Barry Needs To Open A Calendar

Discussions of the Big-11 adding another team are heating up. Why? Money, of course. Well, unless you ask Barry Alvarez. He states:

"We're irrelevant for the last three weeks of the football season because we're not playing."

Three weeks is a stretch. Technically, there's only one weekend of football in between the last Big-11 conference games and the SEC/ACC/Big-12 Championship games (sponsored by Dr Pepper!). If Barry thinks this is such a problem, why doesn't the Big-11 push their schedule back? I don't get it. Here's how the schedule played out:

Saturday, November 21
-The Big-11 ends conference play, highlighted by Ohio State vs. Michigan.
- The other big boys also play conference games.

Saturday, November 28
- More conference action for the big boys including numerous rivalry games (Oklahoma-Okey St, Georgia-Georgia Tech, USC-UCLA, Florida-Florida St, etc)
- Where's the Big-11? Idle.

Thursday, December 3
- The Nation watches Oregon and Oregon St not only play the "Civil War," but play the Civil War with a Conference title on the line.

Saturday, December 5
- The ACC, Big-12, and SEC stage their conference championship games.
- The Big-11 features Fresno State-Illinois and Wisconsin-Hawaii. Yawn.

So, there you go. If ending the season too early is why "the conference is irrelevant," why the Hell doesn't the Big-11 push the final weekend of conference play to November 28th?? Or even save their showcase game (Michigan-OSU, in most years) to December 5th, or even Friday, December 4th?

Barry's right, his conference is irrelevant, but it's not because of the calendar. It's because: A) They haven't won a big time regular season game since Colt McCoy was a Freshman, B) they're 0-6 in the last six Rose Bowls with 4 blowouts, and C) The Big-11 is 0 for their last 6 BCS games, including 5 blowouts.

Sorry, Barry. If adding a 12th school is all about money, just say so. Don't insult our intelligence.