Iowa State Cyclones

I'm not a lawyer and I don't play one in the paper, but I do know several attorneys and they tell me they don't expect Nebraska and Colorado to have to pay the entire exit fee, or damages, or whatever you want to call it, to the Big 12.

First, there's the word "damages.'' The remaining Big 12 schools must prove that NU and CU damaged the league by leaving. That might be hard to do in light of the (reckless) rhetoric last week, with Big 12 commish Dan Beebe and others talking about how the league was now better without NU and CU, how the remaining schools stood to make more money, how it would be a much better basketball league (Frank Martin and the Missouri governor both weighed in on that), etc. Those statements can and will be used against the Big 12 in proving that the league has been lessened or damaged.

Admittedly, there will be nothing natural about the awkward, clunky months to follow as the consequences of Nebraska's move reverberate through the rest of the Big 12 and college football. There will be bickering. There will be bitterness. There could well be burned bridges from Piscataway to the Pacific Coast by the time all is said and done.
But Nebraska didn't win all those games over the years with sympathy. At the Huskers' peak -- think Tommie Frazier against Florida -- they bowled over their competitors. It's been a long time since they enjoyed such a decisive victory, but this move, unquestionably, is just that.

Two sources said Missouri is eagerly hoping for an invitation from the Big Ten, while Nebraska appears to be on the fence about whether to hold out for a possible Big Ten invitation or move back to the table with the nine schools who are determined to keep the Big 12 alive.

There is a belief among the majority of schools that the Big 12 could survive if it just lost Missouri, the sources said. But the sense is the Big 12 is dead if it loses both Missouri and Nebraska.

While waiting for Butch Davis to get it done at North Carolina, here's what I do if I'm the ACC: I call in reinforcements. I go after West Virginia, Louisville and Cincinnati.

Along with delivering the lucrative Beckley, W.Va., market, the Mountaineers would transform the ACC. Fans of the Mountaineers are a perpetual blitz. They are loyal and they are devoted and they don't care who knows it.

You imagine Bob Huggins and West Virginia fans at the ACC basketball tournament? Nobody would ever call it a cocktail party again.

The Big Ten Conference has extended initial offers to join the league to four universities including Missouri and Nebraska from the Big 12, according to multiple sources close to the negotiations.

The Big Ten Conference has extended initial offers to join the league to four universities including Missouri and Nebraska from the Big 12, according to multiple sources close to the negotiations.

If it's not Notre Dame, then I'm going to stick with my original guess from December: Nebraska. The school has never truly gotten along with the Texas contingent since the SWC-Big 8 merger and would stand to possibly double its annual TV revenue by joining the Big Ten.
Were the Big Ten to package the nationally revered Huskers with Missouri and one of the New York-area teams, it might as well start printing money. But that's just one man's guess -- the first of probably many to follow between now and July 1.