NCAA Realignment: Supposed Conference Moves Don't Agree with Simple Geography

Forget about the fairness of the Bowl Championship Series, automatic bids to the NCAA tournament or even the raging debate of whether "student-athletes" deserve to be paid—the NCAA has a larger problem looming. 

On one side, this problem is so simple to solve, one might even refer to it as elementary. On another side, the long adage root of all evil can make the most elementary of problems easy to overlook. Surely I can't be the only person who does his best Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's raised eyebrow impression with each University of Texas or Oklahoma headed to the western-based Pac-12 or Baylor to the Big East rumor.  

Where in the world of Christopher Columbus landing on America and thinking it's Asia does any of these supposed moves make geographical sense?

It's a crying shame in what is supposed to be a conglomerate of institutes intended for higher learning that geography can be so easily thrown out the window. Forget that Texas is located in the south on the maps we've been presented, since grade school. The compass the NCAA prefers shows West, East, North, or even it's rightful place in the South if the money is good.

Yet, we're supposed to believe in the whole student-athlete notion. The NCAA is a conglomerate alright, just as much as those that compose the daily ups and downs of Nasdaq or the Dow-Jones.

Student-athletes are racking up the travel miles already in out-of-conference games and now with cross country conferences becoming the norm, it won't be too long before we see jet lag as a nagging malady affecting college players game status...oops, I mean student-athletes.

And we're expected to believe that all of these moves are done for everything but the monetary enrichment of the universities. But we chastise a Reggie Bush or Terrelle Pryor, who are only imitating the actions of the very same universities they are expected to be positively influenced by.   

To sum it all up, the University of Texas is in the Western United States if you're talking sports, while Texas Christian University is in the eastern region. Amazingly they are only 187.78 miles from each other.  And-student athletes are supposed to be levied with disappointment when declared academically ineligible, ha ha ha. Look at the geography lessons being given!  

Welcome to the 2011 NCAA ladies and gents, the Nomadic Collegiate Athletic A$$ociation.