Not only is the Big 12 not dead, it’s growing. The league – bolstering its drive to maintain stability, in the face of high-profile departures of three of its top schools to other conferences – voted Thursday to invite former Southwest Conference member Texas Christian to join the Big 12.
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Big 12 invites TCU to join
Filed under News by on Oct 7th, 2011. Comment. 
The biggest catalyst for September’s rabid phase of conference realignment was the Big 12’s instability. Sure, other conferences have played a part — most notably the SEC, which openly welcomed Texas A&M when the Aggies decided to pull an Eric Cartman on Texas and the rest of their former conference foes. Suddenly, without Texas A&M, a league that had 12 members last summer now had nine, and was ripe to be picked over by the Pac-12. Then, the Big East lost two of its most important members to the ACC — if the Pac-12 can go to 16 teams, we need to start expanding, too! — and, for a while there, the Big 12 and Big East both looked doomed. There’s no resolution yet. Far from it. Connecticut is still working every angle to get into the ACC ; Missouri may still try to follow A&M to the SEC. But the Pac-12’s decision to pass on the Texas, Oklahoma, Texas Tech and Oklahoma State — and Dan Beebe’s ouster as conference commissioner, a move OU forced on its way back to the league — means the Big 12 still exists. And, as of last night, it sounds like the conference is finally chilling out a little bit. From the Associated Press : Big 12 athletic directors discussed ways during their meeting Tuesday to stabilize their league before they can determine if and how much they might expand. “I think what we’re more focused on is doing what we all believe is right for the membership of the Big 12 and the most important piece right now is the solidarity among the nine and finding a way to make sure that we provide that solidarity so that we can be stabilized before we entertain whether that should be nine, 10, 12, 16.” Hey, good for you, Big 12! This is great news. But what does it actually mean? Pollard, who spoke on behalf of the league, said there is a process for stabilization. He wouldn’t go into specifics, but said there was a clear consensus among the nine schools on the items discussed. “Ultimately we have to prove it because there will always be doubters,” he said. “All I can say is the people we were locking arms with in that room feel pretty committed to me. I take people on their word.
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Is the Big 12 finally settling down?
Filed under Basketball, News by on Sep 28th, 2011. Comment.
……over their conference-mates, thanks to the Longhorn Network. It would have meant a loss of up to $5 million annually to OU and Texas A&M, which is why many question why UT would suggest that particular change in policy at the exact time when the rest… Source: Bleacher Report
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A Tale of 2 Conferences: How the Big East and Big 12 Just Traded Futures
Filed under News by on Sep 24th, 2011. Comment.
The Big 12 tried to put on its Sunday best at its Thursday night Big 12 revival. After it ended with everyone confused, it’s clear that not much has changed. There’s still fighting — this time Missouri and Oklahoma sending mixed messages — and Texas is sitting satisfied. Thursday night, OU and Mizzou held simultaneous press conferences. Oklahoma president David Boren said all remaining schools — except for Texas A&M — “agreed” to give a six-year grant of their first- and second-tier television rights to the Big 12. That means that all revenue from the top television games — shown currently on networks owned by ABC/ESPN and Fox — would continue to go to the Big 12 even if a school bolts to another league. Signing over those rights would mean that Oklahoma, or any other school, would not be paid directly for media revenue, regardless of which conference it was in
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One voice needed for Big 12’s next step
Filed under Football by on Sep 23rd, 2011. Comment.
Former Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese is one of the nation’s most respected voices on college sports. He’s also extremely sharp and not afraid to speak his mind. Tranghese sounded off Monday with WFAN Radio in New York . He lit into the ACC for poaching the Big East again, and he also ripped college presidents for being greedy and disloyal as realignment fever hits again. The entire interview definitely is worth a listen, but Tranghese had some very interesting thoughts about the Big Ten and its position when the realignment dust settles. I think you’ll like what he says. “You know who’s going to be the winner in all this when it’s all is said and done if you want to talk about conference? Big Ten. The Big Ten is sitting there, they took Nebraska, they’re on the sidelines, they’re watching all this chaos, everybody’s going to be taking people. And you know you could be standing there all alone at the end?
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Tranghese: Big Ten could be big winner
Filed under Football by on Sep 20th, 2011. Comment.
ESPN Stats and Info is back again with its weekly conference power rankings, and the SEC holds a narrow lead above the Big 12 through two weeks of play. The SEC held a sizable lead over the nation’s other conferences for all of 2010. The rankings are graded on a 100-point scale, and the SEC leads with a score of 98.1. The Big 12 has a score of 97.5 The No. 3 conference is the Big Ten, with a rating of 81.7. The Big 12 is No. 1 in the computer rankings and No. 2 in the human polls, both of which are factored into the conference rankings. The Big 12 has three teams in the top 10, and five in the top 25, as well as Missouri among the top teams receiving votes just outside the top 25. The SEC has two teams in the top three, and seven teams in the top 25. Writes Sharon Katz and Albert Larcada: While the season is still very young, and some of the computers remain somewhat based off of last season’s results, the emergence of Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas A&M and Baylor have the Big 12 in the mix as the best conference in the country. … Perhaps the biggest game of the first two weekends was Baylor’s victory over TCU. As results of this game, TCU lost 524 points in the AP Poll since its preseason ranking, and Baylor — who was unranked in the preseason poll — gained 374 points and is now in 19th place. The Big 12 is now 14-1 overall while the MWC is 9-6.
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Big 12 nearing SEC for top conference
Filed under Football by on Sep 13th, 2011. Comment.
Multiple sources are reporting the Pac-12 has been in contact with the Sooners and the Texas Longhorns. Â Boren said Friday that he has received âinterest from other conferences and other universities, so itâs really a tribute… Source: KCAL Los Angeles
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Pac-12 May Expand To 16 Teams
Filed under News by on Sep 2nd, 2011. Comment.
I’m not sure whether this is encouraging or not. At the very least, it’s good to know that the NCAA isn’t planning on merely sitting around in Indianapolis and letting Texas A&M’s move to the SEC spring another six months of conference realignment madness. Sure, that may happen. But at the very least, NCAA president Mark Emmert seems to want a role in the discussion. Even more encouraging is the news that some conference commissioners want Emmert to want a role in the discussion. From the New York Times’s Pete Thamel : Mark Emmert, the president of the N.C.A.A., reached out to several top college officials Monday, suggesting a meeting to discuss a less cannibalistic and more collegial way to approach conference expansion. “I think people have asked him to make some phone calls,” Pacific-12 Commissioner Larry Scott said. “He’s doing exactly what he should be doing.” “Those conversations start and stop with that there’s no N.C.A.A. authority on these topics,” Scott said. Emmert has the support of Scott, ACC commissioner John Swofford, Big East commissioner John Marinatto, and Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe, the latter of whom shared a heated phone call with SEC commissioner Mike Slive about A&M’s potential move last week, according to the Times. In other words, these commissioners are seeing what’s happening and getting visions of Armageddon; there’s a lot of “Desolation Row” on these guys’ iPods. Rather than stand by and watch the SEC tear the Big 12 apart — and then react by scraping and clawing for the leftovers — they’d like Emmert to step in and try to prevent that from happening
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NCAA could play role in realignment
Filed under Basketball, News by on Aug 16th, 2011. Comment.
1. NCAA president Mark Emmert has agreed to serve as a peacemaker among the conferences as another round of realignment looms, The New York Times reported Monday night. Emmert either has an inflated sense of what he can achieve or a keening desire to take on a frustrating, ultimately fruitless task. The undeniable joy that Texas A&M partisans are showing at the possibility that the Aggies will leave the Big 12 for the SEC shows the difficulty of getting any league or school to think and act for the greater good. 2. In researching a piece on how far the SEC East has fallen behind the SEC West, I looked at a chart in the SEC Media Guide listing league teams that have been ranked No. 1 in the AP poll. Here’s a startling fact — the last SEC East team beside Florida to be ranked No. 1 in any given week is Tennessee in 1998, when the Vols won the national championship. Before that? You have to go back to 1982, when No. 1 Georgia lost a national championship showdown in the Sugar Bowl to Penn State. That’s a long time ago. 3. Most teams are full swing into two-a-days and full contact and the serious injuries are beginning to add up. That’s what makes the news out of Oregon State so promising. Wide receiver James Rodgers , trying to return after a devastating knee injury, ran routes without a limp and made hard cuts in one-on-one drills, The Oregonian reported on Saturday.
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3-point stance: Playing peacemaker fruitless
Filed under Football, News by on Aug 16th, 2011. Comment.
Texas A&M president R. Bowen Loftin was given the power to negotiate on the behalf of the university with regards to a possible change in conference affiliation by a unanimous vote of the Texas A&M Board of Regents. Loftin, outfitted with his signature maroon and white bowtie, met with reporters for 14 minutes after the vote was taken, but not before greeting the media with a “Howdy!” His media sitdown was his first since telling reporters that there was “uncertainty” regarding Texas A&M’s future in the Big 12 back on July 20. The following day, July 21, Loftin contacted SEC commissioner Mike Slive, and the two have been in communication since, Loftin said. He stressed that no decision had been made yet, but the regents’ decision on Monday allows the possibility of one occurring in the future. There is no timeline for a decision, and there is no set end for Loftin’s possession of negotiating and decision-making power. “It’s not so much what’s wrong with the Big 12, it’s what’s right for Texas A&M,” he said of the decision. Loftin said there are too many variables that must be settled before he could say whether or not he would accept a bid to the SEC, but said there has never been a bid to the SEC issued to Texas A&M. He also added that the SEC’s decision to make no action toward Texas A&M on Sunday was expected. As for the detail surrounding timing, Loftin cited Nebraska’s letter to the Big 12 last summer, which stated that if given the opportunity to join the Big Ten, it would leave the Big 12. Nebraska announced its decision to leave the Big 12 in June of 2010 and officially joined the Big Ten on July 1, 2011. Loftin declined to say that the end goal with being given decision-making power was to reach the SEC, and said that Big 12 membership was still an option for Texas A&M. Loftin met with Texas A&M coaches over the weekend and encouraged them to ask questions.
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Notes from R. Bowen Loftin’s media session
Filed under Basketball, Football by on Aug 15th, 2011. Comment.
