Bobby Burton is reporting OU/Texas been running distraction with Pac/ACC talk. Officials with Louisville, Cinci & Pitt have been meeting with the Big XII

Can the Big 12 pull off the year's biggest comeback?

Missouri chancellor Brady Deaton is hopeful the Big 12 can stay together after Texas A&M leaves.

By Orlin Wagner, AP

Missouri chancellor Brady Deaton is hopeful the Big 12 can stay together after Texas A&M leaves.

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By Orlin Wagner, AP

Missouri chancellor Brady Deaton is hopeful the Big 12 can stay together after Texas A&M leaves.

Even as Oklahoma weighs an exit that could push the distressed conference toward extinction, the chairman of its board of directors says he has gained confidence in the past week that it can survive.

Brady Deaton is heartened, he said, that OU and others are looking before they leap. "I think this period of just a bit more calmness and reasoning . . . makes us all feel as if the various issues can be dealt with in a rational way and in a way that's in the best interests of each of our institutions and the Big 12 - and of other leagues around the country," the Missouri chancellor told USA TODAY on Wednesday.

"I'm not Pollyannaish about it. I'm not naïve. But I'm looking at the factors that are important to the future of the athletics and the academics of institutions in the Big 12. And as we all assess them, my hopes are that more and more will conclude, as I have, that a continuation of a strong Big 12 is in all of our best interests right now.

"I am hopeful, let me say."

He didn't speculate beyond that on the league's chances of survival. It's teetering, with Texas A&M pointed toward the Southeastern Conference and multiple Big 12 officials telling USA TODAY this week that Oklahoma is conditionally pursuing a move to the Pacific 12.

Those officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said the Sooners are exploring the financial parameters of Pac-12 membership and where they'd fit in its divisional alignment, as well as how open the league is to accepting them - almost certainly with Oklahoma State in tow. Texas, in turn, is weighing its own options, though the Longhorns have made it clear they prefer Big 12 preservation.

Nebraska and Colorado opted out of the conference a year ago. The Big 12 seemingly weathered that, but was destabilized anew by Texas A&M's pending departure.

"It's not what I think any of us want as a characteristic of our conference," said Deaton, a former agriculture economics and sociology professor who became Missouri's chancellor in 2004. "We've worked hard for a stable, strong, aggressive, fast-moving Big 12, and spent the past year looking at new ways in which we can be a more exciting league, one that's stronger in all dimensions, going beyond athletic competition and beginning to think about the ways in which we could strengthen ourselves in academic cooperation.

"To have that dialogue interrupted or altered by the range of considerations going on today certainly is a concern to all of us."

Chances of preserving the Big 12, slim or otherwise, hinge on somehow re-stabilizing the conference and convincing member schools that it's for good.

"That's the challenge that the Big 12 board has in front of it," Deaton said. "I think we have a pretty good understanding of the various tools and structures that would lead to that, but we don't have them all resolved."

He told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that he expected a decision from Oklahoma on its future within the next two weeks.

"I just have had an understanding that within 10 days to two weeks we were likely to have some indication of where things stood, but with no firm deadlines there," Deaton told the newspaper. "We're being patient and working together, and certainly right now we're in a little bit of a position where we need for Oklahoma to give us a sense of what they're thinking about and take it from there."

The current upheaval is in the hands of those dentists and eye doctors and -- oh, here's a good one -- a Broadway and London theater producer.

Just a guess, but I'm betting Oklahoma's A. Max Weitzenhoffer cares a lot more about the West End than the end the Big 12.


It would be shocking if the first communication between Oklahoma and Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott was a call from one of these state appointees.


"Kind of alarming when you think about it," said a Big 12 source close to the situation. "The future of college athletics is going to be altered by these volunteer board members who are dentists, convenience store operators and the like. That's amazing."

It's no longer about geographic or (puh-leaze) academic fits. You're either a market or a brand. Nebraska is a brand. Georgia Tech, rumored to be a hot property, brings along the Atlanta market to some enterprising raider.


Southern California, Texas and Michigan are both. Woe to Baylor, Kansas State and Iowa State, which are neither. Good to know some university's future is being decided by a media consultant analyzing its Q rating.



The biggest frustration here is that no one seems to want to actually go through with it. Regents take note: Bevo isn't the only creature being led around by a ring in its nose. I talked to a Pac-12 source this week who told me there are at least eight conference presidents who are against expansion. The SEC presidents would have preferred to stand pat, but when Angelina Jolie, er, A&M knocks on your door you don't turn her/it away.

By 2012, the state of Texas could be home to schools in the Pac-12, SEC, Big East and Conference USA. That's not a football culture, that's an appetizer plate. Friday Night Lights being replaced by Saturday Afternoon Cable Listings.



There would be no center, anywhere. Silicon Valley would be as close to big-time football as Death Valley. The SEC's footprint would stomp the yard. The Pac-12 could be in ... Kansas. Nothing says Tobacco Road like Texas vs. Wake Forest.

This is what the dentist and eye doc are about to give us. Wonder if they know, or care.

Wow, now that would be something.

so we would go to 11 teams with Cincy And Pitt?

why?

Unless adding Cincy and Pitt would help bring in BYU for the 12th ...


Cincy/Pitt are east and BYU is west, even further travel.

The article mentioned Louisville in addition to Cincy and Pitt. Which makes for better geography and basketball, I guess.

? We started at 12. We lost two last year. One this year. Adding three gets you back up to 12... not 11...

So it looks like if we want 12; Louisville, Pitt, and Cinci are the choices. I think thats also assuming WVU goes to the SEC with aTm. Otherwise we just add BYU to get back up to 10.

yea, i just didn't see a 3rd team

lost Neb,Colo and A&M

adding cincy and pitt

:shrug:

all i was saying

what do Louisville,Pitt and Cincy bring to the financial table?

Stability, so that we keep the current contract we have which is good money for all the schools. Not to mention the first tier contract that will be signed in a few years that potentially makes all 12(or ten) schools some of the highest paid in the nation.

Pittsburg and Syracuse are applying for the ACC...

http://brett-mcmurphy.blogs.cbssport...32522/32035225

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Pittsburgh and Syracuse submitted letters of application to the Atlantic Coast Conference and are "likely gone" from the Big East, high ranking ACC and Big East officials told CBSSports.com.

Pittsburgh and Syracuse independently submitted letters of application to the ACC, a league source told CBSSports.com.

"There is no scenario where a president applies to a league and isn't admitted," a Big East official told CBSSports.com.

Me:

The ACC also upped the buyout clause for schools in conference to $20 million, so it looks like they are up to 14 teams. Most likely suspects to finish it off at 16 teams include UConn, Rutgers, Villanova (if football upgraded) with Notre Dame and possibly Texas (with a partner?) as outside possibilities.

Good gets for the ACC...

I think that this increases the odds that the Big 10 will come calling MU and KU. If the ACC sticks together and takes some of the teams from the northeast, it likely means that the Big 10 has to look in the other direction.

Just my $.02...

LMAO

B1G would add ISU over KU and/or KState. None are their top options.