I’m not smart enough nor do I have the time right now to understand ins and outs of college football’s Bowl Championship Series. If you do an archive search on this blog, which typically focuses more on the NFL than college football, you’ll see that neither my brother nor I like the BCS as it sits right now.

But I would guess neither of us would claim to be an expert on what conferences make huge chunks of money or whose teams have the worst chances of being selected for the big money bowl games.

I was intrigued during the last couple weeks, however, as discussion emerged about the possibilities of the Big Ten, which includes the University of Minnesota where we both went to college, potentially adding any number of teams from big name Notre Dame to up-and-coming Rutgers, to recent power Missouri to trying-to-re-emerge Nebraska.

But I’ve been hesitant to embrace the talks too much because when you follow college sports you know that A) the BCS sucks and B) there is always a money angle somewhere along the line.

Yahoo! Sports has a fantastic story describing one view of how the Big 10 fought off a “plus one” playoff format a couple years ago as part of a plan to get its own network up and running so it could now raid the Big 12 and become one of what could become three or four “super conferences”.

I don’t know if Dan Wetzel has all the answers in this story. But he did write a book on the topic (due out in October, as he tactfully pitches in the narrative) and this is the best and most illustrative story I’ve seen so far on the topic.

I love the idea of Minnesota hosting teams like Nebraska and Notre Dame on a regular basis. It’s not like my Gophers have been a powerhouse worth watching on their own merits often in my lifetime.

But I don’t like this level of alleged deceit or the idea that college football as a whole, particularly the medium to small-sized schools, may pay a huge price in the long term for these changes either.

I don’t know how this will play out. My instincts tell me we’ll know more in the next few days. The major discussions underway the last few weeks could change the landscape of the game in a big, big way.