Expansion Talk - Kansas

When Turner Gill took over the reigns of the Kansas Football program in December of 2009 he listed his priorities: Recruit, beat Missouri, win the Big 12 North, win the Big 12 and by doing so, the Jayhawks would be playing for the National Champsionship. Now before Gill has the opportunity to be on the sidelines of Memorial Stadium in Lawrence, the timeline to acheive those priorities has been accelerated.

National reports have Nebraska joining the Big Ten as early as Friday resulting in an impolosion of the Big 12 Conference. Most of the schools in the Big 12 South will be engulfed by the Pac 10 along with Colorado. That leaves some of the universities in the Big 12 North to fend for themselves. Kansas will be among them.

Gill became a Jayhawk after a successful playing career at Nebraska. He took the job at Kansas after building a bad Buffalo team and turning them into a conference champion. He had earned the right to do the same thing at a BCS conference school. Kansas gave him that chance, now those priorities he set forth seven months ago may not occur.

Kansas isn't the only school in jeopardy of becomming a nomad on the college landscape. Kansas State, Iowa State are also looking for a new home, and the possibilities available aren't enticing. The Big East is one rumored home, but how will Olympic Sports at the midwest schools be able to travel to such remote locations as Storrs, CT. In football once these teams are done playing one another, their closest opponent will be Cincinnati.

Another home could be the Mountain West. Perhaps a bit more geographically-friendly to these schools, but now these one-time BCS conference schools become a mid-major. And the basketball programs of these institutions lose credibility as they would be only a few years removed from playing for the title of the nation's best league.

Now these "left-overs" fromt he Big 12 will be searching for a conference that best suits them. They will be looking for a chance to prove themselves, much like Turner Gill has been doing for the last few years.

College Football Week 13

If this weekend's slate of Championship games goes to form, many predict the Hawkeyes to be facing Courtney's Boise State Broncos in the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl. There is nothing definite, but the fans of the black and gold should cheer for Texas to defeat Nebraska, Cincinnati to beat Pittsburgh and the BCS powers that be select Iowa over Penn State. Many arguments for both teams to earn the at-large BCS selection, but this is one time the fans of the black and gold can point to the head to head match up where Iowa defeated Penn State 21-10....This past weekend of college football provided much more excitement than most of the NFL games on Sunday. Given the opportunity I would've much rather watched the Alabama - Auburn rivalry game or the Battle for the Boot between Arkansas and LSU instead of Minnesota - Chicago. The NFL has the elite athletes playing the game at its highest level, but it can't compare to the genuine excitement of the college game where there are battles for boots, jugs, pigs and bragging rights with "good old fashined hate" in a "backyard brawl"...One piece of the game college players and coaches can take from the NFL is game management in the final minutes. A week earlier LSU was much aligned for trying to spike a ball with one second to go. This week it was Auburn and Kansas. Auburn for not using the clock appropriately for moving themselves into the scoring zone with less than a minute to play. And Kansas for not killing time off the clock with a lead under three minutes. Each team found themselves on the losing end due to bad clock management. The NFL's Tom Brady and Peyton Manning do it better than few before and the college coaches need to teach it better than what fans see today....Once the final BCS rankings come out in one week I will show how they can be transcribed into a viable play-off option incorporating the bowl system....