A Simple Proposition

Texas and OU fans - don't get your panties in a bunch. I'm about to suggest something almost blasphemous to Sooners and Longhorns everywhere. It's time to move the Red River ShootOut.

For years, the game has been played on a nice Texas fall day, usually the 1st or 2nd weekend in October in the midst of the Texas State Fair in Dallas at the Cotton Bowl. The new Big 12 Lite, with the way football scheduling will be done, should be the catalyst for change of this near century old tradition.

Face it: the Big 12 Lite is now a 2 team conference, Texas and Oklahoma. Folks will argue it has been that way for up to a decade now, and this is correct. But like them or not, Nebraska was the 4th winningest program in the history of college football. That makes them a national attraction, and with their departure, we are left with just 2 marquee schools in the conference: UT and OU. The new Big 12 Lite will require each team to play the nine other members once, and will eliminate a conference championship game. Everyone plays everyone now, so it begs the question: why put the marquee game at the START of the conference season.

Big 12 Commissioner Bebbe has told the remaining 10 schools to schedule aggressively for their 3 non conference games going forward. Why? Because the national perception of the Big 12 Lite is about to fall to the level of the ACC. One loss teams in the Big 12 Lite will have extreme difficulty in getting a BCS title shot, with the limited number of quality opponents in conference available to schedule. Worse: the Big 12 Lite won't have a conference championship game the first weekend in December to showcase the league against the ACC, SEC, and presumably now - Big 10 and Pac 10.

Solution? Move Texas-OU to the first weekend in December, and put the game in JerryWorld. The game will sell out. The networks will come in droves to pick it up. Imagine undefeated OU vs. undefeated Texas for a Big 12 championship and BCS birth on the line in December? It brings to mind the last two Florida vs. Alabama SEC Championship clashes.

Even if the two schools aren't the dominant teams in the league, the game has historically drawn huge ratings in the southwestern part of the country. The best way to pull viewers away from multiple league championship games is to offer something almost or just as good. The best matchup in the Big 12 Lite offers this to network executives.

The proposal can be temporary. Ultimate success in football is cyclical, and certainly Texas and OU won't be the only winners of the Big 12 Lite, should the league continue to exist indefinitely.

For now, in order to garner the ratings and the money we've been hearing about that will come to all 10 schools, moving this game helps ensures the relevancy of the Big 12 moving forward.

Barry Tremel: The Worse Columnist in OK

Barry Tramel of The Oklahoman posted this article, blaming Texas politicians for the saving of the Big 12. The following is an email sent to Tramel. I hate him.

Your recent article regarding Texas politics and the saving of the Big 12 Conference is further evidence of your inability, as a resident of Oklahoma, to admit that the horse that drives the cart in the southwestern world of football has, and always will be, The University of Texas. You try to convince readers that Texas only stayed because of politicians in Texas? What about the media rights Texas will retain in order to start their own network? How about the new tv deals coming down the pipe from Fox (reported to be in the $140 million range for the conference?)

Texas cannot be the all powerful money greedy school you seem to disparage on one hand, and turn money away from the politicians on the other. The argument makes no sense.

You know what I think? I think that folks in Oklahoma such as yourself are pissed that despite the dominance of your OU Sooners football team, you still can’t usurp Texas as the local power. Here is a school, in OU, that is arguable the most successful program in the history of college football (8 national titles, is it). And within days of the conference realignment talk, the OU AD comes out and says “We go where Texas goes”. That must burn every Sooner in the state.

So here’s the question? Is Oklahoma as a state and the universities within it so weak that, according to your argument, the future of their conference and university success lies within the Texas political landscape? If Texas politicians kept the Longhorns from going to the greener fields of the Pac 10, then surely they kept the teams from Oklahoma going as well. Man – that must suck as a reporter in Oklahoma – to believe the future of the programs you cover on a regular basis is decided in the backrooms of Austin.

Conference Shake Up

The petty jealousies of the University of Texas by fellow Big 12 schools has led to the recent Big 12 implosion. Fine, I can accept that, I'm a Longhorn. If I wasn't, and I were a Cornhumper, an Aggie, or a Buffalo, I would be jealous too.

To Nebraska: Nice. Nebraska AD and Chancellor try to spin their move to blame others. Jackass Tom Osborne: "As we realized that some of the schools that were urging us to stay, had talked not just to one other conference, not just to two other conferences, but to three. And were sometimes talking to those conferences as they urged us to stay." No crap, you morons. YOU WERE TYRING TO LEAVE. Take your old school, decrepit old man AD, and your conrhumping fans, and go to the Big 10. I'm sure you'll be much more "respected" in the Big 10. News flash, idiots. You'll have no more power in that conference with Michigan and OSU playing the role of Texas than you did in the Big 12. Know why? Cause new conference or not, you are still NEBRASKA. And, thus, irrelevant.

To Colorado: Not sure how your selection is any better than Baylor for the Pac 10, however at least the academic standards in the new conference remain as high as they were. Oh wait. You're Colorado. I think you just lost 3 scholarships for football because your players prove that having stupid athletes doesn't make your team better...

To TAMU: I've avoided speaking before now. If your inadequate feelings that surround the relationship you have with UT force you to try to sneak into the SEC, congratulations, you will have earned every bit of embarrassment that will surely come your way in a conference you have no chance of ever winning.