Column: Watch what schools do, not what they say

Unsettled as the landscape in the Big 12 seems at the moment — it's now effectively a nine-team league, since Texas A&M has already been accepted by the Southeastern Conference — it must look stable to everybody still stuck in the fast-shrinking Big East.

Pittsburgh and Syracuse have already announced they're leaving the Big East for the Atlantic Coast Conference, a situation that's going to get uglier after commissioner John Marinatto wrapped up a three-hour meeting with league officials determined to enforce a bylaw that requires departing schools to give 27 month's notice. If he's successful, it's going to be a fun couple of years for Pitt and Syracuse making the rounds.

Not only that. Marinatto said league members also committed to recruiting replacements for the two — TCU has already agreed to join the Big East in 2012 — and "pledged to each other that they are committed to move forward together."

If current events are any indication, he'll be eating those words soon enough.

Jim Litke is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jlitke(at)ap.org. Follow him at http://twitter.com/JimLitke.