The Big 12 is on the move to quickly expand, and this expansion plan could grow the conference to include twelve schools again after losing Oklahoma and Texas. The list of teams set to join the Big 12 includes BYU, Houston, Cincinnati, and Central Florida.
Three individuals familiar with the talks of the Big 12 stated on Friday that the eight schools left behind by the Sooners and Longhorns are planning to rebuild by including four new members.
They've planned frequently meetings for Big 12 university athletic directors and presidents in the days to come so they can talk about the next steps, and another presidential meeting was expected to happen next week.
Another individual said that they could start sending out invitations to new members from next week.
These individuals asked to be anonymous because any discussion by the Big 12 was not made public.
The first report was made by Sports Illustrated, citing unidentified sources, that UCF, Cincinnati, BYU, and Houston were expected to start applying to be members of the Big 12 from next week. The first to report some days ago was The Athletic, stating that the focus of the Big 12 is on those 4 schools.
Bob Bowlsby, who is a Big 12 Commissioner failed to reply to the text messages our team sent to him.
In late July, Oklahoma and Texas were invited by The Southeastern Conference to leave the Big 12 and be a part of that powerhouse league. This move was one that rocked college sports, thereby putting the future of the Big 12 in doubt.
The Sooners and Longhorns have said that they'll honor the current contracts they have with the Big 12 and only plan on joining the SEC in 2025. That year is when the current television rights that the conference has with Fox and ESPN will run out.
One of the individuals stated that Big 12 leaders feel that the conference will benefit if they move fast on a long-term plan so they can be stable and not give room for speculation about the uncertain future of the league to linger in the entire football season.
Since the Pac-12 decided to announce that it had no plan of expanding last week, it swiftly became obvious to the remaining 8 of the Big 12 schools, West Virginia, Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, TCU, Baylor, Iowa State, Kansas State, and Kansas — that they'd got no other Power 5 conference options. The best move they could make was to remain together and include new members, according to one of the people.
