Good bye, Nebraska, don't let the door hit you on the way out. Will the Big 12 Conference survive without you? It seems doubtful at this point but who knows.
One thing I do know is the Cornhuskers are symbolic of everything that's wrong with college athletics. It's about making money, and if the NCAA and university presidents would admit it's all about making a pretty penny, it would be for the best.
Don't feed us nonsense that it's about the student athletes, because it clearly isn't. That's complete garbage. If it was, why would Texas even consider moving to the Pac-10? It's 2,055 miles from Austin to Pullman, Wash., (home of Washington State) and 1,771 miles to Seattle, where Washington University is located. The athletes would get home at terrible times and miss classes, particularly during basketball season, when weeknight games are prevalent.
That's why there's no playoff system in college football, right? I thought that was one of the reasons we heard from the BCS and university presidents — that it would cause students to miss classes. Never mind that the playoff would occur during Christmas break when students are gone. Cut the excuses — admit that you're about dollar signs. We all know it. We're just waiting on you to come out and say it.
But let's return to Nebraska, the real issue at the present moment.
When I think of Tom Osborne, I picture a traditionalist — a man who recognizes and cherishes history. I see a football coach who had a relentless knack for winning games, a coach who dominated the Big Eight Conference. I envision him as being one of the greatest coaches in college football history.
After the last few weeks, I realize he's just another greed-driven, jealous figure. Don't let what he said earlier this week on his radio show fool you, this is also about the Nebraska athletic director's animosity toward Texas.
Yes, money is a significant factor with the Big Ten Network, but if Nebraska had remained patient with the Big 12, I'm certain a lucrative television deal would have came about when the league's contract runs out in two years.
Osborne is bitter and he's taking advantage of a chance to stick it to Texas. See, Texas has irritated Osborne ever since the Big 12 was formed in 1996. All those years before the Big 12 existed, Nebraska was the big fish along with Oklahoma in a little pond. The Cornhuskers dominated. They won the Big Eight 12 times under Osborne from 1975-95. They won three national championships on the football field, two of which came right before the league formed in 1994 and 1995. Osborne didn't want change. He was dominating.
When the Longhorns entered the picture, Nebraska blended in. Texas pushed for rules that hurt Osborne's chances of continuing his winning ways. He didn't want a Big 12 championship game, but everyone else in the league did. That championship game cost him against Texas in 1996, when Osborne saw his team lose to the team he would grow to loathe.
The Longhorns led the charge to change eligibility standards that were in place when the Big Eight existed. The Big Eight didn't limit the number of partial qualifiers to a school and allowed non-qualifiers to enroll at universities. Non-qualifiers would have to sit the first year — paying their own way and then were eligible to play the second year as long as they passed 24 credit hours over two semesters.
When the Big 12 formed, the schools agreed to stay with the old rules, but Texas wanted otherwise and got its way. Under the new Big 12 rules, only two male and two female partial qualifiers are allowed to enroll each year, with no more than one athlete in each sport. Non-qualifiers aren't accepted at all and must go to junior college before admittance.
The Big Ten, which prides itself on academic integrity, does not limit the number of partial and non-qualifiers. Wonder why Osborne wants to leave? There's just another reason.
It is widely rumored that Osborne was the only athletic director at the Big 12 meetings last week who voted against the league's football championship being played at Jerry Jones' stadium in Texas for the next three years. Osborne wanted it to alternate between Kansas City, Mo., and Dallas.
The Big 12 championship in basketball belongs in Kansas City, but Osborne doesn't want to hear it, because he's a football guy.
This is all coupled with the fact that the Cornhuskers were within a second of a Big 12 championship in football last season, only to see time added to the clock. Texas would win on a field goal due to the extra time, all adding bitterness to the situation.
Osborne can complain all he wants about the Big 12. But the league has been better for his university than most of the others. Yet he whined the most. He complained about the television revenue not being divided evenly and that Texas had a significant advantage. In 2007, Texas made $1.1 million more than Nebraska in television dollars, which is penny change in the multi-million dollar business college athletics has become.
The Big 12 has done plenty. Remember that year Nebraska got throttled 62-36 against Colorado and failed to even play in its own conference championship? Well the Cornhuskers still got the chance to play in the national title game. Kansas State wishes it could say its double-overtime, three-point loss to the No. 10 team in the country (Texas A&M) in 1998 could at the very least have gotten them to a BCS game rather than the Alamo Bowl.
If anyone should be complaining, it should be the Iowa States and the K-States of the league, not Nebraska.
Over the last 14 years, Nebraska has slowly faded as the league's big fish. It hasn't won a conference championship since 1999 on the football field. Now the Huskers are reportedly moving to the Big Ten, where they will continue to blend in.
But hey, Nebraska will be good for seven or eight wins a year on the football field and a trip to the Alamo Bowl. Maybe even a trip to the Capital One Bowl and a nine, maybe 10-win season.
Enjoy the Huskers Big Ten. Their fans travel well and they have a big football stadium. If that's what you're looking for, you got the perfect fit.
What we're seeing is a seismic shift in college athletics. It's just another step toward greed. And frankly, it's sickening.
And Nebraska, a program that prides itself on tradition, seems to have become part of it.