Jul. 24—With the Texas and Oklahoma to the Southeastern Conference picking up steam with reports of announcement due next week, speculation on what happens beyond is growing.
And it would seem the rest of the Big 12, who huddled Thursday to talk about it minus Texas and Oklahoma ears, know they are in the ambulance headed to the hospital with a life-threatening problem.
So let’s look at the possibilities.
Texas and Oklahoma give the SEC 16 schools going forward. The ACC and Big Ten have 14, with Notre Dame’s association with the ACC making it a 15th school.
The ACC could take Notre Dame and add West Virginia, which makes regional sense. The Big Ten could take Iowa State and Kansas, both geographically compatible.
With what is left of the Big 12, is it enough of an allure to pick off teams from the Pac-12? Or would UCLA, USC, Oregon and Washington go to the Big Ten, giving that conference teams in all four time zones?
Minus those, the Big 12 isn’t any better off, and the Big Ten and SEC are simply monsters by comparison. The Pac-12 has been in decline for a while in comparison with the other Power Fives, but even if it decides to move to finish off the Big 12, would it really improve their product? OSU and Tech seem to be the best options over K-State, TCU and Baylor, but is it culturally compatible for either? How well can either compete in their own states with their departed-to-the SEC cousins?
You get the point? Like, a not so sweet one if you’re fond of orange?
OSU’s best hope, it would seem, is a late tack-on with at least Texas Tech to avoid any political backlash in either state. OSU’s political option would seem to be effectively pointed pressure starting with Gov. Kevin Stitt, an OSU alum.
There’s precedence, but there were different paramaters in place when one-time Texas governor and Baylor alum Ann Richards pushed for Baylor to be part of a deal when the Big Eight took them in with Texas, Texas Tech and Texas A&M. You wonder if there’s enough financial or political clout in Waco to win the same battle again, especially since the state’s big two were already on their own separate missions.
TCU, certainly, is in the worst shape.
The Frogs have the smallest alumni base in the league, and in the NIL player-pay era now upon us, that’s not good. Waco is more a Baylor town than Fort Worth is a TCU town, its significant chunk of the Metroplex’s 7.5 million people being carved up among the Texas schools, Oklahoma, and Arkansas as far as alumni bases. T. Boone Pickens was on the front of pushing the Big 12 to admit TCU when the conference was reeling from Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska and Texas A&M all leaving, and he’s no longer around.
Another sign we may have missed of this impending doom: Kim Mulkey left a Baylor dynasty for lesser competitive but cash-enriched LSU. In May, Jim Schlossnagle left TCU baseball for Texas A&M, a program that wasn’t as elite in the sport as the one he turned down a couple years ago in Mississippi State.
Wonder what it would be like to be a bug in Mike Gundy’s cell phone right now, given the fact he’s shopped around multiple times?
With the other leadership changes at OSU of late, these are times like none other in Stillwater.
OU fans are smiling, save for any remorse for tradition. OSU fans — another issue altogether.