Hlas column: Cyclones could soon be orphans

Saturday's Iowa-Iowa State football game is secondary in importance, news-wise, to ISU this week.

The Big Game Without a Trophy could conceivably be the last one in which the Cyclones are members of the Big 12, and perhaps a BCS conference altogether. Let's hope that's not the case. A lot of things can happen, some of them good for Iowa State. But you can't ignore the news of the last few days.

Pacific-12 Conference Commissioner Larry Scott, who tried to prey on the Big 12 and turn the Pac-10 into a Pac-16 a year ago, said a mouthful Saturday.

“Schools have reached out to us,” Scott said.  “We are not doing anything proactively, we are not initiating anything. But schools have called us.”

You can take educated guesses on who those might be. Especially since University of Oklahoma President David Boren said Friday that his school will decide in the next three weeks if it will remain in the Big 12.

Saturday's reaction from Missouri Athletic Director Mike Alden: “If you're not concerned when a comment like that comes out, then I think that you're being a little bit shortsighted."

You don't make a statement like Boren's unless you're ready to take off barring some last-minute strengthening of your current league. I'm talking the kind of magic and wizardry that would make Big 12 Commissioner Dan Beebe look like a combination of Penn, Teller, and Harry Potter.

Where Oklahoma goes, so goes Oklahoma State. No less than Oklahoma State's billionaire benefactor, T. Boone Pickens, has publicly stated he believes OSU will eventually end up in the Pac-12.

You think Texas wants to remain king of a Big 12 that is losing other prominent members on a monthly basis?

It's been believed Texas' Longhorn Network is poison to the Pac-12. But compromises can be made. As the New York Times' Pete Thamel noted this weekend, if Texas agrees to an equal revenue sharing and adjusts its network to adopt Texas Tech to match the current Pac-12 formula in which each program in the league has a partner for a regional television network (Arizona and Arizona State, Oregon and Oregon State, et al), common ground can be found.

This isn't gossip-fueled hysteria. This is reality, that the odds seem stacked against the Big 12 pulling in new, marquee-name members to buck up the league and keep it attractive to Texas and Oklahoma. Notre Dame's not coming aboard. Arkansas isn't coming aboard. Who does that leave? A BYU or Pittsburgh or Louisville or Air Force wouldn't make the league as viable as a Pac-Whatever that signed a 12-year, $3 billion television deal with Fox and ESPN four months ago. And what outsider would commit to the league given its present uncertainties?

So what happens to Iowa State if the Big 12 breaks up? It's the same question being asked at Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri and Baylor. Would the Big East, which would sure seem to be the best-possible scenario, be available to ISU?

We don't know, and Big East Commissioner John Marinnato isn't saying. Does the Big East want a football superconference to go with its basketball superconference? The league expanded to nine teams in football by grabbing TCU last November. It might be deliriously happy to expand to 12 teams and have a football championship game of its own. Would it be willing to make a move to 14 or even 16 teams and try to gain superconference status of its own?

You'd have to think Kansas would be attractive to the league for basketball alone. Could it bring Kansas State along? Missouri might be a desirable free agent, to the Big East or SEC. It's hard to imagine the SEC wants to go into next season with the unwieldy number of 13 members. Missouri does border SEC states Arkansas and Tennessee.

But could Iowa State sell itself to the Big East? It's not a football name-brand, it's not a basketball icon like Kansas, and it's in a small television market.

Look, a lot can happen in the days and weeks ahead. This sounds like sky-is-falling stuff, and we heard it all before last year.  The Big 12 is still here. Things can change, and change some more. Still, it might behoove the Cyclones to make some new friends when they play at Big East member Connecticut next Friday night.

Oh yeah, ISU has a football game this week, too.

UPDATE: Chip Brown of Orangebloods.com reported this on Sunday afternoon:

Legislators and statewide office holders have swung into high-pressure mode to get Texas president Bill Powers and athletic director DeLoss Dodds to slow down any decision that might involve the Longhorns joining the Pac-12, multiple sources said Sunday.

With reports surfacing that Oklahoma is all but ready to commit to the Pac-12, Texas lawmakers are so concerned about the Longhorns possibly following suit that a full-court press is being made to slow things down by elected officials and corporate CEOs with influence, sources said.

"We don't want any hasty decision being made that hasn't been well thought out," one lawmaker told Orangebloods.com on Sunday.

MY REACTION: What will get done is what everyone feels is best for the University of Texas. If that means joining a conference that has schools in Seattle and Berkeley, so be it.

Meanwhile, Thamel of the Times had this piece Sunday night saying the onus of a four-team move from the Big 12 to the Pac-12 is on Texas, not Oklahoma.

Thamel Tweeted this late Sunday night:

@PeteThamelNYT The Big East has reached out to multiple Big 12 universities and offered a soft landing in case Big 12 folds.

And this ... Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban thinks the dissolution of the Big 12 would be a very bad idea. Read his essay at his blog here.