Big 10 Expansion Thread -Big Ten ready for a playoff .. finally?

[RainMaker]

New York doesn't give a shit about college football. It's like many other Northeast cities. I don't know why people think this is some hidden gem and that any school in the area would magically transform New York into a ratings powerhouse. The city has a huge mix of alumni from all over the Northeast. I wouldn't be surprised if UConn football brought in better ratings in New York than Syracuse.

[timmynausea]

And more tweets from Pete Thamel:

We need to tap the brakes on Mizzou and SEC. Been told definitively that no alignment scenario has been discussed. Will be "hot" topic.

Missouri President Brady Deaton is in a tough spot. Trying to keep Big 12 together and do what's best for his league.

I do know that Mizzou is the only school that the SEC has discussed. Would be hard for Deaton to abandon B12, but some at Mizzou want SEC.

[Swaggs]

Just read that one of the straws that broke the camel's back for Pitt and Syracuse was that the Providence mafia was trying to move the Big East to 12 members by adding Army, Navy, and bumping Villanova up.

Amazing leadership. I cannot even find it in my heart to be mad or upset with Pitt and Syracuse for leaving with the kind of crap our administration comes up with to "enhance" the league.

[Swaggs]

Here's an article by McMurphy: Navy nearly to Big East before Pitt, SU exited - CBSSports.com

He says it was Navy and Air Force as football only members.

[timmynausea]

A WVU official called the earlier CBS reports about WVU being rejected by both the ACC and SEC "an outright lie".

UPDATE: WVU Official says ACC,SEC Rejection is an "Outright Lie" - WVU Mountaineer Sports: Basketball | Football | News |

[Buccaneer]

I can't imagine AF and Navy and... Villanova ..in football BE. Like Chris said, trading the mafia for the Southern overlords will be an interesting contrast and comparison. ACC simply has to get over their local Southern parochialism and embrace the whole "Atlantic Coast".

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by miked

Once we start seeing good matchups like VT-GT and other ones that people care about, nobody is turning on the TV to see NCSU take on UMD.

They turned on to watch Ole Miss get routed by Vandy ... in 5x the number.

That kind of game typically pulls a number larger than ND in this market. Go look at ratings for the ACC in virtually any market outside of NC (like I have for the past ten years), unless their local team is playing the ratings are worse than anywhere from 1-3 other games being aired elsewhere. Hell, the SEC GotW frequently outdraws the ACC GotW in Charlotte for crying out loud (or at least it did when I last looked regularly; i.e. before the economy tanked).

My point is that adding a team in the general vicinity to an area doesn't make the area instantly give a damn about a conference (or in the case of NY, about college football). That's just a silly notion & it defies the evidence.

[panerd]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

They turned on to watch Ole Miss get routed by Vandy ... in 5x the number.

That kind of game typically pulls a number larger than ND in this market. Go look at ratings for the ACC in virtually any market outside of NC (like I have for the past ten years), unless their local team is playing the ratings are worse than anywhere from 1-3 other games being aired elsewhere. Hell, the SEC GotW frequently outdraws the ACC GotW in Charlotte for crying out loud (or at least it did when I last looked regularly; i.e. before the economy tanked).

My point is that adding a team in the general vicinity to an area doesn't make the area instantly give a damn about a conference (or in the case of NY, about college football). That's just a silly notion & it defies the evidence.

OK. But you will admit that switching a team like Missouri or West Virginia (where there really is no other major team, sorry Marshall ) who have a loyal following to another conference will bring all those viewers over to you. I definitely watch big name SEC games but mostly watch Big 12 teams from OU and Texas down to Iowa State & K-State. So now I will switch over to still watching big time games but also a lot more "meaningless" SEC games. Maybe I'm just a diehard fan and most people aren't like this?

[JonInMiddleGA]

Dola.

Last year, these are H2H games from Sept/Oct
FSU-UVA 1.2 vs Kentucky-Ole Miss 2.6 vs Ryder Cup 1.8

Clemson-UNC 2.0 vs Bama-S.Carolina 13.3 vs Pitt-ND 0.5

FSU-Miami (8pm) 3.8 vs 48 Hours Mystery 3.0 vs 10p News 4.2 vs America's Most Wanted 4.0 (tied in 2 qtr hours, CFB won 2 qtr hours)

I won't mention Maryland-Clemson vs Vandy-UGA 'cause that ain't fair.

Ole Miss-Arkansas 3.0 vs VaTech-Duke 0.3
GT-Clemson 5.5 vs LSU-Auburn 8.8 IN ATLANTA

I could keep going but I think the reality is pretty obvious: conference affiliation doesn't mean shit unless you actually care about the conference.
When it comes to ACC football, most people don't give a fuck NOW, regardless of whether they've got a team in the conference or not. Having Syracuse in the ACC isn't going to make NYC give any bigger shit about CFB (or the ACC or Syracuse) than they did yesterday.

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Dola.

Last year, these are H2H games from Sept/Oct
FSU-UVA 1.2 vs Kentucky-Ole Miss 2.6 vs Ryder Cup 1.8

Clemson-UNC 2.0 vs Bama-S.Carolina 13.3 vs Pitt-ND 0.5

FSU-Miami (8pm) 3.8 vs 48 Hours Mystery 3.0 vs 10p News 4.2 vs America's Most Wanted 4.0 (tied in 2 qtr hours, CFB won 2 qtr hours)

I won't mention Maryland-Clemson vs Vandy-UGA 'cause that ain't fair.

Ole Miss-Arkansas 3.0 vs VaTech-Duke 0.3
GT-Clemson 5.5 vs LSU-Auburn 8.8 IN ATLANTA

I could keep going but I think the reality is pretty obvious: conference affiliation doesn't mean shit unless you actually care about the conference.
When it comes to ACC football, most people don't give a fuck NOW, regardless of whether they've got a team in the conference or not. Having Syracuse in the ACC isn't going to make NYC give any bigger shit about CFB (or the ACC or Syracuse) than they did yesterday.

How about Basketball ratings with the same teams/matchups?

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by panerd

OK. But you will admit that switching a team like Missouri or West Virginia (where there really is no other major team, sorry Marshall ) who have a loyal following to another conference will bring all those viewers over to you.

My point is that the numbers brought by the vast majority of teams are incredibly insignificant to the whole.

I want to add a caveat to the numbers I posted though, they bear a little explanation.

I'm using broadcast numbers because that's what I get on a daily basis, don't have to lift a finger & don't cost me a dime (sent by a local affiliate to pretty much every media buyer they're doing business with). Cable gets a lot of CFB and is a part of the puzzle but those numbers are something I only get upon request & only when I need them for something.

I've seen plenty of them for years, they're almost shockingly small across the board on Saturday afternoons as well as a lot of later in the day games to boot. A great example of how having so many games on actually hurts the ratings for all of them. Also a great example of how local market cable numbers are hurt by Dish/Direct, some markets were getting close to being 50/50 subscribers even before ESPN3 kicked into high gear.

For the networks, of course, they're monetizing every viewer as best they can so the picture is rosier for them than for any individual medium, I don't want to give the impression that I'm ignoring or denying that. But in the aggregate, any single market actually means less too (as viewers who may have drifted to another conference have more means to have been doing so already).

Back to my Atlanta examples earlier. I don't believe people are watching entirely because "it's the SEC & that's my conference", they're watching because they've watched Ole Miss or Vandy or even Kentucky for most of their lives, they grew up watching them, in some cases their daddies grew up watching them too. They know them, even if they don't necessarily like them or their football team or even if they suck, they're familiar & that has an appeal.

There's also the benefit of proximity, I know people - personally & professionally - who graduated from every school in the SEC, roughly 2/3rds of the ACC. They're co-workers, they're neighbors, you go to church with them, go to the bar with them. Outside of this board (to pick on a frequent rumored candidate) as far as I know I've never met a single person that attended the University of Missouri (I do however know several who went to A&M, now that I think about it).* Anybody who thinks that doesn't matter is kidding themselves, or else doesn't understand a big part of what makes college football special.

*I've known two Syracuse grads, one of which was quite possibly the biggest asshole I've ever met in my entire life (no, I don't blame SU for that, I'm sure he arrived on campus that way) and the other was a bed-hopping slut who slept her way into promotions (she might have picked that up in college).

[dawgfan]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

Cherry pick a number? 2/3rds of the teams lose money on the postseason. Some teams in BCS games lose millions. I'm sorry, but if you're trying to find smart business logic behind these guys, you're looking in the wrong place. They aren't businessmen, just look at their backgrounds. They get taken to the woodshed on a consistent basis.

The only guy with a business background is the one shitting on everyone else.

It's cherry-picking because what does it matter if most teams lose a little bit of money on bowl games? How about looking at whether football programs are profitable? How about looking at the overall revenue brought in by college football?

Regarding bowl games - many conferences split proceeds from bowl games, so even if the lower-tiered bowl games cost their teams a bit of money, it's generally more than made up for by the big bowl profits.

The vast majority of football programs make a profit, and in many cases make a huge profit that subsidizes all other sports. Very few FBS programs lose money on football, and BCS conference schools pocketed more than $1B in profit last year with a 49% profit margin. So your alleged point about bowl game losses is a red herring.

If college football were so poorly managed from a business perspective, why are the major football conferences landing such mammoth TV contracts?

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

How about Basketball ratings with the same teams/matchups?

Harder to do since CBB is spread out more on weeknights on cable (see my note about cable ratings above) & because Atlanta is not a good CBB town most of the time regardless but FWIW from broadcast ... (I'm skipping into January for these to avoid NFL killing them all)

Florida-Miss State 1.0 vs Auburn-S.Carolina 0.3 vs FSU-Clemson <0.1 (i.e. 0.0)
UGA-Auburn 1.3 vs St.Johns-UCLA 0.8 vs GT-Clemson 0.7
UK-Vandy 0.3 vs LSU-Ark 0.2 vs UNC-Clemson 0.3
AT&T Pebble Beach 1.9 vs UGA-S.Carolina 0.8
Heat-Celtics 4.4 vs Daytona 500 2.3 vs Purdue-Illinois 0.5 vs GT-VaTech 0.3
UGA-TN 1.3 vs Ole Miss-Miss St 0.5 vs FSU-Wake 0.2
GT-NCState 1.1 vs BYU-SDSt 0.8 vs Ark-Aub 0.5 vs World Golf Clas 1.3
Note ** Nascar Sun beat all CBB from both days combined

[cuervo72]

Originally Posted by timmynausea

A WVU official called the earlier CBS reports about WVU being rejected by both the ACC and SEC "an outright lie".

UPDATE: WVU Official says ACC,SEC Rejection is an "Outright Lie" - WVU Mountaineer Sports: Basketball | Football | News |

FWIW, Chris Knoche (Terp broadcaster, close to Gary Williams among others) on 980 in DC said this afternoon that WVU has absolutely no shot at the ACC for reasons beyond just quality of athletics.

[Buccaneer]

Thanks

[Ksyrup]

Seen a few tweets to that effect, too.

[timmynausea]

Originally Posted by cuervo72

FWIW, Chris Knoche (Terp broadcaster, close to Gary Williams among others) on 980 in DC said this afternoon that WVU has absolutely no shot at the ACC for reasons beyond just quality of athletics.

Yeah, I have heard the same. It seems that someone in the ACC is completely against WVU.

I think the "outright lie" is that the SEC has rejected WVU's application. They haven't accepted it yet. If they hang on at 14, they might not accept it for a while or ever. But if they go to 16, WVU will very likely be in. That's the word anyway.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by dawgfan

It's cherry-picking because what does it matter if most teams lose a little bit of money on bowl games? How about looking at whether football programs are profitable? How about looking at the overall revenue brought in by college football?

Regarding bowl games - many conferences split proceeds from bowl games, so even if the lower-tiered bowl games cost their teams a bit of money, it's generally more than made up for by the big bowl profits.

The vast majority of football programs make a profit, and in many cases make a huge profit that subsidizes all other sports. Very few FBS programs lose money on football, and BCS conference schools pocketed more than $1B in profit last year with a 49% profit margin. So your alleged point about bowl game losses is a red herring.

If college football were so poorly managed from a business perspective, why are the major football conferences landing such mammoth TV contracts?

A 6-year old could make a profit with college football. It's the most popular sport in this country and has a rabid, loyal following. The point is that it should be wildly profitable and not just mildly profitable.

The postseason should bring in enormous TV deals and make schools tons of money and not the other way around. Dan Wetzel has wrote a lot about it and basically talked to a ton of experts, network execs, etc who clowned on how college football leaves a shit ton of money on the table every year because it's run by idiots. It takes a special kind of stupid to have schools lose millions of dollars to play a nationally televised football game in a sold out stadium in front of millions of viewers at home.

And the TV contracts aren't that mammoth. The entire SEC deal for a season is worth about two Monday Night Football games for the NFL. All the major conferences should be cleaning up and their postseason should be bringing in goo-goo dollars. I'm sorry, put a few real businessmen in charge of the conferences and the money would really start to roll in.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by panerd

OK. But you will admit that switching a team like Missouri or West Virginia (where there really is no other major team, sorry Marshall ) who have a loyal following to another conference will bring all those viewers over to you. I definitely watch big name SEC games but mostly watch Big 12 teams from OU and Texas down to Iowa State & K-State. So now I will switch over to still watching big time games but also a lot more "meaningless" SEC games. Maybe I'm just a diehard fan and most people aren't like this?

I don't think that's the typical fan though. And loyal fans such as yourself can be found in any region and with any school fanbase. I think the issue is people assuming that adding a team near a major city will somehow convert that city into a rating powerhouse. People in New York don't watch college football. There is no one you can add that will bring in that market. And if Northwestern or Illinois moved to the SEC, it wouldn't convert people in Chicago at all.

And I think his reasoning behind viewing habits is spot-on. I'm in Chicago and I typically watch Big 10 games. I watch Notre Dame when they are on. Sure I catch the big SEC matchup or whatever else is running at night, but I typically follow and watch the teams in my region more. There are more alumni here and more connection to the schools.

The best example I can give is when the Big 10 added Penn State. They've never really fit in. While people watch the games, there isn't much attachment to them. I don't have much interest in their games at all even though they are in the Big 10. I only know 1 person who went there while I've probably come across multiple people from every other Big 10 school.

I think Jon is dead-on with everything he's saying. It's obvious he has dealt in advertising.

[dawgfan]

Your problem is you keep thinking college football is a professional sports league - it's not. All of the complications from these teams being parts of individual universities, all with their own agendas and their own people to answer to means you'll never have anywhere near the kind of common vision that professional sports leagues have. Given the nature of the beast, college football does very, very well.

I'll see your Dan Wetzel and raise you Jon Wilner when it comes to the wisdom of a football tournament and what that would do to TV revenues:

http://blogs.mercurynews.com/college...-system-works/

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by dawgfan

Your problem is you keep thinking college football is a professional sports league - it's not. All of the complications from these teams being parts of individual universities, all with their own agendas and their own people to answer to means you'll never have anywhere near the kind of common vision that professional sports leagues have. Given the nature of the beast, college football does very, very well.

I'll see your Dan Wetzel and raise you Jon Wilner when it comes to the wisdom of a football tournament and what that would do to TV revenues:

BCS football: Love it or hate it, the system works | College Hotline

It's a stupid assumption on his part. Any team with more than one loss (or even one loss) essentially has their Championship hopes crushed. But people still tune in to watch those games. You can't argue that the regular season is super important and ignore the fact that people watch teams that have no chance at a Championship. Notre Dame-Michigan has some sweet ratings and neither team is going to sniff a title game.

An 8 team playoff isn't going to diminish any regular season games. It's essentially the BCS teams in a playoff format. If anything it would add intrigue toward conference championships as they would actually be playing for something more than a glorified consolation game.

I don't want to turn this into a playoff vs bowl debate. I'm just pointing out that the people in charge have currently negotiated a system where 2/3rds of the teams lose money on their postseason. They have negotiated a system where schools are forced to buy in upwards of 20,000 tickets a premium price to play in a nationally televised game in front of millions of viewers. The fact they can't get a better deal than that is staggeringly bad business.

It's not about bowls vs playoff really. It's that UConn shouldn't have to pay millions of dollars to play in a major bowl game. Someone should be able to negotiate a better deal than that I'd hope.

[JPhillips]

You can't compare established national powerhouses like Oklahoma or Nebraska to WVU. Obviously a conference would rather have Oklahoma over Syracuse, but I get why a group of college presidents would prefer Syracuse or Rutgers or UConn to WVU. With WVU the growth is pretty much maxed out. With those other schools if things went right and the right group of college presidents were in charge... the sky's the limit, baby!

And I think that hope of big money and tapping the big markets of the northeast is what's going to screw WVU. In a performance based system WVU obviously belongs in a top conference, but in a potential for cash system what do they offer?

[tarcone]

In reality, there are about 8 teams that have a chance at a national championship in any given year in the BCS system. And its the samw 8 teams, basically. Its proven every year. Boise St. and TCU werent given a shot recently. So, thats a "fair" system? College football is wildly popular and everyone knows there only a few teams that get a shot.
A playoff system would not diminish popularity.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Crazy off-the-wall stuff here. Rumors at Mizzou that the WVU/SEC hold may be related to OU/OSU. SEC is still doing some back room negotiations with both schools. If they balk and go to Pac-XX, then WVU move (along with Mizzou) may be back on.

Edit: Should add that this may likely be a move to scare the hell out of UT to force them to make the concessions needed in the Pac-XX.

Also saw a good poster on Tigerboard say that the negotiations with the SEC have been ongoing for over three months.

[Warhammer]

Also, college football does not have anywhere near the ratings of pro football. The NFL is king in the US with college football second.

[dawgfan]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

I don't want to turn this into a playoff vs bowl debate. I'm just pointing out that the people in charge have currently negotiated a system where 2/3rds of the teams lose money on their postseason. They have negotiated a system where schools are forced to buy in upwards of 20,000 tickets a premium price to play in a nationally televised game in front of millions of viewers. The fact they can't get a better deal than that is staggeringly bad business.

And again, that bowls lose a bit of money for participants is cherry-picking data.

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by Warhammer

Also, college football does not have anywhere near the ratings of pro football. The NFL is king in the US with college football second.

Except in some parts of the South, I would guess (heck, I bet HS football gets the highest ratings in some parts). In the mountain West, I don't think college football even registers in the ratings, and perhaps some of the West Coast as well.

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by dawgfan

And again, that bowls lose a bit of money for participants is cherry-picking data.

I would be surprised if the Air Force Falcons have ever made any money in the bowls they have gone to. Local paper talks about $250-500k loss each time.

[molson]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

You can't compare established national powerhouses like Oklahoma or Nebraska to WVU. Obviously a conference would rather have Oklahoma over Syracuse, but I get why a group of college presidents would prefer Syracuse or Rutgers or UConn to WVU. With WVU the growth is pretty much maxed out. With those other schools if things went right and the right group of college presidents were in charge... the sky's the limit, baby!

Maybe, but Syracuse had BCS bowl teams with a lot of star power in the late 90s when I was there, and I certainly never felt like they owned NYC or anything. And of course the basketball team won the whole thing in '03, and while there's definitely a strong contingent of Cuse fans in NYC, those are generally alums, and Syracuse is still a pretty small school. I remember them showing up on the back page of the NY Post a little more often but they're still only really drawing in a fraction of the NYC audience. They're still going to be 3rd and 4th fiddle, at best, to the pro teams there, even when they're championship contenders.

[timmynausea]

Here's the first article about the Big East football meeting tonight, though it seems to say more about the Big 12 staying together, really:

Big East athletic directors and presidents meet to figure out conference's future | NJ.com

[timmynausea]

Joe Schad just tweeted:

PAC-12 announces officially not expanding

[corbes]

Texas, OU staying put; Pac 12 denies expansion - ESPN

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

Except in some parts of the South, I would guess (heck, I bet HS football gets the highest ratings in some parts).

Nope, sadly that's not the case. (At least not in the ATL, which is less Southern than a lot of places). It's just that the margin is much closer than most anywhere else.

While I know you were kidding, HSFB is really just starting to gain some TV time in terms of games themselves. #1 station in Atlanta just added, for the first time, a regular season GotW to their digital sub-channel (live Thurs nites, replays on the main station at like 2am). Georgia Public TV, which has the rights for the state championships, also added regular season live coverage for the first time this year & was #1 in several dayparts across the state (but it was on the Saturday before CFB got into full swing).

Still very early but the initial ratings have exceded expectations even with games of fairly limited appeal (on paper) & I wouldn't be surprised if we saw regular GotW, on maybe more than one station, within the next few years.

[MrBug708]

So the PAC-12 isn't expanding despite giving Missouri and invite that was promptly turned down?

[MrBug708]

Being short sighted and narrow minded is why the conference had as ****ty of a television deal as it did before Larry got here. I don't understand how we can go back to that just so we can for all purposes fall behind again. Absolutely mind boggling.

[panerd]

My guess is the Pac-12 denial is a lot like the SEC/A&M denial... just legal hoops to jump through until the 4 announce they are leaving the Big 12.

[JonInMiddleGA]

The first sign of sanity I've seen from a conference in weeks. Ironically perhaps since the Pac-## was probably the one conference that might have actually been able to make themselves stronger/more appealing by expanding (based on the rumored candidates).

At this point, anybody other than Texas & Oklahoma add little to nothing to any of the existing configurations afaic.

[MrBug708]

Texas wanted more concessions, Oklahoma got what they wanted from Texas to stick around, and Scott never took it to the vote

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by panerd

My guess is the Pac-12 denial is a lot like the SEC/A&M denial... just legal hoops to jump through until the 4 announce they are leaving the Big 12.

No one has applied at this point, so they made no move to expand. This really isn't the news that most are making it out to be.

[MrBug708]

Another issue seems to be Stanford being branded with Texas Tech

[Solecismic]

There was a very specific dig at Texas in that denial from the Pac-12. I think they gave Texas a long listen, but in the end it wasn't worth taking two schools they may not have wanted and figuring out a way that Texas could have its LHN cake and eat it, too.

So the Big XII remains alive for a bit longer. The Big Ten didn't even flinch when Pittsburgh made its announcement, so it's happy at 12 unless Notre Dame changes its mind. And the ACC and SEC can play fourteen while the others decide if expansion is worth while.

All that remains is deciding between West Virginia and Missouri for the SEC. Either one suits the conference well. Then the Big East processes the fallout and contemplates a football-only "merging" with the Big XII in order to conduct a championship game.

[MrBug708]

Didn't the SEC vote no on TAMU initially?

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by MrBug708

Didn't the SEC vote no on TAMU initially?

No. They voted to stand pat at 12 members, but then later accepted A&M as a member a couple weeks later.

[MrBug708]

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan

No. They voted to stand pat at 12 members, but then later accepted A&M as a member a couple weeks later.

Eh, that's what I meant, didnt they vote against expanding? (With obvious reference to TAMU)

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by MrBug708

Eh, that's what I meant, didnt they vote against expanding? (With obvious reference to TAMU)

But they did make the comment that they may consider future options. Didn't see any language like that in the Pac-XX statement.

The interesting part is that this essentially was a rebuff of Texas. They refused to get where they needed to be, so the Pac-XX said no. The possibilities of OU/OSU/MU/KU looking at the Pac-XX are now back open with UT out of the picture. Also opens up the OU/OSU/MU/A&M package to SEC that has circulated today if they don't get what they want from UT, which appears to be huge concessions at this point.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan

Also opens up the OU/OSU/MU/A&M package to SEC that has circulated today if they don't get what they want from UT, which appears to be huge concessions at this point.

That would be too awesome.

[molson]

I wonder if there'll ever be a day that the conference stuff is relatively "settled" or if all this is just going to be an ongoing story for the next 30 years.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

UT is in a difficult position right now. They were in a bit of a pickle before due to limited options. With UT now having only two options (B12 or Independent), they have very little power in any term negotiations. Amazing to see this huge of a swing in power. OU now has UT by the balls and can do pretty much whatever they want.

[Ksyrup]

I put down twitter for 90 minutes and look what happens!

[DeToxRox]

From BYU's Rivals Site

A source close to the situation at Brigham Young University is indicating that if the Big 12 Conference in fact holds together as now expected, BYU is highly likely to become a full member of that conference if it can be assured that the league will be stable into the future.

The source says that university and Big 12 officials were close to making an announcement of the addition of BYU to the conference following the loss of Texas A&M, but those plans were put on hold when Oklahoma president David Boren made it known that the Sooners were exploring their options with the PAC-12. That same source informed Deep Shades of Blue last year of BYU's intent to become a football independent weeks before its official announcement.

The source also informed DSB that prior to the Sooners courting of the PAC-12, the BYU Board of Trustees had authorized President Cecil O. Samuelson to move all of the school's athletic programs into the Big 12.

That authorization was granted despite concerns from high-ranking officials of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who are sensitive to relationships between the Church and the faith-based institutions of the West Coast Conference, which provided a home just last year for most of BYU's athletic teams.

On Tuesday afternoon, The Oklahoman reported that Oklahoma is now willing to consider staying in the Big 12, contingent upon the removal of current conference commissioner Dan Beebe and making other significant reforms within the conference, including rules placed on the Longhorn Network.

Then came a report Tuesday night that the PAC-12 has decided not expand.

Those reports coincided with a report that emerged from a Tuesday meeting between Big East officials, that a merger that had been discussed between the Big East and the Big 12 was now dead because of a lack of interest, with the Big East being told by schools in the Big 12 that they are committed to trying to hold their conference together.

A report from Orangebloods.com also says that a serious effort is being made by Big 12 member schools to hold the conference together, quoting one high-ranking official at a Big 12 school as saying, "The Big 12 is going to stay intact except for Texas A&M."

If the nine remaining members of the embattled conference can indeed kiss and make up, they will almost certainly move rapidly to add another school to replace the departing Texas A&M. It is not clear if the conference would immediately look to get back to 12 schools or expand even further. However, the source at BYU believes that if the Big 12 is in fact saved and solidified, adding the Cougars to the conference could happen quickly, even within a matter of days.