Reminder, all of this is simply talk and speculation. Freaking out now is kind of silly. Obviously I’m following it and take it semi-seriously (insofar as Pitt’s future is concerned), but it should not be a stress thing.

Losing one’s mind over this crap is your own problem.

Let’s start with the Big 12 right now, since the big money is on at least 2 teams from there going to the Big Something.

Here’s a list of the TV money distributed to each team in the Big 12 in 2007. Nebraska and Mizzou were 5th and 6th on the list.

The Big 12 officials and conference commissioners like Oklahoma’s Joe Castiglione remain publicly confident about the survival of the Big 12. What actually has me believing them, is that they are publicly acknowledging the issues, problems and potential departures. They aren’t downplaying them, and are trying to address them directly before it becomes a complete fait accompli. That said, the impact of departing for the Big Something and recruiting talent-rich Texas seems like a very silly argument.

OU athletic director Joe Castiglione says that while the opportunity to increase revenue is the “driving force” behind conference realignment, schools should think twice about what else they might be giving up.

Missouri and Nebraska have expanded their recruiting bases to the talent-rich state of Texas because of the Big 12.

By going to the Big Ten, the ability to continue effectively recruiting Texas could wane.

“People are talking about what schools have to gain,” Castiglione said. “They also need to talk about what they may have to give up.”

That may suffer a bit, but they’d adjust and get over it. They’ll still recruit in Texas and can point out that they will still be seen on TV all the time. Not to mention they will have additional money to aid them in more recruiting trips. It will just be different. And there will be more than 10 million additional reasons why Nebraska and Mizzou would be willing to adjust.

While Mizzou has seemed the most vocal at first about being willing to jump to the Big Something, Nebraska is picking up steam to pass them in enthusiasm. The local media there seems full-throated in backing it. Looking at how the move would effect individual sports — hooray! a rival in rifle. Wait, you mean none of the Texas schools has a rifle team? That just strikes me as inconceivable.

I think a large amount of the Nebraska interest in moving — I mean aside from the money, obviously —  is the loss of alpha dog status in the conference. Big Red is no longer the power of the conference. It has gotten increasingly concentrated down in Texas and the Big 12 South. While they won’t be the alpha dog of the Big Something, and a geographic outlier there, the money and equitable split of things makes a difference.

Big Something and Pac-10 (12) expansion have the potential to not only pick apart the Big 12, but it means more expansion from the lower tiered conferences and dreaming of the call-up to the big time (or in both cases, the call-back).

SMU athletic director Steve Orsini sounded like a chamber of commerce brochure as he started ticking off his athletic program’s attributes: beautiful facilities, beautiful campus in Dallas. All the pieces coming together.

TCU athletic director Chris Del Conte offered just as much persuasion, citing a school-wide mission for excellence illustrated by what he describes as the athletic department’s 10-year transformation, which led to the Horned Frogs playing in a BCS bowl last season.

It is always these administrators’ jobs to place their programs in a flattering light. But now, more than ever, may be the time to make sure they’re looking their absolute best.

The very public, ongoing speculation on conference expansion might portend a major shakeup that could open doors for the private schools that were passed over during the formation of the Big 12 when the Southwest Conference dissolved in the mid-1990s.

SMU is at best looking at a move to the Mountain West. TCU has a shot at moving up to the Big 12, but both are actually hampered by being in Texas. With four schools already there, they don’t add much. In fact, I imagine many of the other schools that would remain in the conference would fight further Texasification of the conference.

Meanwhile C-USA has meetings this week. Awwwwk-ward.

UCF, East Carolina, Memphis, SMU and every other member of the 12-team league will pledge allegiance to Conference USA and work on making key decisions about its future.

At the same time, every athletic director has left the door open to seceding from the union. With potential automatic qualifying BCS conference expansion dominating offseason chatter, every school in Conference USA has worked hard to put its best foot forward and stop just short of campaigning for invitations to bigger conferences with much bigger payouts.

“We’re like everyone else in conferences, Conference USA,” UCF Athletic Director Keith Tribble said. “We talk about what-ifs. As a university, we want to stand and do the best that we can. We want to have an opportunity to have programs that are successful in the field of competition, successful in classroom … We have to continue to do the things that we need to do so that if something were to happen or if we have a chance to elevate Conference USA to an automatic bid conference, we’re ready.”

Memphis basketball coach Josh Pastner went so far last week to say that Memphis would be “moving to another conference eventually.” Should be a really fun meeting where little in actual truth is spoken.

Now as for leaving the Big 12, schools can actually do it quicker than in the Big East.

Big 12 by-laws suggest two years’ notice for any school to leave the conference.

During that period, the school would receive 50 percent of its normal revenue distribution from the conference.

For schools that depart sooner than two years, the conference uses a sliding scale. For example, a school that gives notice of between 12 and 18 months would lose 80 percent of its revenue.

I’ve not read anywhere that the Big East has a similar sliding scale. It would surprise me if they did.

The ACC is stuck on the sidelines like many others for this round of expansion. They can plan all they want, but they know that this time they can be picked off.

Everyone keeps waiting to see if Notre Dame will blink.

I’m sure it’s fun being courted. Notre Dame has demurely resisted for a long time, and it’s still attractive in an excessive-makeup kind of way. But it had better be careful. The Big Ten will find partners anyhow, and in a new college football world order, the Irish might not enjoy their gilded cage of independence as much as they think.

It seems to have been a weekend for others to speculate on the Domers. Sporting News looks at it and lists the some reasons pro and con.

As usual Irish fans are firmly against it. Apparently seeing the continual, carefully worded statements that don’t rule it completely out more a reflection of the poor play on the field than any other kind of reality. I’ve already said they won’t go simply because the AD and president would be out of a job within a year of such a move.

The Big 11 meetings are this week and everyone knows what will be the main topic. Not much info will come out of it, but it will be the topic.

“That will probably be the hottest topic,” [Michigan Coach Rich] Rodriguez said today at the Champions for Children’s Hearts golf outing at U-M golf course. “As coaches, I don’t think we’re going to have a lot of say in that. They’ll probably get us informed, see where we’re at. We’ll talk about new legislation, scheduling, and things like that. It’s going to be an interesting time, for sure. I’m anxious to see myself where exactly we stand with expansion.”

He doesn’t expect an answer in the next week but figures they’ll get some sort of idea about a time frame.

“I think it’s interesting,” he said. “I think it’s also pretty exciting, because from a league standpoint, we’re dealing from a position of strength. We’re in a great situation right now, and looks like it’ll be even better.”

The new Michigan AD also cautioned that none of this is simple because it isn’t checkers. You don’t say?

“Conferences have contractual obligations and in some cases it’s expensive to leave a conference and it may be expensive to buy into a new conference. There are so many considerations. This is not just a game of checkers. This is multi, multi-billion dollar, very complex issues that involve the presidents of the university, the conference commissioners and certainly the athletic directors. It’s interesting to be a part of it. It’s a work in progress. It could be nothing, but it’s likely going to end up being something.”

And here I was afraid he might be vague about things. The Big 11 also maintains that the decision will not be made by their commissioner Jim Delany, the Big Ten Network and money.

The reality is nothing will be decided when league coaches and athletic directors huddle from Monday to Wednesday. In the Big Ten, every decision related to expansion is made by presidents and chancellors.

Right. There seems to be some counter-spin emanating — presumably from the Big 11 and their members — about how it is about more than money. That academics and the “right fit” are just as important. Of course if that were true, Pitt would already have an invite in hand.

The thing is, Jim Delany has made the Big 11 and the member schools a lot of money. I’d lay heavy odds they will follow his lead. Therefore, follow the money.

Now for some Big East related tidbits.

Rutgers has been working the scene with the Big 11 for a while.

This actually isn’t the first time that Rutgers-to-the-Big Ten has come up. A person with close ties to the university said Rutgers first approached the conference about membership possibilities in 2008 during Robert Mulcahy’s final year as athletic director.

Mr. Mulcahy declined to comment on whether he participated in any high-level talks then, but he has been an advocate of Rutgers’s value to the Big Ten since his appointment to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s athletics advisory commission.

Mr. Mulcahy took over a department in 1998 that suffered from underfunding. At the time, Rutgers had a budget of $20 million for 31 sports and $125,000 in its capital reserves.

Amid public criticism about athletics spending, he raised $26 million, built a new training facility in the Hale Center and pushed through an expansion of Rutgers Stadium, which now seats 52,454—a smaller capacity than most Big Ten stadiums but comparable to that of Minnesota and Indiana. Of that $5 million exit fee to leave the Big East, he said, “I think you could raise it pretty damn fast.”

I can’t even be outraged. That is what he should have been doing. It is what Pitt should have been doing after 2003. The Big East has been vulnerable since the ACC raid and standing pat had no benefit.

Cinci has been running in the red since joining the Big East, and is trying to figure out a way to expand Nippert to help get more money. It’s a problem with the possibility of the Big East becoming a non-factor in the BCS (and its money) and just engineering. It looks like at least one game a year will be played at the Bengals’ stadium.

As for the Big East. Don’t even discuss a network. It won’t happen for at least 3 years. You know, after whatever team(s) are poached are out the door.

The Big East generates somewhere between $4-6 million for its eight football schools. The eight schools that don’t play football in the conference, like Providence College, don’t share a dime of football money. They pocket somewhere around $1.7 million a year from the conference. (Notre Dame earns another $9 million a season strictly from its exclusive TV deal with NBC).

Like the Big Ten, every other conference is now exploring its own TV network but only the Mountain West has one.

Marinatto and previous Big East boss Mike Tranghese weighed launching one five years ago but took a pass in favor of the massive, guaranteed exposure it gained through a six-year deal it signed with ESPN.

“We actually have our own TV network,” Tranghese said when the ESPN deal was signed. “It’s called ESPN.”

Now that he’s seen what impact BTN is having on college sports, Marinatto concedes he’s again looking at the concept. The Big East’s ESPN deals have three years left to run.

“When we signed the deals with ABC and ESPN, our people were thrilled. It was three times more money than what we were getting before and much more exposure,” Marinatto said. “But TV is always changing.”

Marinatto also claims that the Big East has been preparing since 2003 for another round of raiding. Why do I find that so hard to believe?

Maybe because of the refusal to do more to put the football side in a position where there was stability — expanding to 9 or more football members. Maybe because until the latest round of expansion was announced, the Big East wasn’t considering their own network or any sort of alliance with the Big 12 or Pac-10 for a network. Maybe because with 8 basketball schools and 8 football schools, there was no way to plan when the tension and balance between the two always forces to the middle, status quo, and simply keeping stability for the present only — and no eye to the future.