Last Year: 10-3 (7-3 in Big 12), lost to Arkansas, 29-16, in the Cotton Bowl.

Why: K-State had unexpected success last year and it has the talent to maintain it in 2012. Dual threat quarterback Collin Klein rushed for 1,141 yards and 27 touchdowns in 2011. WRs Tyler Lockett and Chris Harper return, and Lockett was last year’s Big 12 offensive freshman of the year. Lockett will have an impact on special teams after breaking the Big 12’s record for kickoff return average. LB Arthur Brown should be one of the best defenders in the Big 12 again this year after notching a team-best 101 tackles, including 9.5 for loss. He was named the Big 12 Defensive Newcomer of the Year. DE Meshak Williams is back after seven sacks last season. CB Nigel Malone returns after being named to the All-Big 12 team and a Jim Thorpe Award semifinalist.

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For years I have happily led the clarion call to get Notre Dame football in a conference. But I wouldn’t be a good reporter if I didn’t re-examine the evidence. And even though I still believe Notre Dame’s best place in the long term is in a conference, I’ve come to the conclusion that Notre Dame can’t join a conference. Not without a lot of pain on their part.

We’ve all played the hypothetical game of “which conference should Notre Dame join?” My personal opinion is that either the Big Ten or the Big 12 are the best fits, the latter because they’ll be more willing to give the Irish the sweetheart deal it gave texas regarding the longhorn Network. And, maybe, one day the Irish will join a conference.

But it won’t happen this year. I’m not even sure it happens if the BCS chooses to allow only conference champions into its playoff format. You might think that it’s just as easy as joining a conference and having a ready-made schedule, or sharing revenue to protect your coffers.

But it’s trickier for Notre Dame. Here are four reasons why:

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What in the world is Florida State up to? Perhaps no program has ever put itself out there on the realignment limb so boldly. And how did the Big 12 get dragged into this?

Those are all practical questions.

Over the weekend, the good news of the ACC’s new TV contract with ESPN turned ugly. Florida State wasn’t happy, or at least one guy at FSU wasn’t happy – Andy Haggard, the president of the FSU board of trustees, as reported by Warpaint.com. Why? Well, Haggard said that the league gave away its third-tier TV rights for football, but not basketball. Turns out Haggard’s logic was dead wrong (ESPN received all tiered rights to ACC programming), but FSU has never really been comfortable with the notion that the ACC thinks basketball first.

If I were Haggard, I’d be unhappy with the overall price tag, which is less than both the Big Ten and Pac-12, and about to be less than the SEC and Big 12, even if the logic of that unhappiness is unjustified. So Haggard threw out there that FSU should explore its options, and mentioned the Big 12 by name. Then FSU’s football coach, Jimbo Fisher, did the same thing. Well, that’s cool except …

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It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the non-BCS schools don’t know what the heck to do. But the non-BCS superconference is a bad idea.

You know by now that Conference USA and the Mountain West are going to merge for the 2013-14 season. You know as well as I do that, given the membership that will exist at that time, it’s going to create a league with at least 16 schools. That’s unwieldy enough. Remember – the WAC tried that already and failed.

But apparently this new consolidation wants more. Turns out multiple reports have the new league (let’s call it Conference USAXL) seeking to create a league with 18 to 24 teams that would create a coast-to-coast league.

Schools like Utah State are telling news outlets that they’re interested in jumping ship to this new endeavor. That puts the WAC at risk of not just losing members, but folding completely. It barely has enough members to be a conference right now. And now WAC commissioner Karl Benson is reportedly eying a move to be the commissioner of the Sun Belt Conference.

You’re forgiven if you can’t keep up with the upheaval. But there are so many reasons why this is a bad idea. Consider:

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Admiration for Big Bill. Imagine building something that no one had built before you. Imagine bringing success to your place of employment in a way that no one had ever done before. Imagine reaching the summit of your profession, even if for just a moment. Then, when you feel you’ve accomplished all you can, you walk away, confident that the legacy you built would continue in perpetuity.

Then imagine watching it decline, slowly and painfully. Then you know what it’s like to be Bill Snyder.

Snyder was the head coach at Kansas State from 1988 to 2005 before he returned near the end of 2008. Now, for a generation of college football fans, they know Kansas State as a Top 25 team and, at times, a national contender. They probably looked upon what happened after Snyder left as, well, a hiccup.

So here’s a little perspective. Before Snyder arrived for the first time in 1988, Kansas State stunk in every way. The program had the most losses in FBS (then Division I-A), had only been to one bowl game, hadn’t won a conference title since 1934, had only four winning seasons in the previous 34 years and had lost 27 straight. Sports Illustrated called it “Futility U.”

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Matthew Postins files The Walkthrough twice a week during the season at PigskinU.com. Early in the week, it’s a wrap-up of last weekend’s action. Late in the week, it’s a preview of what’s coming up that weekend. And it call comes with news, commentary and Postins’ dry wit and opinion.

The Aggies Wave Goodbye to Tradition. On Sunday the SEC announced that it was officially taking in texas A&M as its 13^th member, starting with the 2012 season. The decision that, in part, set off all of this realignment mess of the past month is finally official.

Now, what does this mean to the SEC? Well, the rich certainly get richer. The Aggies are a well-known program that seems to finally be turning a corner after several years of mediocrity. They’ll provide access for the SEC to not only Texas’ fertile recruiting ground but also to cable networks and laptops via the SEC’s Digital Network. It’s definitely a big win for them. Continue Reading…

Note: This series previously ran at RoadTripSports.com, but given the current climate of conference realignment, stoked by the Big 12, I feel this series of articles is as relevant now as it was a year ago. It will run every few days here at PigskinU.com. Check the PigskinU.com archives for Part 1.

So in Part One I laid out an overview of building a better college game. In Part 2, we’re going to need someone to run it. You want a true national champion? Start with a benevolent dictator.

There’s a fundamental issue when it comes to creating a college football playoff system. Power in college football is not centralized properly. Consider this:

The NCAA regulates the college game. Games are played by their rules. Recruiting is done by their rules. Practices are conducted by their rules. But when the regular season ends, they outsource the postseason to the Bowl Championship Series.

What other sports entity outsources its postseason? Unbelievable. Continue Reading…

I awoke from a restful sleep on Sunday morning to find that the ACC is going to swell to 14 members. CBSSports.com reported that Syracuse and Pittsburgh will bolt the Big East for the ACC. Next up? texas and Oklahoma board of regents meet on Monday.

We may remember the next 48 hours as the hours that ushered in the era of the super conference. Or not. We’ll see. We thought that way about 15 months ago.

But it’s clear the ACC now has firepower if schools like Florida State or Virginia Tech bolt for other leagues, especially the SEC. If FSU and Va. Tech stay, then the league only needs two more members to become a 16-team league. ESPN was reporting on Sunday that Connecticut — another Big East charter member — is set to pursue a spot in the ACC.

If the ACC accepts Uconn, it will be interesting if they seek another Big East team or, perhaps, leave that 16th spot open for texas. Speculation is rampant that the longhorns, if they seek a new conference, would need a league that is open to allowing the school to retain its affiliation with the longhorn Network. That’s unlikely in the Pac 12. The ACC may be more likely to allow the agreement to continue. Of course, we’re talking about texas, so any league would be dumb not to at least consider the longhorns.

As for the Sooners, well that’s the worst-kept secret in college sports. If the Sooners elect to leave the Big 12, it will be for the Pac-12. And Oklahoma State would follow quickly.

And then the shakeup that we all saw coming a year ago will be at hand. And all bets are off.

Matthew Postins files The Walkthrough twice a week during the season at PigskinU.com. Early in the week, it’s a wrap-up of last weekend’s action. Late in the week, it’s a preview of what’s coming up that weekend. And it call comes with news, commentary and Postins’ dry wit and opinion.

Could the dominos in conference realignment start falling as early on Monday? The University of Oklahoma board of regents will meet on Monday and on the agenda will be the school’s conference affiliation. That doesn’t mean a decision is coming on Monday, but it means that the board must feel there’s enough information at hand to at least start talking about what direction the school wants to head.

If you’ve been keeping up, you know that the rest of the Big 12 is waiting to see if the Sooners are going to stay in the Big 12 or, most likely, head west to the Pac-12. There have been plenty of rumors the past couple of weeks, and perhaps it’s time the Sooners laid them to rest so we could all get on with our college football lives. Continue Reading…

Well, texas is in an unusual position as the Big 12 crumbles. It’s getting a taste of what it usually dishes out. Its lack of control is hard to ignore.

If the Austin American-Statesman is to be believed, the meeting between texas and Oklahoma last weekend began and ended with Oklahoma dictating to texas how it was going to be. The AA-S quoted sources that said the Sooners had no interest in remaining in the Big 12 and that they were preparing to petition the Pac-12 for membership. Now that’s all “unnamed sources” until Oklahoma actually does something, but given all of the chatter the past few weeks it seems the Sooners’ departure is a fait accompli.

If Oklahoma goes, Oklahoma State goes with it and that cuts the Big 12 down to seven teams, once texas A&M can get around the whole legal wrangling in the conference. At that point it’s every team for itself.

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