There weren't any fireworks going off in Harvey Perlman's office on Wednesday. That would be dangerous. Also, bad form.

The Big 12 is on the verge of collapse. But Perlman, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln chancellor, hasn't ordered champagne.

Suffice to say he sleeps easy. He had the good sense to leave a burning building just before someone threw the match. You try not to think about what would have happened if you hadn't left the building.

"I'm certainly relieved that we are not part of that conference," Perlman said Wednesday, during a break between meetings. "We're in a great conference and in a great situation. We really are on the sidelines for this. It's a lot better position to be.

"But I'm certainly not gloating about anything."

He could be as Nebraska watches the Big 12 burn. Texas A&M accepted an invite to move to the Southeastern Conference on Wednesday. Then, Baylor tried to block it by threatening legal action.

Meanwhile, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State are poised to join the Pac-12. Missouri is being mentioned for every league except the AFC West. Kansas and Kansas State are thinking Big East. And Iowa State is, well, waiting for the phone to ring.

Then there's Texas, which will A) Join the Pac-12 with Texas Tech, B) Go independent, C) Keep the Big 12 together, D) Join the Big Ten or E) Join the AFC West.

The bully Longhorns may end up with the just desserts of having to compromise their Longhorn Network, or accept a fate they hadn't planned for. That's a delicious outcome for most Nebraska fans.

Again, Perlman won't gloat. But, again, he could. Ever since NU made the move to the Big Ten a year ago, Nebraska, and Perlman, have been accused of being whiners, of being afraid of Texas, of being envious, of being the bad guy, of starting the breakup of the Big 12. They took their shots last season. The Texas A&M game, etc. It was a rough breakup.

Now, the sentiments in the Big 12 have flipped. NU is being applauded for being ahead of the game. One Big 12 scribe wrote on Twitter, "Through these doors pass the smartest athletic department in the country."

Perlman privately seethed while taking the hits. But even while Husker fans are celebrating the fall of the Beebe Empire, Perlman won't send any shots back, at the league, or any of the schools who wouldn't back Nebraska over the years.

"For us, the issue was different than what we're seeing now," Perlman said. "At the time when all that happened last year, I requested assurances from my Big 12 colleagues if they were going to commit to the conference. They said they would come out in a public statement that they would. I didn't think that was going to be good enough. I could see what was going on. The six schools that were making noise about going to the Pac-12 made it obvious to me that they were talking to the Pac-12 and looking at that move. To me, that seemed like a serious possibility.

"I didn't like all the accusations that came our way. But we knew the real story. And Tom's (Osborne) statement that one school doesn't end a conference, but six schools do, is accurate. As for the Big 12, they moved forward and carried on without us with 10 schools and negotiated a new TV deal with Fox. In that sense, we didn't do any harm to the Big 12."

Nebraska is getting some undeserved credit, however. Some in the Big 12 give Perlman and Osborne kudos for seeing the controversy and harm brought by the Longhorn Network. That's not true, Perlman said.

For one thing, Perlman said nobody, back in June of 2010, knew that ESPN was going to sign up with Texas to the tune of $300 million to run the network. Moreover, Perlman said NU and UT actually had the same consultant looking at whether the two schools should start TV networks. NU was still looking at a regional Husker Network when the Big Ten called.

"But there was also talk of a Big 12 network," Perlman said. "Texas held off its pursuit of its own network so the other schools in the conference could look at a (league) network. It ended up not happening because there was no way to make Texas whole from the money they would lose by not having their own network. Or, the other schools didn't want to do that (give UT a bigger share of a conference network)."

The presence of a Husker TV network would have made it harder for NU to howl at the moon over the LHN. But the plan to show high school games and two Big 12 games on the network were game-changers, as Perlman said. A problem he's glad he didn't have to deal with.

But give Perlman and Osborne credit for knowing that, with Texas, it was always going to be something. The Big 12 was always going to be a volatile, unsafe place with self-interests and no tradition or history to save it.

"They're (Texas) the 400-pound gorilla in the room, and they're going to get blamed for everything," Perlman said. "In some ways are they to blame? Yes. They push the envelope of their own interests to the point where it backs everyone else up to the wall. If you push your conference teams far enough, they're going to react.

"The Big Ten does it right. The conference's best interests are perfectly aligned with the schools' interests. They go hand in hand. The Big 12 never had the time to get that. Maybe it never would have happened."

Perlman's time was tight, but he had time for three quick topics:

• On further Big Ten expansion and would he be in favor of adding a Big 12 team: "I have no insider information other than what Jim Delany told us and the media, and that for the foreseeable future, he doesn't see any further expansion, but if the landscape changed radically, you have to see what's in the best interests of the Big Ten. As far as who, I'm the new kid on the block, so I have a hard time responding to that."

• On the idea of super conferences: "I'm a little troubled by it. I like what Delany said a while back when the question of nine conference games came up: The reason you're in a conference is you want to play each other as often as possible. Well, if you've got 16 teams, you're not playing each other as often as possible. And I still don't see the economic benefits of it. It may bring in more money for the conference, but does that mean more for the schools? And we need those nonconference matchups that are important to college football."

• On whether NU would have to pay exit fees to the Big 12 if there is no Big 12: "That came out of our revenues from the Big 12 last year, so it's not like we're writing checks. It's over. It's water under the bridge. I don't have any hard feelings. I understand our fans may feel different. But I don't think what is happening now is doing intercollegiate football any good."

That doesn't mean Perlman doesn't have a smile on his face these days.

"When you think you've had a bad day, well, we could have had a lot worse day," he said.

Contact the writer:

402-444-1025, tom.shatel@owh.com

twitter.com/tomshatelOWH

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