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The voices in my head are talking…and they’re saying…expansion again?

As George Costanza so eloquently puts it in the “Virgin” episode of Seinfeld: “Every time I think I’m out…they pull me back in!”

And so, as OK Go sings in the video above, here it goes again.

Trust me, I appreciate and welcome all the phone calls, text messages, e-mails, tweets, carrier pigeons and other forms of communication used to get my thoughts on the most recent round of bloviating about Pac-10 expansion.

Many of you longtime followers of Pitchfork Nation might remember the article I posted last July, which I wrote during a dreadfully boring Arizona Diamondbacks 4-3 win over San Diego at Chase Field. It generated a huge groundswell – we got relinked by Ted Miller on ESPN.com, generated over 5,000 hits to the site and hosted one of the most spirited comment debates in the history of the site.

I was hoping that would leave well enough alone and we wouldn’t have to talk about this again for…oh, I don’t know…another year or so.

Yet, the calendar on the wall says we’re only six months removed from when I write about how I opposed expanding the Pac-10 to a dozen teams. For those of you hoping that I may have changed my stance since then, you’ll be disappointed, because those six months have not thawed my opposition.

However, the tone of these talks certainly is different than it was last summer, when the general consensus was that the Utah teams, Boise State, San Diego State and maybe a few other stragglers were the supposed prime candidates to create a West Coast mega-conference. Since then, the Big Ten has gone all apocalyptic on the situation and publicly stated, unlike the Pac-10, that they are actively pursuing a 12^th team.

The names for that league have ranged from Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Syracuse, Notre Dame (HAH!), Texas, Iowa State, Missouri and several others.

Now, the Pac-10 is trying to get in on the party of bringing down the Big 12 only 15 years after it was formed, with the latest round of rumors saying that the conference may have its sights set on Texas and Colorado among the other schools named earlier.

In theory, that would be wonderful. Forget Provo and Salt Lake City – from a revenue generating and fan attention standpoint, moving the Pac-10 into the Denver and Austin markets, though as geographically confusing as having the Arizona Cardinals playing in the NFC East, would be a huge boon.

Those are areas that not only love their football but they love all of their sports, from basketball to baseball to the other non-revenue generating sports. They have huge followings, giant alumni bases, famous ex-athletes and plenty of name recognition. For anyone else who made the trip to Colorado in 2006, we remember how much fun the atmosphere was at Folsom Field even in a season when the Buffaloes were god awful.

And Texas, well, you fill in the blanks.

Plus, think of the tremendous rivalries that could be generated on a yearly basis? Arizona State and Texas, two perennially tremendous baseball programs, would slug it out a guaranteed three times a season. USC and the Longhorns could work into a nice little football frenzy. Colorado could use games with the Washington and Oregon schools to gain a stronger foothold in the Pacific Northwest.

Getting all hot and bothered yet about the Longhorns and Buffaloes?

BRAKES.

It still makes as little sense logically as it did when we were talking about Utah and BYU moving in, despite Texas and Colorado clearly having more national prestige than those two.

Let’s get one thing out of the way really quickly – leaving the Big 12 for the Pac-10 would lead to a short-term financial crisis for both of those schools.

With all due to respect to San Jose State fans, even they’ll readily admit that WAC money is small potatoes when compared to the revenue sharing that goes on in the Big 12. According to the Denver Post, any team that decided to bolt the conference must give two years notice to the home office and therefore forfeit half of their yearly payout from that revenue sharing pot.

What more, the Austin American-Statesman cites a provision that while any league school could decided to move at any time, they’d also give up their entire share of revenue sharing money from the previous season.

That, hypothetically, equates to either Texas or Colorado giving up a whopping year and a half of free money over a three year span before joining the Pac-10. Think about that for a second – how would you like to work for three years but only be paid half of your three-year salary over that span?

Both of those schools better have a Scrooge McDuck style (and yes, I know that’s two Duck Tales references in two weeks) vault full of money to get through that. Though I’m sure their endowments are great and they’d be able to ride through that three years storm of stifled revenue, it would be up to those schools to decide whether or not the end justifies the means.

Beyond money, there are all those other nagging subjects to think about.

For instance, let’s talk about scheduling again. Certainly the ACC and Big 12 put on stirring, dramatic conference championship games in 2009, but for both leagues, they were their first compelling and, frankly, watchable title games in at least the last half-decade.

Plus, both of those leagues don’t play the complete round robin in football that the Pac-10 does. Before 2005, then the NCAA instituted the mandatory 12^th game, Pac-10 teams still missed one of their counterparts every year. Since then, when the conference added a 9^th league game to the slate, everyone has played everyone every single year.

That’s the way to determine a conference champion – not with some gimmicky made-for-national-TV-but-only-fans-in-your-region-are-watching-it conference title game. When everyone plays everyone, you determine a clear king of the hill. What more, it cuts out any debate on whether a team has earned a lofty conference record despite, for instance, not playing one of the top two teams in the league.

The same thing goes for basketball, baseball and other sports. The Pac-10 still sets the benchmark for basketball scheduling where, in a tidy, 18 game slate, everyone gets a home and road game against everyone else even before the conference tournament. What more could you want now? Dividing into two divisions would lead to the kind of unbalanced schedule leagues like the Big East and Big 12 currently operate under.

Speaking of dividing into divisions, I still don’t see how you could make it work. Fans of Oklahoma and Nebraska from the Big 8 days still lament the fact that the two bitter rivals don’t play in the same division anymore and therefore don’t play every year.

While I’m sure the Pac-10 would go to great lengths to ensure existing natural rivals would get to play each other every season, it still just wouldn’t sit well with me or potentially swaths of fans that, say, Arizona and ASU would be in separate divisions. Repeat the same for USC/UCLA, Oregon/Oregon State, Stanford/California and Washington/Washington State.

Thus enters why taking BYU and Utah in made slightly more sense since they’re already natural rivals. When you talk about Texas moving to the Pac-10, you force them to give up one of their non-conference games every year to play the Red River Shootout, easily their most lucrative and popular game of the season. Colorado already plays an OOC game every year with Colorado State, but they also share a fierce yearly dual with the Nebraska Cornhuskers which, if they wanted to keep it, they’d have to give up a non-conference game of their own.

Once again, though, I find myself slipping into the trap of focusing on football when we’re talking about dozens of other programs that would have to make the shift and adjustment.

Jack Kent Cooke, the enigmatic former owner of the Los Angeles Kings and, more famously, the Washington Redskins said it best.

“If it ain’t broke, why fix it?”

Five Things to Stew About

1 – I think it’s an understatement to say that the entire Sun Devil community is in mourning over the passing of Bill Kajikawa yesterday. When you think about Sun Devil sports over the course of history, only a few names come up on everyone’s tongue. Those include men like Bruce Snyder, Frank Kush, Ned Wulk and, of course, Kajikawa. His life around ASU athletics spanned 41 years of coaching, two team nicknames and three different sports. He gave up time to serve his country in World War II and returned to earn his master’s degree in Tempe afterwards, all while coaching freshman football and basketball. Beyond that, Kajikawa was an enormous humanitarian, giving countless hours to volunteer and service projects throughout the Valley. If there were a truer Sun Devil in every sense of the word and spirit, it was Bill and he’ll be sorely missed and widely revered for generations. Luckily, ASU has his daughter, Dr. Christine Wilkinson, around to carry his ASU spirit and legend around.

2 – To say that Arizona State’s sweep of the Oregon schools last weekend in Tempe saved the Devils tournament chances is an understatement. While most of the pundits around America peg the Pac-10 as a one-bid league deep into February, the Sun Devils two wins kept them in 2^nd place and within arm’s reach of the program’s first (and equally most improbable) regular season conference title. However, the work is not over. Considering that previous fact, it’s pivotal that Arizona State wins at least three of their final five games starting with this Sunday’s game against Arizona in Tucson. The Sun Devils, much like every other team in the Pac-10, must do everything they possibly can to improve their tournament resume to the standard that the selection committee would even consider them for an at-large bid at this point. While wins over the likes of UCLA and Stanford might not make waves, if the Devils can grab wins over California and USC down the stretch, their public image can go nowhere but up in the eyes of the NCAA.

3 – Meanwhile, Charli Turner-Thorne needs to find a way to keep her team energized on the back end of their weekly two game sets or else they’ll find themselves in deep trouble come Selection Monday. Since sweeping the Oregon schools a month ago, the Devils have dropped one of the two games in each weekend set. Their last two have been nail biting, single-digit losses to Oregon and Washington State (which I declared the worst loss of the CTT era) which won’t do the Devils any favors in a rare season when they find themselves on the bubble and in 6^th in the Pac-10.

4 – Never before have I been so excited for a team like Northern Illinois to make a trip to the desert, but can we PLEASE get baseball season underway? These guys are clearly ready to get back on the diamond and play for something. Credit must be given to Tim Esmay and his new coaching staff who have me totally convinced that the entire Pat Murphy saga really didn’t do anything to fracture the clubhouse or throw them into a tizzy. Frankly, Murphy had these players so well disciplined year in and year out that distractions (save the staged fight incident) never made the most dramatic impact on this team. We won’t truly know how much the switch has impacted them until they start playing though, but I don’t think I’m alone when I say that I’m ready to see Josh Spence deal again.

5 – Finally, let’s give some love to a team that doesn’t get nearly enough credit. After a slow start in the standings column, at least, the 25^th ranked Sun Devil Gymnastics team came through on Saturday with a big time win over #24 Washington. Mary Atkinson and Stephanie Hangartner came through to finish 1-2 in the all-around and currently carry a #18 national ranking in the bars, led last week by Francesca Mercurio and Kahoku Palafox. The Gym Devils head home for a meet with Stanford on Friday.

Sun Devil of the Week

Let’s not even waste time – the Sun Devils wouldn’t have knocked off the Beavers and Ducks this past weekend for two vital conference wins without Ty Abbott.

While Derek Glasser and Jerren Shipp paced the Devils on the scoreboard in Thursday’s 56-46 slog-it-out win over Oregon State, Abbott’s 9-and-9 all around performance kept the Sun Devils at an arm’s reach throughout the evening.

Two nights later with the Ducks at WFA, Ty nailed five three pointers to help ASU rally from behind to grab a 10-point win. Three of those treys came during a 12-0 second half Devils run where ASU completely opened the floodgates.

Meandering non-Sun Devil Thought of the Week

Every four years, the Winter Olympics come around and I become dead to the world as I obsess over all things ice hockey.

Most of you know that as strange as it is for a kid from California and Arizona, I totally obsess over the NHL and when the league shuts down for two weeks to send its players to the Olympics, I go berserk. Three games a day for a week starting today? Yes, please!

The prohibitive favorites this year are Canada and Russia and I’ll give the home standing team the edge for gold based on Russia’s lack of defensive depth. Sure, the Russians can score the pants off anyone in the world (yesterday’s practice include a line combo of Alex Semin, Alex Ovechkin and Pavel Datsyuk) but I worry about their ability to slow down an equally potent Canadian attack.

The team who has the best chance to sneak up and steal gold or silver from those two is Sweden, the defending gold medalist. I believe that, as usual, Finland will underachieve coming off their silver medal in 2006 in Torino.

The United States will battle for bronze but may still struggle to even get that far because I worry about their secondary scoring. Sure, their top line, which includes Zach Parise and Paul Stastny, will pump out a ton of offense, but they’re going to need goals from guys like Joe Pavelski to advance deep into the tournament.