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 8

Bobby Bowden, you OLD dog, you......With a come from behind win against the Tar Heels the heat on Bowden has quieted down, but only for a week.....Congratulations Ball State Head Coach, Stan Parrish on winning your first game as a head coach since 1986. He hasn't been a head coach every year, but the losing streak was ended at 34......Much has been made about the mediocrity of the Big Ten, but take a look at the schedule Texas has played. Their non-conference slate included wins over Louisiana-Monroe, UTEP and Wyoming with an upcoming battle with Central Florida. NONE of those teams are from BCS conferences. Iowa is on track to play the top five Big Ten teams on the road as well as take on an opponent from the Big 12 (Iowa State) with a home game against Arizona. The national media can criticize the Big Ten all they want, but that is based on the success of the past years, as is the respect Texas is receiving. Remember in Colt McCoy's freshman season, his 9-3 team went down to the final drive with a 6-6 Iowa team in their home state. If you want to look at the past, take that into consideration......I am continuing to lobby for a BCS Buster Saturday. The idea of a playoff has taken a backseat to the current bowl structure. I, too am in favor of the bowl lineup, but there is no reason to implement a system to place the appropriate teams in the correct bowls. A criticism of TCU and Boise State is their lack of strength of schedule. "Those teams could not compete on a weekly basis with the BCS conferences," is the argument. If so, pair them up on either Thanksgiving weekend or the following Saturday. As is the case in basketball with Bracket Buster weekend, college football could pair the appropriate teams from the WAC, Mountain West, MAC and Sun Belt. A year ago Boise State could've played Ball State and this year the pairing could be against TCU.

College Football Week 3

This week we'll step aside from highlighting the conference by using its logo. Instead, Brianna of the UCLA Dance Team will be our representative to distinguish that not all is UGLY from the schools on the west coast. Let's take a look at how bad the Big One, Little Nine is this week.

Beside the beating Ohio State took at the hands of perhaps the best team in the nation, USC, the Pac 10 has nothing else to be proud of after Saturday. Let's begin in the great Northwest. A week after a controversial loss to BYU, the Washington Huskies were one dog who played dead on national tv against Oklahoma. OU may be one of the top three teams in the country, but the Huskies were embarrassed. Their in-state neighbor Washington State lost 45-10 at Big 12 doormat Baylor. Cal traveled east to Maryland and lost to a team which fell a week earlier to Middle Tennessee State.

Then there were the numerous showdowns with the members of the Mountain West Conference. Arizona lost to New Mexico, Stanford lost at TCU, UNLV upset ranked Arizona State in Tempe and UCLA was blown out at BYU 59-0.

The positives of the week outside of the L.A. Colisseum? Kudos to the state of Oregon. The Ducks rallied from behind to beat Purdue in two overtimes and Oregon State took care of Hawaii in Corvallis.

USC will not be tripped up by a fellow conference school in 2008.