Big "Ten" with twelve making dollars, but not sense

It appears the Big Ten will be announcing its future football divisional setup sometime today, possibly in a special on its own network. It makes some sense to do it now rather than have it be an issue during the season, although considering the conference has made vague claims of potential further expansion this seems kind of premature. It seems likely they will separate Michigan and Ohio State in the hopes of creating an annual rematch for the league title. If so, it's a horrible decision and one they will live to regret. You don't screw with the tradition that's built up around that game, yet they seem eager to do so in pursuit of a little more cash for championship game rights. When the Pac-10 announces divisions, it won't split the Oregon teams or the L.A. teams and move their rivalry games to September. It would be stupid, and their fans would go crazy. How are the OSU and Michigan leaders dumb enough to sit back and let this happen?

It's hilarious that Houston Nutt's last second free agent ploy to grab Jeremiah Masoli has blown up in his face without the kid even doing anything stupid. The NCAA acknowledged the obvious - Masoli is not transferring because he's an aspiring grad student looking for a hard to find major, he's a bad guy who got booted out of school for his criminal actions - and refused to grant his request for a rules exception. It appears to have never occurred to Nutt this might happen, because his response of "what they ought to do is change the rule" ignores the fact they DID change the rule in 2006 to allow athletes who'd graduated to transfer without sitting out. Coaches pitched a fit, and after less than a year the NCAA changed the rule back to requiring a grad student to get a waiver if he wanted not to have to sit out a year. Should've fought for the rule when you had a chance, Houston. Good luck keeping Masoli out of trouble for eighteen months instead of five.

BYU has decided to say so long to the MWC after all, making their move to the WCC for basketball and all their other sports. That means the Cougars not only are an independent in football, they're an independent with a deal for ESPN to hook them up with games. Hopefully this will lead to some interesting matchups in the future - I know South Carolina fans would be more intrigued by BYU than the Southern Miss game tomorrow that was set up by ESPN as their opener. This puts another nail in the WAC's coffin. If that league falls apart, having more independents may help schools set up more nonconference games at reasonable prices as opposed to the million dollar amount that seems to be becoming standard for a D-1 team now.

There was a rumor going around the last couple of days a Brandon Spikes sex video of some sort that had been up on Chatroulette. Turns out the rumor was true. How many more athletes are going to get burned on crap like this before they stop doing it? If some random guy who works as a plumber wants to get freaky on the internet, no one cares. When you're a star athlete, everything you do can become news. Spikes will be hearing crap about this for a long time, and for what? Can't say that I've ever seen Chatroulette in action but I'll take the Ben Folds version of it over Brandon's, thank you very much.