The Big12 is 605.

A great post on one of the boards I frequent had the following to share. It's from a trusted poster with ties to the Pac-12 office.

• Oklahoma has an invite to Pac-12... OSU is not an automatic invite with the Sooners. OU realizes that OSU might only be a part of certain scenarios.
  
• If OU comes and Texas balks, Mizzou and Kansas come into play. OSU and Tech are fillers.
  
• There is some interest on a play for Rice as a 4th addition as this has been floated to UT. The Houston market and Rice's academics are intrugiuing as a partner for Texas.
  
• The Texas to the ACC stuff is nonsense and a negotiation ploy being floated out by UT. The Pac 12 is the only option being considered by the UT.
  
• Longhorn Network, it is no impediment as ESPN would gladly drop it in favor of more Pac 12-16 games in the current deal. Apparently it's a financial mess all around.
  
  
• The dream scenario for Larry Scott is Texas, Oklahoma, Mizzou and Kansas. Four huge schools with 2 big football and 2 big hoops traditions. 3 AAU members and 5 big new TV markets along with 3 other good, medium sized markets.
  
• Mizzou badly wants to be in the Big 10, but views themselves as more SEC compatitable with less travel there too.
  
• Mizzou has talked to Scott and KU would do anything to make it happen as they want to stay West.

Yeah, this is complete bullshit. Rice? LMAO. Academics aren't a factor in this equation. Not in the slightest bit.

Pac-16

<table class="table-grid table-size-970"><tbody><tr><th class="yellow-bg">North</th> </tr><tr class="item-toggle"> <td width="175px">California</td> </tr><tr class="item-toggle odd"> <td width="175px">Stanford</td> </tr><tr class="item-toggle"> <td width="175px">Washington</td> </tr><tr class="item-toggle odd"> <td width="175px">Washington St.</td> </tr><tr class="item-toggle"> <td width="175px">Oregon</td> </tr><tr class="item-toggle odd"> <td width="175px">Oregon St.
Kansas
Missouri</td></tr><tr><th class="yellow-bg">

South
</th> </tr><tr class="item-toggle"> <td width="175px">USC</td> </tr><tr class="item-toggle odd"> <td width="175px">Arizona St.</td> </tr><tr class="item-toggle"> <td width="175px">Arizona</td> </tr><tr class="item-toggle odd"> <td width="175px">UCLA</td> </tr><tr class="item-toggle"> <td width="175px">Colorado</td> </tr><tr class="item-toggle odd"> <td width="175px">Utah
Texas
Oklahoma</td></tr></tbody></table>

Laz that makes no sense, lol.

I think it would be split up into East and West should it ever happen.

It's not Rice on their own. It's Rice over Texas Tech if another Texas school is required to get UT into the Pac 12. And the direct quote includes "don't sleep on interest" and "in the minds of many in the Pac 12 league office". So don't blow that idea out of proportion. I'm trying not to quote the whole post because it's in the premium forum.

Academic stature is key part of this whole thing. As is media market/cable deals. Sports fans forget that athletic program budgets are dwarfed by the overall university budgets. And academic stature is the main thing in the President's offices.

It will be 4 pods. None of the teams want to lose recruiting visibiltiy that comes with an annual or bi-annual visit to California and/or Texas.

I was gonna say, everyone is going to want a trip to Southern Cal and Texas each year...

They need to split up the rivals, USC/UCLA, ASU/ZONA, etc...

I think it would be funny as hell if the Arizona schools, Colorado, and Utah are forced to form a division with the new Big 12 schools. Losing that California access would be terrible for those programs.

i just figured they wouldn't want to shake up the entire conference. I think last year when they were talking about adding teams they talked about not wanting to break up certain teams.

Yep, 4 pods is what makes the most sense with the politics of everyone wanting to go to SoCal. Each pod plays everyone from another pod, rotated in 3 year cycles, and each pod plays one team in the other two pods. That would be 8 games, leaving room for 3 non-con games.

The championship game would be between the winners of the 2 2-pod groups that played each other that year. The schedules would be unbalanced, but that is the price you pay for letting everyone have major access to SoCal.

For basketball, you'd just double-round-robin your own pod home and away, and play everybody else once. That is 18 games, which is close to a standard conference schedule.

Rice? I agree that it's a fine academic institution.

They averaged about 12k per game. Yea...no.

Rice is no Eastern Kentucky.

You've seen that Nebraska joined the Big 10, right?

Academics? LMAO. And this is why the Pac-10 admitted the premium academic institution of...wait for it...Utah, which is a long-standing public ivy.

Nebraska was an AAU(?) school when they applied. So yes they fit into the academics when they were accepted.