Hlas: West Virginia, ISU's New "Neighbor"

**cigaretteman** · 10-26-2011, 11:18 AM

If I’m a West Virginia fan, I’m probably done following my football team on the road. At least for conference games.
I could have driven to see the Mountaineers play at Pittsburgh in the Big East. Cincinnati and Rutgers are long drives, but no worse than Iowa City to Lincoln or West Lafayette. Do-able. Louisville and Syracuse are 400 and 427 miles from Morgantown, respectively. OK, it’s like Iowa going to Michigan and Michigan State. Manageable if you have the time.
But now West Virginia is headed to the Big 12, where the closest school to Morgantown is Iowa State, 733 miles away. The Texas and Oklahoma schools … they might as well be in Manitoba.
Meanwhile, Missouri’s inevitable move to the Southeastern Conference is a kick in the pants to Iowa State. Two years ago, ISU had rivals in two border states, Missouri and Nebraska. Soon … none. But ISU is gaining a rival that’s 733 miles away, a school with which the Cyclones have absolutely zero history. Ridiculous.
Presumably, these switches will eventually prove more profitable for West Virginia and Mizzou. But what good is it for the student-athletes themselves? They won’t be getting more out of it. It’s just more time on the road. Missouri has three Big 12 rivals (ISU, Kansas, Kansas State) that are closer than its nearest SEC brother (Arkansas) will be. Idiotic.
Missouri got tired of the Big 12′s Humpty Dumpty routine of falling apart — or seeming to — and getting put back together again. Understandable. The SEC isn’t going anywhere, that’s for sure. But what is this stuff really supposed to be all about? Isn’t about being with like-minded academic institutions, geographic neighbors? Isn’t it supposed to be about being part of something that’s a lot more than just the best opportunity to squeeze every last television buck?
No, of course it isn’t. Good golly, what was I thinking?
These are all just more steps toward the inevitable formation of superconferences. The SEC (which Texas A&M ran to in order to leave behind the University of Texas … stunning) has 14 schools. It reportedly wouldn’t annex Florida State and Clemson because it had a gentleman’s agreement not to pluck schools in which it already had a member. So there is honor in all this after all. Uh huh.

West Virginia: Iowa State’s new “neighbor” | TheGazette

**CRcyclone6** · 10-26-2011, 11:22 AM

all this realignment stuff stinks.

**VeloClone** · 10-26-2011, 11:29 AM

Nice job, Mike.

**CTTB78** · 10-26-2011, 11:30 AM

He failed to mention how Penn St. fits into the Big Ten geographically.

**VeloClone** · 10-26-2011, 11:34 AM

Originally Posted by CTTB78

He failed to mention how Penn St. fits into the Big Ten geographically.

I thought Pennsylvania bordered Ohio.

**CDN_Tailgater** · 10-26-2011, 11:34 AM

.... they might as well be in Manitoba.

Gotta love the shoutout to the hometown province.
Go Jets Go!!!

**CRcyclone6** · 10-26-2011, 11:42 AM

I know it's in Georgia, but West Virginia always reminds me of Deliverance:

Deliverance - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"
Four Atlanta businessmen, Lewis (Reynolds), Ed (Voight), Bobby (Beatty) and Drew (Cox), decide to canoe down the Cahulawassee River in the remote Georgia wilderness, expecting to have fun and see the glory of nature before the river valley is flooded by the construction of a dam. Lewis, an experienced outdoorsman, is the leader. Ed is also a veteran of several trips but lacks Lewis' machismo. Bobby and Drew are novices.
The four are clearly the outsiders in this rural location. The crude locals are unimpressed by the "city boys;" it is also implied that some of the locals are inbred. While attempting to secure drivers for their vehicles (to be delivered to the takeout point), Drew briefly connects with a local banjo-playing boy by joining him in an impromptu bluegrass jam. When they finish, however, the boy turns away without saying anything, refusing the effusive Drew's handshake. The four men exhibit a slightly condescending attitude toward the locals; Bobby, in particular, is very patronizing and even derides the locals to his companions for seeming to display genetic defects.
The men spend the day canoeing down the river in pairs before camping by the riverside at night. Shortly before they retire for bed, Lewis tells the others to be quiet and disappears into the dark woods to investigate a sound he heard. He returns shortly and says that he did not find anything. When asked whether he heard something or someone, he tells them he does not know. While traveling the next day, the group's two canoes are separated. Pulling ashore to get their bearings, Bobby and Ed encounter a pair of unkempt hillbillies emerging from the woods, one toothless and carrying a shotgun. After some tense conversation in which the hillbillies appear to be goading the others, Ed speculates that the two locals have a moonshine still hidden in the woods and Bobby amicably offers to buy some. The hillbillies are not moved and Bobby is forced at gunpoint to strip naked. Bobby is next chased, humiliated, ordered to "squeal like a pig" and is then violently sodomized. Ed is unable to help because he has been tied to a tree and is held by the toothless hillbilly."

Did mikem write this description? Sorry Mike