I know it's piling on to bring ESPN into any of this, but I happened to hear a couple of guys talking college football on ESPN Radio yesterday afternoon. They both gleefully jumped on a comment that the remaining Big XII schools "don't matter." They said, "I know you alumni and fans don't feel that way, but it's just a fact. Your teams don't matter."
This is completely asinine. Why do Northwestern and Rutgers and Illinois and Oregon State and Colorado and Mississippi State and Vanderbilt "matter" but Iowa State and Oklahoma State and TCU don't? Simply because of which conference they happen to be lucky enough to be in? Well, that's just not a true statement on its face. Every D-1 FBS football team "matters" - the bluebloods have to play somebody, right, and they don't want to only play each other because, well, one of them would lose a bunch of games.
It's just ridiculous, the amount of sheer confident statements flying around with absolutely no truth or facts behind them. And yes, being it was ESPN Radio, of course they have a motive in pushing that line of commentary. But anybody with half a brain cell should just be gobsmacked by the tonnage of ignorance in that statement.