(UPDATE 6:41 p.m., November 13, 2012. Now Wisconsin has become the 36th state with a petition for secession. Hold strong, Iowa.)

Is conference realignment again about to rear its head in major-college sports? Or will conferences be content to have member schools in several different nations?

Residents in four Big Ten Conference states and four Big 12 Conference states have filed requests with the White House to peaceably secede from the United States of America.

Those states are Indiana, Michigan, Nebraska, Ohio, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and West Virginia.

That covers six of the 12 Big Ten schools and all but Iowa State among the Big 12′s ten members.

Maybe the leagues would stay together even though there would be the hassles of going through customs on road trips and paying taxes in foreign countries. But you know the old expression. If you’re going to secede, secede all the way.

This has to affect bowl affiliations. Would teams from the U.S. really want to play in bowls held in, say, the People’s Republic of Texas?

As of 12:51 p.m., Central time, on Nov. 13, 2012, 75,568 Texans had signed a petition for the State of Texas to withdraw from the United States of America and create its own government. That’s almost equal to the entire population of Edinburg, Texas, home of the Texas-Pan American men’s basketball team that played at Iowa last Friday.

What kind of college basketball world would we be left with if Texas-Pan American isn’t, you know, American?

Once a petition reaches 25,000 signatures, it will be placed on a queue for response from the White House. Texans are making it clear they want out. Where does that leave Bob Bowlsby, the new commissioner of the Big 12 Conferencce and a new resident of Texas himself?

Is Bowlsby going to lead a coalition to keep Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and West Virginia together in some form as they break away from the U.S.?

Will this leave Iowa State on a landlocked island? Iowa is one of the 15 states that hasn’t joined up with the secessionists. It’s as if we are still content to live in the United States. Will the People’s Republic of Texas be OK with keeping Iowa State in the Big 12, sharing their Fox and ESPN television dollars with Americans?

If not, in whose court would this be settled, Iowa’s or the United Republic of West Virginia’s?

And what about the Big Ten? If Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Nebraska do secede and the Big Ten decides it doesn’t want to be multi-national, the Legends Division is reduced to Iowa, Minnesota and Northwestern. The upside is, division games will all be a relatively easy drive for Hawkeye fans.

USA! USA USA!

By the way, all 10 Southeastern Conference states are among the 35 with residents who have filed secession petitions. So that league is on the path of least resistance.