There are a few interesting items in this interview with Tom Osborne (
link), but the most amusing is
Quote:Q (sportswriter): Did any important Big Ten meetings take place in this office?
A (Osborne): No, when Jim (Delany) came here to announce we were joining the Big Ten, it was a clandestine operation where he stayed in a hotel downtown so no one would see him. I've been around Jim several times. He's a very smart guy and certainly knows the landscape of television.
Q: There was also a clandestine meeting when you guys discussed expansion. Was there a time you got on a plane and did not know where it was going?
A: We knew where we were going. But when we got picked up at the hotel in the city where we landed, we didn't know where we were going from there. It was a place Jim thought the press wouldn't know about. It was unusual.
Q: You still don't want to say which city?
A: I don't think I can. It's kind of Jim's deal.
What is this some Top Secret mission? Hiding behind trash cans and trees.
(03-31-2011 11:53 AM)CatsClaw Wrote: [ -> ]What is this some Top Secret mission? Hiding behind trash cans and trees.
Operation: Little Sisters of the Poor
(03-31-2011 11:53 AM)CatsClaw Wrote: [ -> ]What is this some Top Secret mission? Hiding behind trash cans and trees.
Delany's ego is to big to hide behind mere trees and trash cans...
this is big 10 expansion here people...us mere mortals should be giddy that we are even allowed to know the name of the true czar of college sports...Mr. Jim Delany
I agree!!!! operation little sisters of the poor would have been a GREAT code name for Big 10 expansion!!!!!
(03-31-2011 12:27 PM)No Bull Wrote: [ -> ] (03-31-2011 11:53 AM)CatsClaw Wrote: [ -> ]What is this some Top Secret mission? Hiding behind trash cans and trees.
Delany's ego is to big to hide behind mere trees and trash cans...
Between this and the "Legends and Leaders" debacle how in the world did this conference have everyone scared crapless last year!?
(03-31-2011 12:47 PM)CatsClaw Wrote: [ -> ]Between this and the "Legends and Leaders" debacle how in the world did this conference have everyone scared crapless last year!?
In the article I linked above, Osborne correctly identified Nebraska's division (Legends) but admitted he had to think about it before answering.
By the way, one of the cbssports.com writers (
link) offers this mnemonic to help us tell the Leaders from the Legends:
Quote:So that's your six Legends: Nebraska, Northwestern, Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota. All other schools -- any that doesn't start with "N" or "M" and isn't Iowa -- go in the Leaders file.
(03-31-2011 12:32 PM)solohawks Wrote: [ -> ]I agree!!!! operation little sisters of the poor would have been a GREAT code name for expansion
Except, the big10 would probably only consider little sisters of the upper middle-class as candidates.
(03-31-2011 11:53 AM)CatsClaw Wrote: [ -> ]What is this some Top Secret mission? Hiding behind trash cans and trees.
Actually, it
had to be that secret considering the amount of media attention involved and people tracking private airplane flight information. Otherwise, you end up like the Pac-10 which had too many cooks in the kitchen with someone involved that talked too much and ended up killing the Pac-16 deal. The Big Ten is now getting over $23 million per year for
its championship game alone, which is $10 million per year more than the
entire Big East football TV contract. If John Marinatto has to hide in some bushes to pull that kind of haul, then you want him to do it, right?
(04-01-2011 09:57 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote: [ -> ] (03-31-2011 11:53 AM)CatsClaw Wrote: [ -> ]What is this some Top Secret mission? Hiding behind trash cans and trees.
Actually, it had to be that secret considering the amount of media attention involved and people tracking private airplane flight information. Otherwise, you end up like the Pac-10 which had too many cooks in the kitchen with someone involved that talked too much and ended up killing the Pac-16 deal. The Big Ten is now getting over $23 million per year for its championship game alone, which is $10 million per year more than the entire Big East football TV contract. If John Marinatto has to hide in some bushes to pull that kind of haul, then you want him to do it, right?
I wish Marinatto had half of the Knowledge, Skills, and Ability of Delany.
Rather than secret meetings, I will fault Jim Delaney for not going with this:
Big 10
Division A: NW, ILL, NEB, IO, MSU, PSU
Division B: OSU, UM, IU, Pur, Wis, Min
5/1/2 format with permanent games of OSU/PSU, UM/MSU, IU/ILL, Pur/NW, Wis/NEb, Min/Io
Champ game in Chicago
For hoops, i'll go with pod set up of:
NW, ILL, IU, Pur
UM, MSU, OSU, PSU
Wis,Min, iowa, Neb
play you pods h/a, one rotated team from each pod h/a and 3 other teams in each pod once for 16 total. Tourney in indy
New Big 16 should include Louisville, WVU, Pitt and Syracuse.
North
Syracuse
Penn St.
Pitt
Mich.
Mich. St.
Purdue
Wisconson
Minnesota
South
WVU
Ohio St.
UofL
Indiana
Illinois
NW
Iowa
Nebraska
All sport's would improve overall and this would become the premier basketball conference in the land. They would have to play the Big 16 Bball championship game at Lucas Oil because ticket sales would be on fire....30,000 UofL fans in Indy for a Bball championship game! Oh yeah....Money talk's and the above team's mentioned from the Big East bring it along with great TV rating's. This is not to bash the Big East, but the conference is so unstable with lack luster leadership and the edition's of one possibly two Texas teams that average about 5,000 fans a game for Bball and talks of Nova who average 15,000 for football.....C'mon...I'm not excited at all. Memphis, ECU, UCF, Marshall....Heck even Temple, Army, Navy and Buffalo turn me on more. Just because TCU is in a good market don't mean people will watch.....That's what count's and with no kind of rival tie's it will be a big loss.
Marinatto has a ton of skill, ability and talent. Unlike Delaney Marinatto inherited a fractured conference so he can't make quick decisions like Delaney. Just sit back and relax because Marinatto is going to do great things. And I agree with you Frank. I'm having fun at Delaney's expense. But people who criticize Marinatto need to realize what he is up against. He almost got us the Big 12 schools, he managed to get TCU despite being handcuffed politically.
You are way off cardhouse. Way off. Get over the Big Ten thing because it is nor happening. And instead of knocking the Big East moves look at the positives. Knocking TCU is ridiculous and short sighted, they bring a ton to the conference.
(04-01-2011 04:45 PM)CatsClaw Wrote: [ -> ]You are way off cardhouse. Way off.
Way way off.
TCU draws well on TV for football, and we sell bowl tickets. Football is the reason all of these conference changes have been occurring.
(04-01-2011 04:39 PM)CatsClaw Wrote: [ -> ]Marinatto has a ton of skill, ability and talent. Unlike Delaney Marinatto inherited a fractured conference so he can't make quick decisions like Delaney. Just sit back and relax because Marinatto is going to do great things. And I agree with you Frank. I'm having fun at Delaney's expense. But people who criticize Marinatto need to realize what he is up against. He almost got us the Big 12 schools, he managed to get TCU despite being handcuffed politically.
I agree with you at least to the extent that Marinatto and Tranghese before him have actually done well (or at least performed respectably) considering the hands that they have been dealt. There are a lot of people with 20/20 hindsight - the fact that the Big East was kept together and got any type of ESPN deal in the first place after the ACC raid was an unbelievably tough job for Tranghese that many BE fans don't give him credit for (if not outright criticize him for). Who knows that would've happened with the Big 12 schools if the Pac-16 deal actually went down, but I agree that Marinatto deserves credit for convincing the Catholic schools to allow for all-sports/football expansion and let TCU in (and the prodding of Villanova to move up, whether people like or not, was absolutely essential to that process).
Exactly. The Big 12 schools were coming if the PAC-16 deal went down. I agree about Nova, that's why the basketball schools wanted Nova to move up. If Nova says yes a lot of interesting things will happen.
(04-01-2011 09:57 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote: [ -> ] (03-31-2011 11:53 AM)CatsClaw Wrote: [ -> ]What is this some Top Secret mission? Hiding behind trash cans and trees.
Actually, it had to be that secret considering the amount of media attention involved and people tracking private airplane flight information. Otherwise, you end up like the Pac-10 which had too many cooks in the kitchen with someone involved that talked too much and ended up killing the Pac-16 deal.
Huge difference between the Big Ten and Pac-10 expansion efforts.
Osborne and everyone else at Nebraska were willing to play any cloak-and-dagger game Delany wanted because they wanted the Big Ten so badly. They would have crawled on broken glass to that secret meeting if Delany had told them to.
Texas, on the other hand, was more interested in disrupting the Big 12 and throwing its weight around than in making sure the Pac-16 was formed.
That's why Nebraska's lips were sealed and Texas' lips were loose.