USC, UCLA to Big 101112…

From my perspective as a Michigan grad grad, this is getting absolutely ridiculous. At least they aren't total academic lightweights. (Looking at you, Nebraska.) As an on-again, off-again pretty close follower of Michigan football (only), I'm not sure I will ever bring myself to care about a Michigan-UCLA tilt in October. And the Rose Bowl is now fully dead and gone. Great for the casual fan, I suppose; terminal for fans of relatively long tenure.

What's next? Stanford and Cal? How do those two, particularly Stanford, justify participating in the athletic arms race? Perhaps Stanford will go FCS. Stanford to the Ivy League! (1991 was prophetic.) Cal would be better off dropping football altogether.

I know I've advocated here and there for Cornell to jump our little association, offer scholarships, and enter the fray. But money needs to start leaving college athletics for it to make any sense, and instead it's flowing the other way. Not that it's ever going to happen, but it's certainly not going to happen anytime soon.

Don't oversell USC on the academic side. There's a reason it's called the "University of Spoiled Children ".