Academic

Earlier this month, I wrote of conference realignment talks: "College presidents have the nominal power to end this silliness, but they are delegating that power to the conference commissioners. Two of those commissioners ([Jim] Delaney [of the Big 10] and Larry Scott of the Pac 10) are making the others look like dumb jocks."

Now that the dust has settled -- albeit probably only temporarily -- I would revise that evaluation. Jim Delaney and the Big 10 made off with a substantial prize (Nebraska), and Delaney still looks like a genius. Larry Scott ... not so much.

Scott and the Pac 10 made a play for six Big 12 teams: Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, and Colorado. That would have been a triumph for the Pac 10, though it's not clear why the Texas and Oklahoma schools would be interested. I suspect that their initial interest was feigned as a means of threatening Missouri and Nebraska, both of whom were playing footsie with the Big 10. As it turned out, the Big 10 didn't want Missouri, at least not yet, and I suspect that Nebraska ultimately made the move partly as a preemptive strike because it feared the possibility of being left behind with Kansas, Kansas State, and Iowa State. Well, that and the fact that the Big 10 was offering lots more money than the Big 12. Bluff called, Texas.

Somehow during the Pac 10 negotiations -- possibly in an effort to forestall an attempt by Baylor to displace Colorado in that group? -- the Pac 10 made an offer to Colorado that was not conditional on the agreement of the other schools. Colorado accepted the offer before the other schools had made up their minds. When the other schools turned away, the Pac 10 was stuck with 11 schools, and Utah was brought along to get to an even 12. This entitles the conference to hold a championship game in football, and that is no small fact, but I suspect this was not the outcome the existing Pac 10 schools were hoping to achieve.

With all due respect to my friends from Colorado, that school has a horrible athletic program, and it's impossible to believe that the Pac 10 would have wanted them unless they were part of a package. I realize that Colorado had turned down the Pac 10 a long time ago, when the athletic program at Colorado was in better shape, and I know that rumors of a Colorado-Utah move had been circulating for some time. I just don't believe it would have happened if the other schools in the Big 12 had not been in play. I am not the only person who has this perspective. Jon Wilner just wrote a column about the Pac 10's buyer's remorse. The schools in the Pac 10 will eventually get a better television deal, but not mainly because of Colorado and Utah ("'Gaining Colorado is absolutely meaningless for TV purposes,' said a consultant who has negotiated TV deals for college conferences. 'And gaining Utah is close to meaningless.'"), and while they will gain from the conference championship in football, schools in the Pac 10 will lose in many other ways.

At the moment, therefore, Larry Scott has some egg on his face. It seems to me he could have used a good transactional lawyer.