The exodus is set to begin. Rumors have pegged today as the day that Colorado is going to leave the Big 12 athletic conference for the "greener pastures" of the PAC-10.

This move will be the first in what will become the end of one of NCAA Football's most storied and most profitable athletic conferences. The Big 12 was one of the leaders of the NCAA Football world, but it is set to become nothing more than a carcass, left to be picked over by the major predators of the football world (most notably the PAC-10, SEC, and the Big Ten).

Suddenly, there is an outcrop of support for conference realignment in college football. This groundswell started a few weeks ago when rumors surfaced that the Big 10 Conference was thinking about inviting Notre Dame into the conference.

The expansion list has since expanded; branching out to include Nebraska, Rutgers, Missouri, Notre Dame, and Pittsburgh -- making the Big Ten the Big Sixteen. The rumored invites sent speculation running rampant about who is going to play in what conference and who will be left out. Let's take a look at the financial ramifications of any moves.

I promised myself that I wasn't going to give Nike (NKE) the publicity that it wants with its new rivalry uniforms. You see, the company has decided that 10 colleges will wear specially designed uniforms for their big rivalry games this year, assigning the slogan "Prepare for Combat" to the program.

For example, The Ohio State University will wear "retro-inspired" uniforms when it takes the field against that team from up north (Michigan). I was worried when I heard that Nike was designing this uniform; Ohio State doesn't do alternate uniforms -- they never have. Honestly, it isn't all that bad; the jersey leaves a little to be desired, but perhaps that is just me.

The University Southern California (USC) had such a good recruiting season under super coach Pete Carrol that one of their star running backs transferred out because he thought he would not get enough playing time, and they have been favored since the end of last season. USC is no longer undefeated --- UGH! Yesterday they were upset by unranked, 40.5 point underdog, Stanford University -- AT HOME -- double UGH!! This ended a 35 game home winning streak and a 24 game Pac-10 conference streak.

Last week against Washington University they pulled out a squeaker after committing 16 penalties -- read that as "freshman mistakes," although not all caused by freshman. Those of us delusional alumni rationalizing the close game bantered about how good a team you would have to be to win a game where you had to overcome 16 penalties. Now USC loses to Stanford (my father-in-law's Alma mater) at home after supposedly spending all week at practice refocusing. Not that all freshman are bad, Stanford's freshman quarterback Tavita Pritchard, in his first start played the game of his life.

So why is this relevant to business:

• Trying to guess what something is worth and predicting the future, like point spreads and rankings, is hard without the advantage of a track record.
• Attempting to manage an organization that is constantly changing by throwing together a lot of new people from different places (or enterprises) can create havoc, integration problems and lack of efficiency.
• An abundance of talent and potential can be a detriment if it does not perform as a cohesive unit. Teams win, not individuals, and in USC's case all the individual talent in the world does not seem to be meshing.

Now compare this to the exclusive club of senior (Christian Coalition) republicans that met this week to discuss their displeasure with their presidential candidates. They are so unhappy with their choices because none of the candidates are pounding the pro-life/anti-abortion drum, or the family values drum, or the school voucher drum, or several other drums, that they are actually making noise about opting for a third party. This would a freshman mistake of the highest order!