Larry Scott, defender of conference structural integrity

Meet Larry Scott. Actually, you probably know him well by know. He's the comissioner of the Pac-formerly-10-now-12-soon-to-be-??? You may remember how eager Mr. Scott was to annex half of the Big XII to his conference as recently as last year. Mr. Scott was not particularly subtle about his intentions, hand-delivering Pac 10 invitations to five Big XII schools via personal jet in 2010.

When the Big XII was saved at the last second through Beebe-vention and promises of larger TV contracts and more money, Larry Scott was temporarily stymied, but not beaten. He waited until Texas A&M began clamoring for a move to the SEC in 2011, then extended a Pac 12 invitation to Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas and Texas Tech (but mainly Oklahoma and Texas). When THAT deal fell through at the last second, Scott appears to have given up and stay satisfied with the 12 schools in his conference (at least temporarily).

All of that previous manuevering makes Scott's quote in The Wall Street Journal last week particularly jaw-dropping. Advocating for a rudimentary playoff system in FBS college football, Scott had this to say:

"I've been troubled by some of the jockeying for position in terms of conference alignment before the BCS discussions," he said. "I think that's been an unintended consequence and not a healthy one."

You've. Been. TROUBLED? What exactly have you been troubled by, Larry? I hope to god it's your consience, 'cause you were a major factor behind all these schools jockeying for position in new conferences. The main reason the Big East now stretches from New Jersey to San Diego is due to dominoes you set in motion.

And a lot of Iowa State fans spent the last two summers thinking and worrying what would happen to their school's athletics programs. Wondering if Iowa State was going to lose conference partners that they'd had for decades is troubling. Wondering if Iowa State was going to end up playing in a watered-down Big East is troubling. You giving interviews and fretting about the state of college football right now without acknowledging your role in creating the current mess is troubling.

And jesus, don't play dumb with "unintended consequences." You deliberately set out to cannibalize half of the Big XII two years in a row. Did you really not expect there to be repercussions? Did you expect Baylor, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State and the majority of the Big East to just pack it in and start playing in Conference-USA?

So let's be glad that the Big XII survived the last two rounds of poaching and is eyeing expansion itself. Let's be glad the the dysfunctional BCS system appears to finally be moving to the wayside. But for fuck's sake Larry Scott, don't bitch and moan about schools and conferences grabbing life preservers after you blew up the ship.