The SoapBoxers

Greedy Big 10

The news leaked out last week, The Big 10 with 12 teams is going to now have 14 teams.

Am I the only person that thinks someone needs some remedial math…..

Maryland and Rutgers were invited to join the conference. And by invited I mean, umm….tapping into the Northeastern Television Market required the Big 10 to add some teams that were geographically located there.

The Greedy ACC

I am guessing the ACC put this into play since they landed their “Big Fish” in Notre Dame, and wanted to make sure that if the Golden Dome ever left the confines of the ACC they would be leaving some of their pots of gold behind.

Earlier this year Maryland – along with Florida State – voted against raising the exit fee from $20 million to $50 million in September after Notre Dame was added as a member in all sports but football. This is a significant exit penalty and much much more than Nebraska, Colorado, Texas A&M or Missouri had to pay in comparison for leaving the befuddled Big XII a few years ago.

University of Maryland President Wallace Loh went on record earlier this year saying he did not think the $50 million Atlantic Coast Conference exit fee would hold up in court, but now the ACC has filed a lawsuit against the University of Maryland to protect their interest in a buy-out clause that was reconfigured just last year.

“We continue to extend our best wishes to the University of Maryland; however, there is the expectation that Maryland will fulfill its exit fee obligation,” Commissioner John Swofford said in a statement. “On Friday, the ACC Council of Presidents made the unanimous decision to file legal action to ensure the enforcement of this obligation.”

Rutgers, by comparison, had to pay only a $10 million exit fee to leave the Big East. This seems like lunch money at this stage.

It will be interesting to see if Maryland is able to barter down the price tag, but I am guessing that this would have been happening behind the scenes, and well in front of any lawsuit being filed.

Looks like the Commonwealth and the League need to take this one outside and duke it out.

Late Season Craziness

Hold off on your early Christmas parties…. This could shape up to be a crazy bowl season, and a lot hinges on what transpires this week.

UCLA and Stanford play each other for the second straight week to decide who represents the Pac 12 in the Rose Bowl. Nothing like a rematch on back to back weeks.

Nebraska has a rematch with Wisconsin to be the representative of the Big 10 in the Rose Bowl. Nebraska won the first meeting. If Wisconsin wins, they will be 8-5 and representing in Pasadena.

As a side note, Nebraska lost to UCLA earlier this year in September in California.

I think the Rose Bowl Committee is pulling hard for the Huskers and Stanford, as that match up will be much more attractive Nationally and will also benefit the ticket sales much more than any of the other possible combinations of those four teams.

Alabama and Georgia play one another to basically settle who gets to go to the beach and play Notre Dame.

The Big East has three teams still alive depending on who beats who this weekend.

And a freshman Quarterback might actually win the Heisman Trophy.

Good luck to you and your sports teams and remember…Johnny for Heisman!

Until next time, stay classy Tyler, Texas

My My….crow is tasty and best served when cold….

In lasts week’s article I went on the record about Notre Dame with the following statement:

I am going on record that Boomer Sooner will roll one up on this over-rated team. Of course I could be completely wrong as frankly Oklahoma can be pretty average as well (see loss to Kansas State). Coach Stoops has a way of losing the big one, but I predict this will look more like the game against Texas than the turnover plagued loss to the Wildcats.

I even went as far to proclaim in the office that you can’t spell “BLOWOUT” without “OU”

After a Sunday to prepare for the onslaught of grief in the office on Monday, I supplied some cookies from a local establishment – Eileen’s.  While I am not a paid endorser, I am giving Eileen’s some free publicity today as their cookies are the GREATS!. Of course everyone in the office already likes them and how can you not like chocolate cookies with green mint frosting to celebrate a Fighting Irish victory over Oklahoma.

Of course my cookie offerings could not stop the onslaught of emails of Manti Te’o’ and various signs popping up on my cubicle throughout the day when I would be away at lunch or at the printer.

Gotta love those Irish fans.

The Big 10?

Could Nate Sudfeld lead the Hoosiers to the Big 10 title game?

Another crazy week in the conference. Denard Robinson gets injured and Nebraska wins rather easily against Michigan. Neither team looked very good on the field, matter of fact you could argue the play of both offenses rivaled the condition on Sunday morning of most of the people that were at our football tailgate party all day on Saturday at Memorial Stadium…..sluggish….

The Huskers have the lead in their division but head into what is sure to be a dog-fight this weekend in East Lansing. This side of the equation for the Conference Title game in Indianapolis is still wide open in what has been a very average year in comparison to the national stage.

On the other side of the league, Wisconsin loses to Michigan State last week at home (the first home loss in 21 games for Bielema’s boys was the 2nd longest streak in the nation) but since both Penn State and Ohio State are ineligible for the Title game, they are still clearly in command to make that game. Unfortunately they have lost their starting QB Joel Stave to a broken collarbone so they will have to go to the back-up plan and basically just hold off pesky Indiana to play for (gulp) the automatic BCS berth. But as Kosmo alluded to in his article yesterday, the Big 10 is still full of scenarios that could have them sending no one to BCS Bowl this year.

The many possibilities as they say are very …well….possible. I am guessing conference athletic directors might be secretly rooting for Nebraska to run the table just so everyone can get a slice of the BCS payday pie.

Optimus Klein

Collin Klein has pretty much distanced himself from the rest of the pack and barring a major crash and burn by his team or injury he looks to be the guy to hoist the trophy at the Downtown Athletic Club. On the year he has 1630 passing yards 634 yards rushing and a combined 28 Td’s. The Mildcats have Oklahoma State, TCU, Baylor and Texas on the schedule…What that spells to me is more huge stats by the lead Cat.

Fighting Frankies!

Once a Husker always a Husker, and I was disappointed to see that former Husker Coach Frank Solich and the Ohio Bobcats lost their first game of the year this past week to Miami of Ohio. The MAC is tough and this drops them from the rankings and even outside mention at a possible BCS bid if they ran the table, to now being in third place in their own conference.

Know a Good Real Estate Agent?

Really? This was 2011? Seems a lot longer.

I have a hard time believing that Auburn will keep Gene Chizik after the abysmal year of the Tigers. They got wood-shedded again this past week losing by 42 points. The good news for Auburn is they have New Mexico State this week and still have to play powerhouse Alabama A&M in another examples of two cases of an SEC school playing weird home games late in the year against poor opponents or downright patsies.

The bad news is that they also have to face Georgia (who I still think really isn’t that good) and Alabama (which I think IS really that good)

I am sure for War Eagle fans it seems so very long ago that they had paid Cam Newton and won their BCS Title. Wonder where Gene will end up?

Until next time, stay classy Tarpon Springs, Florida