I swear, some time soon I will get to the actual games. Maybe even talk about ND before Saturday. Yet I can’t turn away from Conference Expansiopocolypse stuff. I’m just too invested.

The Big East football programs had a little get together at a hotel in NYC. Henry Kissinger happened to be in the same hotel. You really can’t make this stuff up.

Speaking of stuff you can’t make up. This was the full text of the Big East Conference statement after the meeting.

Our membership met this evening and we are committed as a conference to recruit top level BCS caliber institutions with strong athletic and academic histories and traditions.  We have been approached by a number of such institutions and will pursue all of our options to make the BIG EAST Conference stronger than it has ever been in both basketball and football.

What a reaffirming and warm statement. But…

Curiously absent from the league statement is the specific wording that all of the schools were committed to the league.

Not really. (By the way, check out the story just for the punchdrunk picture of Marinatto. I want some photoshopped submissions based on that picture. Please!)

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Oh, Ken Starr and Baylor you make this fun.

Baylor let people know about a vital survey showing how people overwhelmingly do not want ginormous conferences.

Three-quarters (76%) of college football fans say they would be disappointed with the creation of super conferences that would eliminate historical regional conference rivalries, according to a poll released today. The poll also indicated a strong belief that decision-making regarding conference realignment should be conducted with transparency and public input.

Well that seems startling. Naturally there was a solid unbiased sampling.

The survey, conducted among college graduates within Big 12 member states over the weekend by KRC Research of Washington, D.C. and commissioned by Baylor University, found strong support for the existing college athletic conference alignment. Seventy-seven percent of respondents said schools should “fight to preserve the original intent of collegiate athletics as part of the student experience” while only 19 percent said the commercialization of college sports is inevitable and should be accepted.

…

The survey included responses from 1,500 college graduates within Big 12 states – 300 each within Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas and Iowa.

Oh.

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You know, I put this together at the end of last week, and didn’t get around to posting it. In part, because it was coming right up against an actual Pitt game. Now little has actually changed, but it feels like stuff is a lot closer to happening. Consider this an update and some good reading material on what is happening.  Right now it is nothing. Some speculation. Some talking out the ass. And some smart observations.

The threat of a lawsuit from Baylor and other Big 12 members  — Kansas, K-State, Iowa St. and Mizzou — is not a real deterrent for the SEC to take Texas A&M. It is just the excuse for a chance to pause.

The explanation that makes the most sense is that this is simply SEC commissioner Mike Slive taking advantage of the threat to try and get Larry Scott and the Pac-12 to move first. It’s unlikely to work, but Slive has the time to give it a go. And indeed, Slive is now speaking in terms of “when,” not “if” with regards to A&M.

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Has it come to this? Is the SEC that afraid of the empty threat of a lawsuit that they are hesitating on taking Texas A&M? Could it be true that the ACC showed more intestinal fortitude than the SEC is showing?

Nah.

This whole lawsuit threat is merely something that gives everyone a chance to pause. The SEC is willing to step back and wait because there is no need for them to rush.

The Pac-12 gets to think a little longer about how much it wants to take Oklahoma. All the Big 12 members are willing to take a step back for the moment. The only place that is really pissed off about this are in College Station, Texas.

“We are being held hostage right now,” Loftin said of being forced to stay in the Big 12. “Essentially, we’re being told that you must stay here against your will and we think that really flies in the face of what makes us Americans for example and makes us free people.”

Uh, yeah. Hyperbole much? And the recommitment and public statements about sticking with and supporting the Big 12 in the prior year? Well, those don’t count.

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Up to this point, it has been maneuvering. It has been rumors, positioning, intent and supposition. Today, the bleep gets real (probably).

School officials spent Tuesday preparing for a news conference at Kyle Field to celebrate the move, pending a favorable vote from SEC presidents to extend an invitation. The SEC presidents met Tuesday night and discussed an invitation to A&M, and sources said one final hurdle must be cleared before the deal is complete.

The SEC made no formal announcement. A&M’s announcement could be delayed until Thursday.

And that vote appears to have gone through, though, Baylor is doing whatever it can to stop everything.To the point where this may actually be delayed longer than merely a day.

When it happens, though, it will set in motion three different tracks in the great expansiopocolypse of 2011, Hmmm. This will definitely bleed into 2012. Think this is what the Mayans really meant about the end of an age? Starts to make some sense now.

Those fear of lawsuits from the Big 12 and member schools against the SEC appeared to be  a thing of the past. Well, except for one school — Baylor.

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I have things to do tonight to clear the deck for the weekend in Pittsburgh. So no time to break down this latest rundown on expansion/conference realignment mess.

Several sources said that while the media attention is locked on the Big 12’s purported courtship of BYU, what’s really happening behind the scenes is this:

The Big 12 is considering a raid of the Big East for at least two teams and perhaps more.

The names I heard from multiple sources were Pittsburgh and Rutgers, but I have to believe others, including Louisville and West Virginia, are in play.

The key items from this story to remember. The timeline for this stuff has allegedly been accelerated, but we are still talking in terms of years not months.

UPDATE: As if this wasn’t enough, well there is more.

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I don’t really feel as if I have a choice. I can’t avoid the discussion. Less than 8 hours to the start of college football season. Less than 60 hours to Pitt’s opening, high octane, accelerant enhanced team takes the field. And I have to write about more conference realignment. There’s a reason why many people just want 1-A football to get to four 16-team conferences, just to get it done since it is heading in that direction. But instead, there have to be long complicated dramas. Egos, and just a general mess in the middle.

I could try and ignore it. I could try not to write about it, but…

Okay… I’ll go. I’ll go, I’ll go, I’ll go.

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This was the last full weekend where the wife was going to get me to do work around the the house and/or do family time that doesn’t involve a football or basketball game. Once college football season gets started, she knows every Saturday until sometime in Mid-April will find me unavailable. She knows it, and for whatever reason continues to put up with it. It is why I don’t give her a hard time about whatever she asks me to do for those 4-and-one-half months of no college basketball or football.

Briefly on the topic of Big XII. I won’t lie. Part of me would love to see Notre Dame join the Big XII just to see the egos of ND and Texas collide. You have two narcissistic, controlling, big-egoed programs and alumni trying to coexist in the same conference. Both used to totally getting their own way. Texas by dictating to the conference. Notre Dame with its independence. The backbiting, the leaks, the complaints. You know it wouldn’t last, but it would be entertaining to see both programs try to tear the other down behind the scenes.

As for Pitt’s non-denial about the Big XII, it bears repeating. Pitt is being given a rare chance to put more pressure on the Big East powers with respect to the conference’s expansion plans and the coming media contract. If the Big East basketball side wants to continue holding up football expansion or force Villanova into the spot, then Pitt now has options — now and in the future. Options that aren’t limited to simply waiting/hoping for the Big 10/12 or ACC come calling. Plus, assuming the Big XII stops at just one program — BYU or Houston — for now, the door remains open for Pitt and WVU to go to the Big XII and bring it back to 12. Pitt is playing it smart.

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You remember last year — or any other year for that matter where the Big East seemed like it was at risk of being raided? Or people wanted to explore the idea of expanding the football? There would be highly ridiculous scenarios devoid of any sense of reality. BC, Penn State and Maryland all leaving their stable, wealthy conferences for the Big East was always a favorite to see.

In some sense I think these fantasy scenarios were laid out for a couple of reasons. The first being that natural delusion that comes from being a fan. My school is great. Others — even if they’re rivals — want to be associated with my school. Ergo, they want to be in my conference, and thus they would be happy to come to the Big East.

There is also the attitude that, if this is going to happen, the conference needs to go big. This seems to stem from the sense of denial that the realistic choices suck. That the real choices are C-USA leftovers from the first Big East raid.

Another is the reverse logic approach. You start at the conclusion you want, and work backwards to create the framework. It requires creating assumptions and claims that may not be true (often times using theories or claims that a program is secretly unhappy with their lot within the other conference).

And finally, just the throw s**t up against a wall because all the realistic scenarios have been covered and this is all that’s left.

Well, kind of weird to watch this happen with the Big XII, huh?

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Really? You really really want to pretend this is serious? That after Texas A&M runs from the BIg XII/X to the hard mother embrace of the SEC that Pitt or any other BCS conference program would actually entertain jumping to the Texas-dictated conference?

Fine, I’ll play along and rehash my reactions from Twitter. Tell you what Big IX. You do indeed get Notre Dame to not only give up its independence, but join the Big XII in all sports, then Pitt will indeed give serious thought to this idea.

I mean, forget for a moment the TV money set to be brought in to the BIg IX vs. the Big East right now. Consider recruiting. As much as everyone wants to be able to tap into that Texas talent pipeline, is it really worth it to sacrifice Ohio, NY/NJ and Florida in both football and basketball? Am I missing something? Some hidden vein of talent in Kansas? Missouri? Oklahoma?

I have to imagine, though, that all these “discussion” by the powers of the Big IX to go after ND, BYU, Arkansas and Pitt are much like my discussions with Jessica Biel and Jessica Alba to have a threeway. Completely one-sided and delusional.

While it looks near certain that Texas A&M will bolt if the SEC decides that they want to take the Aggies, the unknown is who the SEC would tab if they went to 14 or even 16. The names are obvious and have been bandied about: Mizzou, Oklahoma, FSU, Clemson, VT and/or UNC.

Forget the denials that have emanated from other programs. I think we all know that this is like a coach search. No one has been “contacted” but everyone is in touch. So, if you want to say, but FSU has denied any contact or VT has said they have no interest in leaving the ACC. Or that Mizzou is pretending to be content in the Big XII — it means nothing.

The aspect I’m trying to look at in this post is the impact/survival/attractiveness of the Big XII vs. the Big East.

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I have been following the Texas A&M hissy fit over the Longhorn Network with some amusement. It’s like they spent the last 11 months pretending it was not really going to happen, and then as it draws within a month of actually debuting, the Aggies as a whole looked around and said, “Oh, f**k. This is the last straw.”

And last week, the unsourced rumors started that Texas A&M was ready to go to the SEC, and the SEC would take them. No substantiation seemed to be coming. Just non-denials and everyone basically saying that they have heard the rumors but don’t know much beyond that.

Then tonight came and there was this:

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Sorry for going beyond the usual weekend shutdown. Daughter’s birthday, family, the usual. Never even cracked open the laptop after a quick look-around and e-mails on Saturday morning.

So, just going to get some stuff out of the browser tabs.

Let’s start with that which everyone is sick of hearing. The Big 12 survival and Big East stuff.

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Yeesh. Push out an expansion round-up. Head out to do some things with the kids (summer vacation in full swing). Get back and find out that nearly as soon as I posted, that the Big 12 may yet survive.

Orangebloods.com: According to sources, Texas will announce as early as today that UT will commit to a 10-member Big 12.

Or not:

One source said commissioner Dan Beebe’s last-minute plan to save the conference has “zero” chance to succeed. Another source said it is “very unlikely” to succeed.

Who knows at this point. Maybe Texas told the other members that they would stay if everyone agreed to stay and make a contractually binding agreement — filled with punitive penalties, costs to make it extremely prohibitive to leave and an extended unwinding. I would imagine Missouri would balk, and there would have been a good chance at Texas A&M also hesitating.

Here’s the thing. Texas has the position of strength that it can make, say a 5-year commitment to the Big 12/10. They will still be a sought after program by other conferences in five years.

Texas A&M and especially Mizzou cannot be that sure of things. If they make a commitment and then the Big Something does go to 16, they are stuck. They could find themselves missing their chance at the Big Something, the SEC could be set at that point,  and then still see Texas leave them in the remains of the Big 12/10.

I guess, it just seems are too far gone for Texas (and even Texas A&M) to do a 180 and save the Big 12/10.

I really can’t tell you, but this might be a better jolt than morning coffee.

An executive at a Big 12 school relayed to The World-Herald on Tuesday that he expects Nebraska to become a member of the Big Ten as early as Friday.

NU Chancellor Harvey Perlman has declined all interviews about conference realignment and expansion. He is expected to address the topic with the Board of Regents at its Friday meeting in Lincoln.

Direct confirmation from Nebraska of a conference change for the Huskers wasn’t immediately available. Sources at two other Big 12 schools told The World-Herald that their athletic directors have instructed them to be ready by week’s end for a briefing on probable Big 12 changes.

Nebraska A.D. Tom Osborne offered implicit confirmation Tuesday night that the timetable on national conference realignment has been accelerated.

On his monthly appearance on the Husker Sports Network, Osborne said:

“I think before too long — I don’t know exactly what that time frame is — we’ll be able to put this to bed,” then he jokingly added, “because I’m getting tired of it.”

That really doesn’t prove much, but everyone is getting more skittish by the day. There is definitely a sense that Nebraska is not going to bend to the Texas/Big 12 ultimatum.