Not sure why a bunch of stuff chose to break just before Juy 4. It means more stuff piling up in the browser window. The expansiopocolypse stuff, once more, has been a big summer filler. And like so many big summer movies, much more hype than any substance.

The Big 12 expansion stuff ended up a lot like the Green Lantern movie.

Hyped blockbuster, but the story dragged.

Actors that just didn’t have the fit or energy for the movie.  Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively headlining a summer blockbuster=FSU and Clemson in the Big 12.

Bad storyline with motivations muddled and abandoned. The Big 12 wants back to 12. No, wait, they’re happy at 10 teams. They want FSU and are willing to take Clemson. No wait, it is ND they  want. FSU athletic department is broke, not broke, wants to move, internal disagreements, who knows.  Clemson coaches pooh-poohing the move while Clemson fans clamor to go… While in the Green Lantern movie, they tossed in and abandoned little storylines and characters so that you didn’t know the reasons for anything culminating with Sinestro abruptly putting on the yellow “fear” ring at the very end of the movie. This after seeing Parallelax defeated by green willpower and hope.

I’ll stop there because I’m heading off on a major digression before even beginning.

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God bless, open records laws and states with decent FOIA-esque laws.

I reviewed the ND moving its non-football sports to the Big 12  fan fiction at the beginning of the week. Now we have the source for the “facts” in the story.

In a January memo to the Big 12 expansion committee, interim commissioner Chuck Neinas said Notre Dame is the only school the Big 12 could add that would “enhance the Big 12 value for television.”

The memo, obtained by The Oklahoman through an Open Records request, was sent to the committee as an agenda for a late January teleconference.

The expansion committee is made up of Oklahoma State president Burns Hargis, Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione, Texas athletic director DeLoss Dodds and Kansas State president Kirk Shulz.

Reading through the article, you can see where the Orangebloods story got each nugget.

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Ah, what is expansiopocolypse without the idea of Notre Dame making a move?

Last week, my favorite Big 12-based “throw-shit-against-the-wall” expansiopocolypse outlet, Chip Brown of Rivals.com’s Orangebloods had his latest. It was the big card: Notre Dame.

Two sources in the Big 12 said Wednesday the possibility of Notre Dame moving its Olympic sports out of the Big East and into the Big 12 is becoming more and more likely.

Speculation is growing among those sources that an announcement could come from South Bend before the end of the summer.

As part of such a move, Notre Dame, which has a contract with NBC to televise its home football games through the 2015 season, would agree to play up to six football games against Big 12 competition (but most likely three or so to start with), sources tell Orangebloods.com.

Notre Dame would maintain its independence in football … for now.

As far as speculative fiction goes, it was something of a doozy.  Reading the piece as a whole you can see it a couple ways.

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Frank the Tank has a very good post on ways the ACC can work to appease/keep FSU (and Clemson) in the fold. Some are simple fixes like the schedule issues and making sure to engage the faculties/academic side at both schools. The ND tie-in to the Orange Bowl also makes sense, and I’ve heard mentioned elsewhere. The divisional realignment to North-South (and designating Miami as “north”) makes a lot of sense, though, I suspect VT would be leading the fight against it as there is a reduced access to Georgia and the Carolinas for the North schools as a result. The ESPN part would be very important for the overall integrity of the conference, and would also reduce the risk of other schools running for lifeboats if there is a raid from the Big 12.

This is pretty simple: agree with ESPN that even if Florida State and Clemson leave, ESPN won’t reduce the value of the recently signed ACC TV contract (which averages a bit over $17 million per school per year).  There’s pretty clear precedent for this scenario with ESPN agreeing to do the same with the Big 12 in 2010 and then coming to an understanding with the Big 12 again in 2011 to have a new contract extension.  As I’ve noted in a previous post, the ACC is actually the single largest content provider to ESPN of any sports entity (whether college or pro), so there’s even less incentive for ESPN to see the ACC break apart compared to the Big 12 (with whom ESPN has a much more limited package) the last couple of years.  Contrary to what many fans seem to believe, ESPN has a significant interest in not seeing the formation of superconferences because they do not want to deal with concentrated power entities that have NFL-type negotiating leverage.  Dispersal of power is how ESPN is able to keep college sports rights fees somewhat in check.  (To put rights fees in perspective, the Big Ten, which is the wealthiest conference, currently receives about $100 million per year from ESPN/ABC for first tier rights.  By comparison, ESPN pays over $100 million per game to the NFL for Monday Night Football.)

The irony of this scenario is that would kick in over $2 million in TV money per year extra to each of the remaining 12 ACC schools, which would raise their total annual per school payouts to close to the $20 million level that the Big 12 is reportedly negotiating with ESPN and Fox.  So, Florida State and Clemson could end up leaving for more TV money in the Big 12, which would actually result in an increase in TV money for the rest of the ACC that would match what the Big 12 schools receive.  That would certainly be enough to take TV rights fees off the table as an issue for the remaining ACC members.

On the matter of the divisional changes, the opposition would be strongest from Virginia Tech and probably Maryland. VT loves the recruiting inroads it has made to the south and Maryland likely would not like to be further isolated from its original member schools. From a Pitt side of things, a shift would be fine. Having Maryland as an annual football game simply makes the most sense. Maryland will be the school closest to Pitt in the ACC and the ACC is setting things up for a Pitt-Maryland basketball rivalry. They just aren’t doing it from a football side as well.

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At the end of last week, Florida State had a regularly scheduled Board of Trustees meeting. Given all the rumors and everything that has been said, whispered, denied, backtracked, and so on; well, the meeting was going to get more scrutiny than usual.

And the news is not much. There is enough for both sides of the FSU and the Big 12 situation to maintain their own position. Most of the meeting is on-the-record, so for those insisting that FSU is definitely not heading to the Big 12 will point to the lack of discussions. Part of the meeting, though, was a closed-door session and it has been reported that expansiopocolypse was discussed.

A lot of credit on what follows should go to the FSU Rivals.com site, Warchant.com (which you would probably figure out based on the links). They really covered this thing. Ultimately, nothing appears any clearer. Personally, the implications coming from this meeting suggest there is little chance that FSU is going to give notice of bolting to the Big 12 this year. It doesn’t appear that all parties are going in the same direction at this point.

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Hey, I gave you nearly a week without an expansiopocolypse post.

Those who believe that FSU and Clemson/Miami/Georgia Tech/[random other team] are definitely going to the Big 12 aren’t phased by the sudden quiet of expansiopocolypse. This is merely the calm before all hell breaks loose by the end of July/beginning of August when the moves happen. That everyone is getting their ducks in a row. Things are being put in place. No one wants a lawsuit from the ACC against the Big 12 for tortious interference. That the other reason for the wait is finalizing the details of the TV deals is still ongoing.

Those don’t believe it is happening are pointing to the quiet as evidence that the whole thing was overblown. A creation of ignorance, simmering resentments and loud-mouthed boosters and trustees. That the abrupt silence after the Big 12 meetings have been dissected show that everyone is repositioning and rethinking things.

I have no idea. My working theory is that exapnsiopocolypse and the ACC/Big 12 isn’t going away, but it is a long-game. Not to be resolved this summer or even next. I, personally, believe the Big 12 is going to wait a year or two before doing anything. I actually believe part of what the Big 12 is saying, at least as far as catching their breath, simply because it makes the most sense. Their conference has radically changed in the last couple of years. The voting blocks, personalities, interests — and a new commissioner all need to see where things stand. That all suggests needing at least a year to work things out with one another. I also think there is a strong enough infatuation in the conference (beyond simply Texas) over the possibilities of Notre Dame that they will wait and see how that goes, especially with the coming playoffs.

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With Big 12 and SEC meetings this week, expansiopocolypse talk picked up in the lead-in to the meetings. The meetings themselves were not supposed to result in any changes, but the chance for the media to talk to coaches and ADs would keep the story going.

That story has been a dud. The SEC has nothing to say on the matter. They just expanded to 14, so there really was no way that they were going to be doing anymore expansion. The Big 12, ah, now that should be where the story was.

Or not so much. Texas AD DeLoss Dodds said last week that he felt that there was no need for any expansion right now (unless Notre Dame came calling). Outgoing temp Big 12 Commissioner Chuck Neinas also suggested strongly that the Big 12 would be best served to stay settled and stabilized for a while after all the upheaval to the conference over the last couple years. Even the newbies at TCU want to wait. Heck,the incoming Big 12 Commissioner has been on record for over 2 weeks as saying he is no hurry to expand.

Now that the meetings are underway, any cracks?

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Over the weekend Pitt released info on the highest paid university employees for the past fiscal year (July 2010-June 2011).

Ex-head football coach Dave Wannstedt was actually the top earner at $1,859,357. That number seems higher than what his salary was believed to be. Considering his termination, I figure the number is higher than expected because he got something of a buyout on his contract on top of his salary for the year.

Coach Jamie Dixon had a boost from previous earnings to be getting over $1.8 million for the season. That isn’t too surprising given the overall success, and offers he’s had. There’s no question that the money is a reason why he hasn’t been hired away by other programs in the past couple years. To make it worth his while to leave where he is established, a program would now have to start the offer at $2.5 million just to get him to seriously listen. Not even to leave. Just to take the offer seriously.

That’s a lot for a college basketball coach. A figure not many are that willing to pay as a starting figure — even for an established coach.

According to the USA Today database, only 9 schools pay their coaches at $2.5 million or more (OSU, MSU, Marquette, Kentucky, Louisville, Kansas, Florida, Duke and UConn). After that, 9 schools pay $2 million or more (Indiana, Michigan, Purdue, Texas, Wisconsin, WVU, Arkansas, Arizona and UCLA). Marquette is the only surprise on the list, but Buzz Williams has been a surprisingly good coach who has attracted a lot of deep-pocketed attention the last couple of years.

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Every family is crazy in their own way.

Now that Pitt is heading to the ACC, we are getting a crash course in the crazy and issues of the ACC family. We’ve learned a bit about FSU’s (and to some extent Clemson’s) issues with the ACC. The whole basketball league, controlled by North Carolina interests, dragging/keeping down the football.

What’s interesting is the longtime ill-will towards ACC Commish John Swofford. From the vantage point of a Providence-based conference, Swofford has appeared to be a rather aggressive and dare I say dynamic leader of the ACC. He engineered the raid of the Big East to get Miami, BC and VT — entirely to bolster the football side of things. To do it he navigated over the explicit objections of Duke and UNC on the expansion. He worked around the Virginia politics that forced VT over Syracuse late in the process. He got the conference good TV money in the aftermath. Then he staged the second expansion that got Pitt and Cuse out of the Big East for next year (yes, technically Pitt and Cuse are not out of the Big East until 2014, but we all know the reality).

It seems, though, that from within the ACC the Swofford reign is much less charitably viewed. One place that truly hates the Commisioner: Clemson.

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Earlier in the week, BC blog, Eagle in Atlanta wrote a really excellent post on how and why ESPN should step in to defuse the whole mess of FSU wanting to flee (with another ACC school in tow) to the Big 12. It lays out a great case as to why it is in ESPN’s interest to do so and draws parallels to the way ESPN worked to make sure Texas didn’t destroy the Big 12 by leaving for the Pac-10/12/16. He doesn’t, however, see ESPN showing any interest in taking this kind of action. Read the whole thing, it’s really good.

I do disagree with him, though, in drawing the parallels to Texas. In the case of Texas, they were considering the Pac-12 for more than simply money and football. It was about the alignment with schools in the west. It was academic interests in being part of the Pac-[random number here]. Ultimately, they opted to stay in the Big 12 because it positioned them better — with the help of ESPN — to control more. The money was a big carrot, no question. But it was also the easier path. No fights with the Texas legislature over what would happen to Baylor and Texas Tech.

The better comparison would be to the situation of Texas A&M.

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Unintentional honesty is always fun. There’s the confirmation of what has been rumored, plus the hilarious attempts to walk it back. The latest, TCU AD Chris Del Conte talking about the Big 12.

Del Conte is in Lubbock this morning speaking to a Committee for Champions breakfast on the Texas Tech campus. According to Chris Level, who is the publisher of RedRaiderSports.com and a co-host of a radio show on 104.3 FM in Lubbock; he Tweeted that Del Conte said that the once dead Big 12 “now has schools like Florida State, Clemson and Miami trying to get in.”

This is called a confirmation, and it’s actually on the record.

Not that Del Conte is actually in a hurry to expand the Big 12 — now that TCU is in.

“From my standpoint of right now, I want to stay let’s take our breath. We are in a position of strength. Let’s not rush into anything. We know expansion has to happen. It may not be for a while. We are in the catbird seat right now. We don’t need to rush it. You are excited all of these teams want into the Big 12 and two years ago it was going to disintegrate.”

So how did Del Conte attempt to walk it back? By claiming that he was only commenting on the rumors of teams trying to get into the Big 12. Of course he was. Not actual ACC programs trying to get into to the Big 12.

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Well, like it or not, this is going to be a reoccurring topic for a while.

Let’s start with some background. Specifically when the Seminoles chose to go to the ACC over the SEC.

While conference affiliation would impact FSU’s entire athletic program, suggesting that football was anything less than a major factor in expansion talk would be naive. So while (Bobby) Bowden was not directly involved in the decision, his support was critical in the process.

Not surprisingly, the Birmingham born-and-raised Seminoles coach — who spent one year as a quarterback at Alabama — said the SEC was ‘emotionally’ his first choice. Even so, he carefully weighed all options.

‘I was probably involved just about as much as anybody in that I agreed to [the ACC],’ Bowden said. ‘I think if I would have wanted to fight for the SEC it might have caused some concerns for everybody, but I didn’t feel that way.

‘When you started looking at it from a financial perspective and what’s best for us, I felt pretty sure what we should do is go ahead and join the ACC. … Bob [Goin] had it laid out pretty good. I’ll be honest with you, it was a no-brainer.’

Haggard, like many on the advisory committee, valued Bowden’s view on the choice of conference.

‘Bobby was totally SEC when it started,’ (Andy) Haggard said. ‘As Bobby’s thinking changed, our thinking changed. It ended up unanimous ACC.’ (Haggard is currently the chairman of FSU’s board of trustees and he was the man quoted in yesterday’s story regarding FSU’s expansion committee.)

By the time a contingent of ACC school and league officials made their Sept. 2 tour of FSU’s campus, the league had already made substantial gains on the SEC’s initial foothold. Finances, football and basketball prowess aside, the ACC’s overall image — specifically its academic reputation — had left a strong impression.

‘More people here wanted the ACC; that’s what really changed me,’ Sliger said. ‘The faculty really wanted the ACC. There were very few [faculty members] that had gone to the SEC, but many of them had gone to North Carolina and Virginia, places like that.’

While the ACC and FSU continued to discover common ground through the search process, the SEC was losing ground.

That’s right, the same Andy Haggard that shot off his mouth two weekends ago about running to the Big 12 was part of the crowd that followed what Bobby Bowden wanted back in 1990.

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Last week, it seemed that things were beginning to slightly cool down from all the expansiopocolypse talk of Florida State and another ACC team (Clemson, Miami, VT, GT all being mentioned) fleeing to the Big 12. The FSU president put out a pointed statement talking down the Big 12. The details about media contracts were better explained.

Then this:

The champions of the Big 12 and SEC conferences will meet in a New Year’s Day bowl game annually beginning with the 2014 season, the conferences said Friday in a news release.

The five-year agreement calls for the champions of each conference to be in the matchup “unless one or both are selected to play in the new four-team model to determine the national championship,” the statement said.

“Should that occur, another deserving team from the conference(s) would be selected for the game,” the release said.

The style of the agreement will be similar to the one the Rose Bowl has with the Big Ten and Pac-12 conferences.

This was a largely symbolic gesture, but one that was immediately treated with deeper meanings.

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I’ll get to more on the increasingly insane latest bit of expansiopocolypse and what it means for Pitt in a bit. This is just a short thing that’s been gnawing at me.

One of my dad’s favorite cliches that he reaches for when trying to decide on a big economic thing  — buying a new car, moving, changing jobs, replacing large appliances, etc. — is: “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.” My father, as you can imagine, is very financially conservative.

That phrase, though, keeps echoing in my head as expansiopocolypse continues. Albeit in a flipped on its head to be: “Better the devil you don’t, than the devil you know.” Everyone is completely willing willing to risk the devil they don’t know for the money. And because they feel that they know the devil they know just that well.

Beyond the money there is no football school in the Big East that wouldn’t run screaming to another conference, because they know that Providence-based leadership just that well by now. They know how incompetent, late to react, and how little they actually care about football — and thus the conference doesn’t provide any help, support or growth for the football schools. If the Big East was able to get $20 million/year for football schools I would still want Pitt out of that conference.

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Something amazing has happened in the last week. Whether it is part of a fundamental change in college athletics, or a response driven by self-interest I am stunned and thrilled. No, I’m not talking about the playoff plans for college football. I’m talking about the discussion of the revised ACC contract.

Since the new contract has been announced last week, it has been subject to debate, argument and especially the frustrations of Florida State fans with the ACC. There was the typical denial from the FSU athletic department that really didn’t say anything. What followed was where it got interesting. FSU fan anger exploded, and the chairman of the FSU Board of Trustees spouted off without really knowing the facts to further fan the flames..

The usual way these things are done are through anonymous sources explaining details of the contract to provide more context. You would have the backtracking and damage control by and for the name person spouting off. And at first that happened — see the part about explaining that all the conference media contracts are backloaded.

Yet that did little to quell things. In fact, it seemed that nothing was making a difference. Cue the change in tactics to direct dealings.

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