, OU) go en masse to the Pac 10, they will be subject to the conference penalty, the Big 12 still exists, and likely sucks up the top Mtn West schools into a new Big 12 maintaining the legal integrity to enforce the penalties (probably negotiated down in value) and maintaining the contracturally enforcable BCS autobid. In this case (especially if they are able to keep the penalty money), Mizzo and Neb might not leave since they can renegotiate the revenue sharing without Tex & OU in the conference, and depending on the legalistics, might be able to morph the Mtn West's TV channel (The Mountain) into a Big 12 Network.
If Neb & Mizzou leave to the Big Ten & the 6 others go to the Pac 10, you can bet that those 8 will try to legally dissolve the Big 12 so that they won't be subject to penalty, and then you're looking at the leftover Big 12 members (KU, KSt, IASt, Bay/Col) being conference free agents with my guess being KU and Col being attractive to the Mtn West, and KSt, Baylor and IASt either joining the WAC or Conf USA. If the Big 12 gets legally dissolved, then the BCS autobid slot is up for grabs and there will be an ensuing fight between another at-large bid (which I'm sure teh BCS planners would be in favor of since getting antoher marquee name from the new Pac-10 would be preferable) and giving into the political pressure for the Mtn West, especially if it now includes Kansas and Colorado.
As with most things in life... follow the money.
I bet if more than half the Big 12 decides to leave all at once, the departure fee will magically disappear.
If that's the case, they'll be the new Big East. However, if all of this goes down, the BCS won't be around too much longer.
Joeyb; I am wondering what will happen to the BCS as a result of expansion. There is also speculation about what the SEC will do if Big Ten, Pac Ten grow signigicantly. Miami, and Florida State have been mentioned as possibly joining the SEC. Does expansion make a playoff less likely or more likely? Or perhaps make no difference at all. I tend to think it makes a playoff more likely, but not clear in my thinking as to "why". Why do you think the BCS won't be around much longer? Any thoughts on this from joeyb or the rest of the mgoblog community would be appreciated.
Well, I think the 16 team super conference idea has always come with the idea that there would be 4 conferences and the winners would play a 4 or 8 team playoff for the title. If all of this really does happen, I would guess that the 6 go to the Pac10; Mizzou, Neb, ND, Pitt, and Cuse go to the Big10; The leftover 4 in the Big12 merge with the MWC, grab BSU, Houston and Tulsa to get to 16; the SEC grabs FSU, Miami, VaTech, and another; the ACC and Big East remnants merge and grab a couple CUSA teams.
You now have 5 16 team conferences. You can either have a +1 game between Big12/MWC and ACC/Big East or +3 at-larges and you can play the current BCS bowls as the first round. What won't exist is the BCS poll and BCS championship game. I think everything else will probably stay the same.
Sorry Boise, guess you're going to have to wait a while longer to accept that invitation.