The sound you're hearing from just over the horizon could be the scraping and squeaking of rats after cheese.

It might be the aftereffects of Adam "Pac-Man" Jones making it rain out in Cincinnati.

But, most likely, it's the University of Maryland, charter member of the Atlantic Coast Conference, its President, its Athletic Director and its Board of Regents all prostrating themselves before Jim Delany, their souls, er, I mean soles, scuffling the floor as they try to squirm closer to the Big 10's dangling teats and the warm, rich, heavy money that comes oozing out of them.

Gross.

Oh, but wait! Here comes Maryland's student government executive board, praising the decision for its, wait for it, academic implications!

According to a letter submitted by the executive board in support of the move, "Several academic benefits come with membership in the CIC (the Committee on Institutional Cooperation), ranging from collaboration and cooperation that helps member schools obtain federal grants, to exchanges of member resources and scholars. This would increase the University's stature as a Research I institution, further bolstering our academic reputation nationally and globally."

Wha…?!?

Sorry. I just had to clean up the milk that blew out of my nose after reading that.

Look, the University of Maryland can do, and will do, whatever it wants. And the student government's executive board can get in line and play good soldier 'til the cows come home. (Speaking of cows, there are many, many, many more of them in the Big 10 than the ACC. So get ready. Lots of cows. Go moo.)

But for the University or any of its apparatchiks to stand up and shrilly proclaim that this was a move based on anything other than a mad grab for cash is lunacy bordering on the insulting.

You want research? Wander on down Tobacco Road and see if a geometric form begins to resolve itself around the three universities clustered within fifteen miles of one another.

I'll give you a hint.

Three universities. In a triangle. Loosely, but aptly, referred to as THE RESEARCH TRIANGLE.

Georgia Institute of Technology and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (c'mon, Maryland, that's Georgia Tech and Virginia Tech to you!) are home to two of the preeminent engineering and robotics programs in the country, if not the world.

Maybe Maryland felt that the lousy academic reputations of schools like Boston College, the University of Virginia, Wake Forest and Clemson were keepin' 'em down….

Uh huh.

So, let's all take a deep, deep breath and admit, in no uncertain terms, that the University of Maryland fled to the Big 10 Conference for an increase of guaranteed revenues of nearly $8 million per year, bumping direct, athletics-generated revenues from a paltry $17 million to nearly $25 million, and that's before the newly swollen Big 10 (12? 14?) gets the opportunity to renegotiate its ransom demands, er, sorry, media rights, in 2017.

What do the students and student-athletes ('cause they're different) get out of this? What about the parents, you ask?

Road trips! Woohoo! There was something sort of exciting about rolling down to Florida in the middle of February for college basketball.

Now?

Sunny Minnesota!

Who wants to go to Georgia or South Carolina when you've got home and homes scheduled with Nebraska?

Yay!

And the real kicker, the thing that's gonna make this travesty even easier to sweep under the rug of "we're looking to the future?"

The exit fee that Maryland is facing is only $50 million!

Yes!

Wait….

So, to weasel out of the conference it helped found, the conference about which University President Wallace Loh said two months ago, "I think the ACC is a fantastic conference. Maryland has been part of this conference from the very beginning, it's a deep and rich tradition, we will continue to be a part of the ACC," it's only going to cost Maryland, a state, taxpayer-supported institution, mind you, more than six times what it will benefit from annually in this hare-brained move?

Brilliant.

After this transparent money grab, the University of Maryland is going to need a LOT of help in bolstering its reputation, locally, nationally and globally.

Maybe the student government was right….

Alex can be reached at cuda24@yahoo.com