It's going down...

The theme of the day: its going down.  Feel free to listen to the song of the same name by Vampire Weekend and pull out the emotions/themes you need to get you through the links today: love, hope, despair, loneliness.  They're all here, in the links:

(1) Orangebloods.com says the Little 9 is going down.  The say that OU and OK State will apply for membership in the Pac 12-20 before the end of the month.  Never mind the words from T Boone Pickens saying OK State wants to stay in the Little 9 and never mind the Pac 12-20 commish saying they don't want to expand at present.  Orangeboods says its happening.  And what of Texas?  They say "all options" are being considered.

(2) One of those options for Texas?  Crawling on its hands and knees to Norman to beg OU face-to-face to stay in the Little 9.  Or so tweets @ChuckCarltonDMN of the Dallas Morning News.  He says: "Big 12 school sources confirm high-ranking UT delegation traveled Sunday to Oklahoma City to meet with OU officials about alignment issues."  Two things: (1) the mere thought of this has been the greatest thing to come out of this realignment talk, and (2) if your name is Chuck Carlton of course you live in Texas.

(3) Who didn't like Texas getting down on their hands and knees?  Their BFF Texas Tech.  Reason?  Tech wasn't informed on the high level trip.  They are mad for two reasons: (1) by not being invited they think they might be getting left out of the expansion talk, and (2) they are siding with OU and OK State in thinking its time for the Little 9 to go down.

(4) The Little 9's not going down until A&M officially joins the SEC, tweets @kbohls of the Austin American-Statesman.  His non-so-Texas name is Kirk Bohls, but fear not, Chuck Carlton agrees that the Pac-12 isn't making the first move.  

(5) In the daily finger pointing of what brought down the Little 9, Berry Tramel points the finger squarely at Texas.  The latest rumors are Texas is willing to revenue share if the Little 9 stays together.  It's too little too late, Tramel says.  Its about more than money, he points out, and says for A&M its not about money but about pride and finally getting out of the shadow and away from bully.  For OU?  They aren't mad at Texas and want them the join the wagon train west, Tramel says.  For them, folding the Little 9 is all about believing the conference won't last.  He writes: "They're tired of the drama. Tired of the fatigue. Tired of never knowing what their landscape will look like a year from now."  Tramel also puts forth a new name for the current Little 9: The Big Mess Conference.  I like it.  

(6) What brought Missouri down at the end of the game to ASU?  Something I forgot to mention in my recap: why did we even have two time outs to ice our kicker in the first place.  A great case is made at the every end of this article by Tim McKernan.

(7) Because of injuries we're down to our last remaining running back.  Other options? A walk-on, a red-shirt freshman, and our top receiver, TJ Moe.  

(8) For those conspiracy theorists among us: the Mizzou Board of Curators is meeting tonight to discuss the "System President Search."  Last time they did this, we hired a new basketball "coach" (term used loosely).  Could they announce a new conference after tonight?  Doubtful.

(9) In other news, Bud Selig let the terrorists win last night and (separate issue altogether) this is awesome.  


Summary
(a) We don't know much more than we did a few days ago about conference realignment.
(b) After appearing to be going down in shreds, the Little 9 rebounded for a while, only to be appeared headed down once again.
(c) The next move still rests with OU, as it has ever since they opened their mouth about this two weeks ago.  
(d) In what generally doesn't happen, Gary Pinkel is defending his indefensible coaching decisions last Friday night.  It's unusual and unusually sad.  He's built up enough credit with the fan base to take the blame on this one, and he should.


Thanks for reading,


Doug