Conference Realignment

Well, it's official.  College athletics should just pay the players like semi pro.

The fans don't matter, the regional history doesn't matter.  All that matters is how much can we leverage these young people to help us get.

The NCAA should just void the TV contracts and do their own realignment.  Take it out of the commisioners' grubby little hands and level the playing field.

As for the concerns of the teams that may be left over from the potential dissolving of the Big 12, here is my answer.

Reform the Big 8.

Seriously, you will still have 4 schools with some considerable history and, at minimum, the start of a very solid basketball conference.  There are a number of schools who are outgrowing the small conferences and would love to have a better shot at a conference with a BCS affiliation.  They could likely take their pick from.

1. Boise State
2. BYU
3. Utah
4. TCU
5. Houston

and those are just the bigger ones.  If they wanted to really get cute and try to build a big basketball or an unbalanced conference like what the Big East did, there are number of smaller schools that have put together very solid basketball programs who could really use the extra money from moving up a conference.

They could walk in and take their pick from the teams in the Missouri Valley.  If they started with Northern Iowa, Wichita State, and Creighton they would be near guaranteed a tournament level team every year from those 3.  And that was before those teams joined a conference with a legimitate TV contract. 

There is also third option.  Go get 4 of the 5 listed above for full conference membership, and then invite Northern Iowa, Wichita State, Creighton, and another team of your choice and you will have the Big 12 again...well at least during basketball season.

In time, those schools could work towards restarting/promoting their football teams untill they are D-I, mirroring what happened at UConn and you will be right where you were.  Don't forget, after all, that a number of the Big 12 schools were originally part of Missouri Valley (Oklahoma State and KU to name 2). 

Yeah, it's going to hurt, and it sucks if it happens, but it's not the end of the world.  And for those of us in wichita, we would finally get to see K-State and KU have to play WSU.