How do you like Nebraska now?
The K-State fans who posted a giant banner last October at KSU Stadium that read, "Treason.''
The folks from Lawrence to Lubbock who accused Nebraska of running away from Texas because it couldn't beat the Longhorns.
The Oklahoma scribe who wrote that maybe Nebraska was on the wrong end of those 11-1 votes for a reason, that Nebraska was the problem.
And, last but not least, the Big 12 North schools that went along for the ride.
The Big 12 is falling apart. The house of cards is teetering. Texas A&M appears to be leaving for the Southeastern Conference. One more card and the thing will come tumbling down.
What will Oklahoma do? Pac-12? SEC? Stay in a nine-team league where its rival has its own TV network fueled by ESPN?
Don't worry, be happy. Reports are that the Big 12 will turn to Houston. The Cougars, not the Texans. A Houston sports columnist rejoiced at the notion and called for the league to go after SMU and TCU.
The return of the Southworst Conference? Look, they're getting the band back together.
The same group that Texas couldn't wait to get away from almost two decades ago.
Don't panic. Texas Athletic Director DeLoss Dodds, the Big 12 commissioner, said on Friday that the league will be fine but, whatever happens, "We'll (Texas) be in a good place. That's what we do. We're good at that.''
That should make the other Big Nine members rest comfy. Remember the Alamo. Texas independence can't be far away.
The sound you hear is nervous teeth chattering in Iowa State, Missouri, Kansas and Kansas State. They might be OK. They might not. The stakes are particularly high at KU, which would stand to lose its superstar basketball coach and hoops aura if it had to move into the Mountain West or Conference USA. The Big 12 hoops tourney, the precious jewel of Kansas City, is on the line, too.
As their paper empire burns around them, will they be getting any sympathy cards from Nebraska?
Hell, no.
Nebraska once had a band of brothers in the old Big Eight, but old friends became estranged in the dysfunctional Big 12. That's when NU found out who its real friends were. Mostly, who they weren't.
Tom Osborne tried to warn everybody. When the conference office moved to Dallas. When the initial Big 12 rules went away from Big Eight policy and leaned toward Texas. Osborne tried to tell them this would not end well.
But they didn't listen. They didn't want to listen.
The early votes came back 11-1, with Nebraska on a righteous island. However the former Big Eight schools felt, they also saw an opportunity to cut Nebraska off at the knees. Osborne's championship years were in full gear when the Big 12 was formed in 1995. The Huskers were steamrolling everyone. The formation of the new league was a chance to do something about it.
Oklahoma cut the ties to the iconic rivalry like it was canceling a series with Arkansas State. Meanwhile, the exclusion of partial qualifiers — a rule the other Big Eight schools certainly took advantage of over the years — became a vehicle to slow the Huskers. Osborne was so teed off he railed on the topic immediately after he beat Florida 62-24 for the national championship to cap the 1995 season.
A lot of Big 12 folks thought it was funny. The bully's not getting his way.
Who's laughing now?
Osborne tried. When he returned as athletic director, he fought to get the Big 12 title game up north. He fought for balance. He did what he thought was right. An imbalanced league is a broken league.
But the schools up north wanted nothing to do with it, even though a rotation that included Arrowhead Stadium clearly would have benefited them.
No, he was Osborne the delusional dinosaur, a Quixote figure tilting at Texas windmills. And Nebraskans were spoiled, mad that they couldn't win the Big 12. Texas a threat? Never. Look at all this wonderful money they're bringing everyone.
What a brilliant shell game it's been. Texas bluffed Nebraska into the Big Ten last year. And when the Horns returned from the Pac-10 chaos to "save" the Big 12, the others were beholden to Bevo. Longhorn Network? Go right ahead.
Now, another dissenter, Texas A&M, appears gone. And the Texas stranglehold over its subjects is tighter. If they don't like it, the Horns are arrogant enough to go independent, even though they don't have the national appeal of a Notre Dame.
Who's to blame? Who's the bad guy? Nebraska? Texas A&M? How about the other Big 12 schools, including those old friends up north, who enabled the Longhorns from day one?
Do they even know they were conned?
Now a new game begins. Even if the league stays together, the Big 12 brand is further damaged. No matter who you bring in — BYU, TCU, Houston, Louisville — the league would be closer to the WAC or Mountain West than the SEC. And, by the way, why would you want to join a league where the only certainty is that Texas "will be in a good place?''
Missouri and Kansas likely will have options. Big East. MU is a good fit in the SEC, if that's available. Would the Pac-12 be interested in KU hoops? The future for K-State and Iowa State seems less certain.
If the Big East comes to take KU, MU, ISU and K-State, the basketball schools in that conference likely will split and form their own league. And the conference realignment game could suddenly find itself on Creighton's doorstep.
Would things have been different had the old band of brothers banded together against Texas? We'll never know. And, frankly, Nebraska doesn't care. The Huskers are in a great place, a better place in the Big Ten.
But Nebraskans are paying attention to the soap opera down south, with satisfied smiles. There's a saying from North Platte to Lincoln and Auburn. You reap what you sow.
Contact the writer:
402-444-1025, tom.shatel@owh.com
twitter.com/tomshatelOWH
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