ISU waits as Big 12's fate on hold

AMES – Now that Colorado officially is on its way out of the Big 12, and Nebraska is all but gone, where does this game of conference musical chairs leave Iowa State when the music stops?

The league will be left with 10 members if, as expected, Nebraska announces its intentions today to join forces with the Big Ten. That number would be cut be cut in half if reports of a mass expansion by the Pac-10 are true, and invitations are extended to Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State.

You have to wonder how the Big 12 can be hit with such a blow and stay standing.

“I'm still optimistic, but it's all up to what the South Division does,” Ames physican and ISU booster Jon Fleming said Thursday, minutes after walking out of Athletic Director Jamie Pollard's office at the Jacobson Athletic Building. “And even if the South Division decides to leave, there's still five schools who have a lot of tradition… It would have different membership but I still think the Big 12 could survive.”

Neither Pollard nor ISU President Greg Geoffroy had comments for The Gazette.

Pollard was in his office Thursday afternoon, but declined an interview request through his secretary. He told the Des Moines Register earlier in the day while speaking at a business function he also is staying positive that the 14-year-old league can be saved.

And if it can't, so be it.

“I'm not spending a lot of time losing sleep over the fact the world is ending,” Pollard told the crowd at a meeting of the Iowa Association of Business and Industry. “No one likes change, and we're probably in for some change. But the sun will come out and we will move forward.”

Football coach Paul Rhoads went about his business Thursday as he normally does, even as the league he saw the creation of in 1996 while an ISU assistant is on the brink of extinction.

“I'm not having any trouble,” Rhoads said. “I can't do anything about it.”

“Even with change in the wind there's so much left to be sorted out. Nobody knows what direction things are going.”

The second-year coach was defensive coordinator at Pittsburgh when the Big East lost Boston College, Miami, Virginia Tech and Temple, replacing them with South Florida, Louisville, Cincinnati and Connecticut.

At the time that was a huge shift, and Big East is doing just fine now.

He hopes the Big 12 can be similarly saved.

“Even if that's not the way it ends up, who is to say that things aren't going to get better for Iowa State in the process?” Rhoads said. “As people look at the change all they are thinking is the negative.”

There's been speculation of a merging with the nine-team Mountain West Conference.

Financially, losing membership in the Big 12 would be significant for ISU, which is ironic because the potential for additional revenue is what seems to be driving this nationwide realignment in the first place.

“It's unconscionable to me that we could be a part of a non-BCS Conference,” Fleming said. “The only thing that is going against us is the demographics, and that's more of a state thing. We don't have the population or TV sets.

“This is all about greed and arrogance. This has nothing to do with student-athletes.”

Nebraska and Iowa State have long been linked together, as members of the Big Six, Big Seven, Big Eight and Big 12.

The Cornhuskers -- football powers first and foremost-- would have a whole new set of rivals.

“It'll be different,” Fleming said. “That's probably the school other than Iowa that Iowa State sees as its biggest rival. Iowa fans may think this (expansion) is a good thing but the next time they go to Lincoln and get drilled by seven touchdowns they aren't going to think it's such a good thing.”

Rhoads understands it, but the money grab is a disappointing element to this story.

“It makes me sad,” he said.

“This is an academic institution and kids are here to get a college degree. College football is part of the experience but obviously it has grown to a lot more than that. Television has been a huge part of that. People are very interested in what the coffers hold.”