Post 293: College Football Expansion Revisited

We'll probably revist this topic several times over the next few weeks, and if you notice, we are now within a touchdown of 300 posts.

It appears as though Nebraska is going to the Big Ten, which, in a case of horrifyingly bad math, give the Big Ten twelve teams. If they stop there, then it would seem that the seismic shift that was predicted might be stopped.

But, Notre Dame has once again began conversating with the Big Ten, which could potentially render a thirteen team conference. If that happens, then Missouri is back on the table to create a 14-team Big Ten (at which point the conference name has to change).

While all this has been happening, the PAC-10 screamed out "Screw it!" and now looks poised to offer invites to Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, and Colorado. The university of Texas, arguably the biggest pawn in this crazy chess game, is nearly 800 miles from the nearest current PAC-10 school, and is a whopping 1300 miles from the Pacific coast. There is no way the conference can keep the name PAC, it just doesn't work.

And then, just to keep the soap opera going, Texas A&M is supposedly in hot and heavy talks with the SEC, which is by far the better fit for them than the PAC-10. That would put the Aggies 925 miles away from their farthest in-conference competition.

Stay tuned, kids. This is getting fun.

***Formula 1 Update***

We haven't done this in a while, but it is time for a Formula 1 update.

The fast cars journey to Montreal this week. This will be the first time I've seen them race at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. The last time they were at this particular track Lewis Hamilton decided that he wanted to be parked where Kimi Raikkonen was parked, so he just pushed him out of the way... er, well, he plowed into him.

Now is different. The Red Bulls, so dominant this year in qualifying, have fallen victim to several reliability issues, and just plain driver stupidity. At Turkey, with Webber leading and Vettel following, the younger driver decided he was tired on P2 and wanted P1. The resulting kerfuffle cost Vettel a race finish and dropped Webber to P3, giving Hamilton a win and Button P2, a McLaren 1-2.

I emailed Tom Bowles at Sports Illustrated with a comment. And darned if he didn't put it up in his new mailbag article.