TruffleShuffle

that very easily could've been a red for italy

fuckin de rossi

Yeah, I think ND and Pitt are their other targets. I'm not as wild about Rutgers. pitt doesn't do much for them; they've already got that market because of penn state. schools like rutgers or syracuse or maryland would give them a better chance of expanding the BTN into more homes.

that's a great story... let's hope the italians are pelted by rotten fruit again

yessssssssssss [expletive] off italy

Hate that guy. This is why FIFA needs to dole out yellow cards after matches for blatant dives (as well as taking yellow cards away for dives that weren't). The NBA will rescind technicals and change flagrant foul calls after the fact so I don't see what would be so wrong about doing a similar thing in soccer. the problem with doing this is that italy probably wouldn't be able to field a team after the first round.

(a) pretty sure you mean "with a grain of salt" not "at face value" unless you are saying that what he says does hold water. (b) the SEC really wants aTm, not mizzou. © your rant against texas is hilarious. texas was recently evaluated as the most valuable college football team in the nation, with far more revenue than any other program in the conference. they're also really good at a number of other sports. texas wants more money because they do more for the conference than any other program.

that dive needs to be posted on youtube ASAP.

lol @ de rossi. the italians are such a joke.

the only thing i can think of is that the big ten and sec tv contracts are undervalued, or someone is paying way too much for what's left of the big xii.

agreed. i hate them with a passion. i was in florence during euro 2000 when france scored during extra time to tie it and then a golden goal by trezeguey to win. we went out for gelato after the game and there was a guy in an italy jersey looking depressed and kicking an empty can down the street. it was glorious.

why are you using a hypothetical of "if the referees had made the wrong ruling..."?

what an unrealistic artist's image. like the marlins will have that many fans at a ballgame.

i'm fine with these superconferences emerging and the mountain west and whatever teams end up in it becoming a bcs conference, so that teams like utah and boise st stop getting left out of the party when they're really good.

Awesome! I'll say that I lived my whole life in Kansas and know plenty of people connected with the Big 12 right now. Here's my "prediction" as to where this is heading. The Big 12 was never as dead as others were sure that it was. They're really close to getting through this. I know that negotiations are ongoing with the 10 schools to enter a new contract. As of this morning ALL 10 schools have signed a confidentiality agreement in hopes of preventing further leaks. Nobody will know anything further for certain until it's either announced that the conference is surviving, or is dead. Anything you hear from now on, from Chip, from ESPN (who is always a day or 2 behind), or from anyone is complete speculation. My money is on the 10 teams coming out of this united as a Big 12 (10). I'll eat crow if I'm wrong but my sources inside the Big 12 are telling me this. the big xii can continue to exist, but the fact of the matter is that the teams going after some of the big xii leftovers are in much better position financially and can offer much better prospects for the future. why would texas and aTm and oklahoma want to stay in a conference when other conferences can offer millions more dollars each year? If the proposed TV contract that was presented to all Big 12 Schools is as big as I"m told it is, the Big 12 TV revenue will be just as big as any other conference. that's completely illogical. there are only two big powers in big xii football (OU, texas) and a large number of football teams that either stink or lack any sort of meaningful tradition. the population of the big xii states (texas, oklahoma, kansas, missouri, iowa) is 40 million, compared with nearly 59 million in the SEC (where there's also a lot more tradition and college football is basically a religion), 70 million in the big ten and 60 million in the pac 10. why on earth is a network going to pay as much for the big xii as those other conferences?

Awesome! I'll say that I lived my whole life in Kansas and know plenty of people connected with the Big 12 right now. Here's my "prediction" as to where this is heading. The Big 12 was never as dead as others were sure that it was. They're really close to getting through this. I know that negotiations are ongoing with the 10 schools to enter a new contract. As of this morning ALL 10 schools have signed a confidentiality agreement in hopes of preventing further leaks. Nobody will know anything further for certain until it's either announced that the conference is surviving, or is dead. Anything you hear from now on, from Chip, from ESPN (who is always a day or 2 behind), or from anyone is complete speculation. My money is on the 10 teams coming out of this united as a Big 12 (10). I'll eat crow if I'm wrong but my sources inside the Big 12 are telling me this. the big xii can continue to exist, but the fact of the matter is that the teams going after some of the big xii leftovers are in much better position financially and can offer much better prospects for the future. why would texas and aTm and oklahoma want to stay in a conference when other conferences can offer millions more dollars each year?

houston would do absolutely nothing for the conference. between aTm and texas the big xii already dominates that market.

yeah, cameroon started pushing the last 15 minutes but they were sloppy the entire match. japan's goalie made a great save in stoppage time but it didn't look like it mattered - i think a foul was called on cameroon just earlier. cameroon needs to beat denmark and probably grab at least one point off of netherlands now. if japan makes it through as the second team from that group (assuming netherlands is first), that would be a really easy second round matchup for the winner of group f. really looking forward to italy-paraguay this afternoon (go paraguay) and ivory coast-portugal tomorrow.

utah would be a pretty good choice - there are somewhere around 2 million people in the SLC metro area and pretty much everyone in utah cheers for the utes if they don't go for BYU. that would be really bad for the mountain west though... utah and BYU are really the anchors of that conference.

according to fangraphs, 12% of strasburg's pitches have been changeups and they've had an average speed of 90.3 mph. a 90 mph changeup!!!

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=5284375 article suggests that texas, texas tech, OU, and okie st are likely to the pac 10 and aTm to the SEC. this would give each conference an odd number of teams (pac 10 would have 15, sec would have 13). they'd probably want to get to an even number, so who would the pac 10 go after? and what about the sec?

fair point. i didn't realize that aTm's athletics were as good top-to-bottom as they were, but i did know that aTm has a solid reputation in academics and research. texas is a clear #1 but aTm should also hold a good amount of sway. if the sec wants aTm then they should bolt immediately. if that pisses people off in big xii country, so be it.

first half was pretty boring... japan had the only real good scoring chance and they potted it. cameroon has looked surprisingly mediocre so far.

i don't think it's a big deal if it only really affects football, but if it affects all sports (including non-revenue ones) then it would be a problem.

the conference is a mess right now because the populations of the states involved is much smaller than other high-profile conferences, and the population that is there is heavily weighted toward the south. it's a patchwork organization with one good academic school, several decent schools and a few bad ones. texas is far and away the best school in the conference in both athletics and academics, so why shouldn't they hold more of the power?