Everyone heard about Gordon Gee’s comments on Catholics, the SEC and the Universities of Kentucky and Louisville. But now even more has come out. Sports Illustrated posted the full 27 minutes of audio.
Some of the highlights – or lowlights:
“My view, very candidly — and I’ve said this to you before and I’m not certain if [athletic director] Gene [Smith] shares this, we haven’t really talked about this — but I think we’re moving precipitously toward about three or four superconferences of about 16 to 20 teams. And the possibility of them bolting from the NCAA is not unlikely.”
“[The addition of Maryland and Rutgers to the Big Ten] gives us 40 to 50 million more viewers, makes the BTN worth more money than God. I did say that. It’s a very powerful instrument for us.”
“I think the Big Ten needs to be predatory and positive rather than waiting for other people to take away from them. Very candidly, I think we made a mistake. Because thought about adding Missouri and Kansas at the time. There was not a great deal of enthusiasm about that. I think we should have done that at the time. So we would have had Nebraska, Missouri, Kansas and then moved into that other area. I think, by the way, that that can still happen.”
“You know Penn State just abhors Pitt. It would be the same way. Even though we love Cincinnati as a city, we want it to be an Ohio State city. They’d have to take Gene out and shoot him to let Cincinnati into the Big Ten. There are some things that we just would not to. And that’s the way that Penn State also feels about Pitt.”
“Someone was saying to me, well, you know, Bret Bielema leaving … that was a blessing for Wisconsin and they knew it. Because he was under tremendous pressure. They didn’t like him. Barry Alvarez thought he was a thug. And he left just ahead of the sheriff.”
