The Big 12 expansion groundswell

[Indy Coug]

HB Arnett is making another one of his goofy bets to drum up new subscriptions. This time he's betting that BYU will leave the MWC before the season begins.

http://www.cougarboard.com/noframes/...tml?id=5717450

[Hot Lunch]

HB Arnett is making another one of his goofy bets to drum up new subscriptions. This time he's betting that BYU will leave the MWC before the season begins.

http://www.cougarboard.com/noframes/...tml?id=5717450

Who is HB Arnett? I know he does a "cougar insider" type email thing, I think. Does he or has he worked for any media outlets? How has he become a "cougar insider"?

[jay santos]

Who is HB Arnett? I know he does a "cougar insider" type email thing, I think. Does he or has he worked for any media outlets? How has he become a "cougar insider"?

I think Chris Pella was the youngest source he had. I hope he's got some new ones.

[LA Ute]

Who is HB Arnett? I know he does a "cougar insider" type email thing, I think. Does he or has he worked for any media outlets? How has he become a "cougar insider"?

He used to have a hard-copy newsletter for BYU fans - I first saw it in the early 1980s. HB must be pretty old by now. I remember when he proclaimed the end of Utah football because the Utes had lost the LDS recruiting base forever.

[Indy Coug]

The biggest problem with Arnett is that he always sees things with very blue goggles and refuses to have a strong opinion about anything.

[PaloAltoCougar]

I've subscribed since shortly after I left BYU in 1979. Back in the '80s, with no internet, it provided a great fix for the out-of-state BYU fan. I looked forward eagerly to each Wednesday's mail delivery with the newsletter would arrive.

More recently, there hasn't been much of a value add, but I've always renewed the subscription more out of a weird sense of loyalty than any Jonesing for news. I was thinking of finally letting the subscription lapse, but this offer is so intriguing or at least funny I'll happily kick in $35 for two more years.

[OrangeUte]

He used to have a hard-copy newsletter for BYU fans - I first saw it in the early 1980s. HB must be pretty old by now. I remember when he proclaimed the end of Utah football because the Utes had lost the LDS recruiting base forever.

he still does. a colleague of mine subscribes and i look at it every once in awhile. i've found that the members of this board are more than or as reliable as arnett.

[Uncle Ted]

Tom Osborne is getting Nebraska's bags packed and ready...

Nebraska isn't waiting until next year to get involved in the Big Ten.

Athletic director Tom Osborne will be at the league's preseason meetings in Chicago early next month. Associate athletic director Marc Boehm says the former football coach will be able to provide input, but won't have a vote along with the other athletic directors until July 1, 2011.

The Huskers will leave the Big 12 for the Big Ten after this season in one of the biggest moves of the offseason realignment.

Big Ten officials are expected to discuss schedules and whether the football teams should be divided into six-team divisions.

[Babs]

Tom Osborne is getting Nebraska's bags packed and ready...

you know, this Nebraska thing didn't bother me so much until I remembered that we don't play them this year. Which means that last year was the last in-conference meeting EVER. Which means that they WON the last in-conference meeting ever. Which is just so wrong. After all, we've won every meeting for the last decade and we lead the series over all. This suddenly strikes me as the ten-year-old who spends all afternoon losing and then finally wins one game of checkers and decides it's time to go home.

[Uncle Ted]

you know, this Nebraska thing didn't bother me so much until I remembered that we don't play them this year. Which means that last year was the last in-conference meeting EVER. Which means that they WON the last in-conference meeting ever. Which is just so wrong. After all, we've won every meeting for the last decade and we lead the series over all. This suddenly strikes me as the ten-year-old who spends all afternoon losing and then finally wins one game of checkers and decides it's time to go home.

OU will get one last chance...

I have this sick feeling that the horns will beat the children of the corn (at the memorial stadium made of corn husks) and, also, beat the sooners but still not get to go to the conference championship game. They will most likely lose to Tech or A&M and the BCS tie breaker will go to OU for conference championship game. Please don't let your sooners choke.

[Babs]

OU will get one last chance...

I have this sick feeling that the horns will beat the children of the corn (at the memorial stadium made of corn husks) and, also, beat the sooners but still not get to go to the conference championship game. They will most likely lose to Tech or A&M and the BCS tie breaker will go to OU for conference championship game. Please don't let your sooners choke.

oh, we won't. We'd never embarrass ourselves in the conference title game when we can wait just a few weeks and do it in a BCS game in front of a national audience.

[BlueHair]

HB Arnett is making another one of his goofy bets to drum up new subscriptions. This time he's betting that BYU will leave the MWC before the season begins.

http://www.cougarboard.com/noframes/...tml?id=5717450

I have to agree with the posters on CB. HB's site looks like a 4th grader made it. It has an 80's type of feel.

So basically it's a buy one get one free deal on the bet. You buy a year and the next year is free if BYU doesn't make an announcement by Sept. 1. I wonder how many people with fall for it.

[PaloAltoCougar]

I have to agree with the posters on CB. HB's site looks like a 4th grader made it. It has an 80's type of feel.

So basically it's a buy one get one free deal on the bet. You buy a year and the next year is free if BYU doesn't make an announcement by Sept. 1. I wonder how many people with fall for it.

I've been renewing my subscription for many years out of a weird sense of nostalgia an loyalty. HB's writing style is like that of the crotchety uncle who likes to unload, and his news ceased to be news with the advent of all the BYU sports boards. But I'll be forever grateful for the lifeline his publication provided through the '80s and early '90s, so I keep visiting the crotchety uncle. I was considering dropping the subscription this year, but this offer was so strange I couldn't resist. Plus I think it's good karma to bet against Big 12 admission.

[Lost Student]

I think it's good karma to bet against Big 12 admission.

But your good karma is negated by the negative karma from betting against admission to the WAC, Sunbelt, etc.

[Uncle Ted]

Here is some interesting history/info about the Big 12 conference championship game:

The conference title game is worth about $10.8M...

The Big 12 showed little support for a football title game in 1994, the first year of incorporation but two years before competition began. The coaches voted unanimously against it.

But at the 1995 league meetings, when new budget projections indicated that each member would net about $550,000 from such a game, things changed fast.

“Earlier, we were against this,'' then-Texas A&M Athletic Director Wally Groff said at the time. “But that was before the amount of money we were talking about per school was known.''

The Big 12 eventually voted 11-1 — with Nebraska in opposition because of fears it would hurt national title hopes — to have a league title game. That event now is worth about $900,000 per school.

St. Louis is clueless about college football... (LOL)

The second thing decided was to rotate the title game from year to year from the North Division to the South Division. The first four games moved between the domes in St. Louis and San Antonio.

Time to insert a warning about making sure you play your title game in a place that realizes college football exists.

The night before the first game in St. Louis, I was among a group of writers waiting at a noted restaurant a few blocks from the dome. The eatery was jammed with Husker fans.

As we walked to our table, one of three harried waitresses standing at the kitchen entrance said: “What in the world are all these people dressed in red doing here?''

For both games in St. Louis, that was the sense around the city. Few seemed to know a title game was in town, and even fewer seemed to care — as the 17,000 empty seats for the 1998 Kansas State vs. Texas A&M game indicated.

(Don't go by the attendance figures listed in the media guides. My estimates for empty seats came from building management and veteran event personnel.)

San Antonio did well, but the Alamodome capacity of 65,000 was a concern. An 80,000-seat stadium, at a time when ticket prices averaged $67, would bring in another $1 million.

Dan Beebe likes JerryWorld...

As for moving yearly, Big 12 administrators repeatedly said they didn't want to anchor the football title game, saying the league's best interests were served by open bidding.

That appeared to end in June when Commissioner Dan Beebe announced that the Big 12 had agreed — without going through its formal bid process — to three more years at Cowboys Stadium in suburban Dallas, which would have meant five straight years at JerryWorld.

But with the league dropping to fewer than 12 schools after this season, future title games can't happen. NCAA rules require at least a 12-team league with two divisions.