Assessing The College Football Scramble

ROBERT SIEGEL, Host:

Well, to help us make sense of all this, we're joined by Dan Wetzel, national columnist for Yahoo! Sports. Welcome to the program.

DAN WETZEL: Thank you for having me on.

SIEGEL: And let's start with what is confirmed. Colorado is leaving the Big 12 for the Pac-10. Why and what does this mean for the conferences?

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WETZEL: Well, I think it's the first domino of what will probably destroy the Big 12. Expected to follow Colorado to the Pac-10: Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas A&M and Texas Tech - turning that into the Pac-16, if you can believe it. And it's really the first shift in what's going to probably be a tumultuous seismic movement of teams over the next week to 10 days.

SIEGEL: Why? What's driving these universities to go into these conferences?

WETZEL: Currently, one of the really two ways to make money is television contracts. So what you're seeing are schools herding together in bigger and bigger groups to try to attract the most money possible.

SIEGEL: So who stands to win in all this and who might be the losers?

WETZEL: The people who win are the athletic directors, the college football coaches who get million-dollar salaries. It's about money. It's where is the money going. They're not paying the players. It's going to someone, and it's really going to a small group of people.

SIEGEL: Now, it's not as if the Big 12 is some hallowed institution. I remember when Colorado was in the Big 8, so this is an arrangement that lasted for about how many years, would you say?

WETZEL: So it's not like the storied league is busted up. It was put together for TV. It's getting blown up by TV.

SIEGEL: Is Notre Dame going to join the conference?

WETZEL: Notre Dame, though, is very, very reluctant. They like the unique stature they have and their ability to play football games coast to coast rather than mostly in one region of the country.

SIEGEL: Dan, with all this shifting around of the big conferences, would it change the way the BCS, the Bowl Championship Series, works, who gets to play in the postseason championship game?

WETZEL: So I think eventually we're going to have it because it just makes too much fiscal sense.

SIEGEL: Dan Wetzel, thank you very much for talking with us.

WETZEL: Thank you. Thanks for having me on.

SIEGEL: That's Dan Wetzel, national columnist for Yahoo! Sports talking about all the realignment news in college football.

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