Anyways, Chip Brown from Orangebloods.com reports OU may apply to the Pac-12 by the end of the month.
Oklahoma will apply for membership to the Pac-12 before the end of the month, and Oklahoma State is expected to follow suit, a source close to OU's administration told Orangebloods.com.
Even though Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott said Friday the Pac-12 was not interested in expansion at this time, OU's board of regents is fed up with the instability in the Big 12, the source said.
The OU board of regents will meet within two weeks to formalize plans to apply for membership to the Pac-12, the source said.
Messages left Sunday night with OU athletic director Joe Castiglione and Oklahoma State athletic director Mike Holder were not immediately returned.
If OU follows through with what appears to be a unanimous sentiment on the seven-member Oklahoma board of regents to leave the Big 12, realignment in college athletics could be heating back up. OU's application would be matched by an application from Oklahoma State, the source said, even though OSU president Burns Hargis and mega-booster Boone Pickens both voiced their support for the Big 12 last Thursday.
There is differing sentiment about if the Pac-12 presidents and chancellors are ready to expand again after bringing in Colorado and Utah last year and landing $3 billion TV contracts from Fox and ESPN. Colorado president Bruce Benson told reporters last week CU would be opposed to any expansion that might bring about east and west divisions in the Pac-12.
Currently, there are north and south divisions in the Pac-12. If OU and OSU were to join, Larry Scott would have to get creative.
Scott's orginal plan last summer was to bring in Colorado, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State and put them in an eastern division with Arizona and Arizona State. The old Pac-8 schools (USC, UCLA, Cal, Stanford, Oregon, Oregon State, Washington and Washington State) were to be in the west division.
Colorado made the move in June 2010, but when Texas A&M was not on board to go west, the Big 12 came back together with the help of its television partners (ABC/ESPN and Fox).
If Oklahoma and Oklahoma State were accepted into the Pac-12, there would undoubtedly be a hope by Larry Scott that Texas would join the league. But Texas sources have indicated UT is determined to hang onto the Longhorn Network, which would not be permissible in the Pac-12 in its current form.
Texas sources continue to indicate to Orangebloods.com that if the Big 12 falls apart, the Longhorns would consider "all options."
Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe held an emergency conference call 10 days ago with league presidents excluding Oklahoma, Texas and Texas A&M and asked the other league presidents to "work on Texas" because Beebe didn't think the Pac-12 would take Oklahoma without Texas.
Now, it appears OU is willing to take its chances with the Pac-12 with or without Texas.
There seemed to be a temporary pause in any possible shifting of the college athletics' landscape when Baylor led a charge to tie up Texas A&M's move to the Southeastern Conference in legal red tape. BU refused to waive its right to sue the SEC over A&M's departure from the Big 12, and the SEC said it would not admit Texas A&M until it had been cleared of any potential lawsuits.
Baylor, Kansas and Iowa State have indicated they will not waive their right to sue the SEC.
It's unclear if an application by OU to the Pac-12 would draw the same threats of litigation against the Pac-12 from those Big 12 schools.
Iowa State is a lot more respected than you "other fans" want to believe. Bowl representatives love ISU. Iowa State travels well. It adds pretty big conference games for Iowa, Nebraska, and Minnesota. Potentially for schools like Illinois and Wisconsin also. Its another game close in the midwest for opposing schools to travel too and vise versa.
If you have to tell people how widely respected you are.......
Originally Posted by HemiEd:
Nebraska leaving, kind of changed the whole playing field IMO.
The OU Nebraska football rivalry was up there with about any and I think it sucks that it is over.
But, the real mistake was made, back when they let all the Texas schools in, and gave the Longhorns the keys to the conference.
I truly think this is going to be very interesting to see how it plays out.
NU-OU definitely one of the classics. Would be cool if they still scheduled each other as non-con games.
Agreed, letting Bevo drive is the root of all problems here. NU said FU, aTm said good riddance, who's next?
Would rather have seen them tell UT to go screw and revert to the Big 8 teams. [Reply]
Originally Posted by vailpass:
NU-OU definitely one of the classics. Would be cool if they still scheduled each other as non-con games.
Agreed, letting Bevo drive is the root of all problems here. NU said FU, aTm said good riddance, who's next?
Would rather have seen them tell UT to go screw and revert to the Big 8 teams.
Exactly, but Nebraska leaving screws even that scenario up.
I guess I was unaware of the Big 8 really needed to expand at the time, I thought they had the world by the short hairs, but must have been wrong.
It looks like a mass exodus, but should be interesting. [Reply]
Originally Posted by HemiEd:
But, the real mistake was made, back when they let all the Texas schools in, and gave the Longhorns the keys to the conference.
Thats all on Oklahoma. They were the ones who sided with Texas on everything when the Big 12 was formed.
Not to mention if the original Big 8 expansion plans had went down, it would have just been Texas and A&M. They would have had less power for sure. [Reply]
Originally Posted by ChiefsCountry:
Thats all on Oklahoma. They were the ones who sided with Texas on everything when the Big 12 was formed.
Not to mention if the original Big 8 expansion plans had went down, it would have just been Texas and A&M. They would have had less power for sure.
You can't put it all on OU, everyone else voted them in too.
The simple fact is that the midwestern schools were really damn naive, and didn't realize Texas had taken over the conference until it was too late. [Reply]
Originally Posted by eazyb81:
You can't put it all on OU, everyone else voted them in too.
The simple fact is that the midwestern schools were really damn naive, and didn't realize Texas had taken over the conference until it was too late.
Not talking about admitting them to the conference. That was a good thing IMO and the right decision. Big 8 needed Dallas and Houston tv markets, and Texas needed the Big 8 schools. I was talking about the decisons after that from moving to the headquarters, comissioner and other decisons. OU went with Texas schools and Colorado was a bitch as well. If they could have kept the Big 8 voting block intact, they would have kept the power of Texas down. [Reply]
Originally Posted by ChiefsCountry:
Thats all on Oklahoma. They were the ones who sided with Texas on everything when the Big 12 was formed.
Not to mention if the original Big 8 expansion plans had went down, it would have just been Texas and A&M. They would have had less power for sure.
Correction: That's all on OU, NU and aTm. They sided with UT on every facet of tiered financial compensation until they realized they weren't getting what they wanted. [Reply]
Originally Posted by ChiefsCountry:
Not talking about admitting them to the conference. That was a good thing IMO and the right decision. Big 8 needed Dallas and Houston tv markets, and Texas needed the Big 8 schools. I was talking about the decisons after that from moving to the headquarters, comissioner and other decisons. OU went with Texas schools and Colorado was a bitch as well. If they could have kept the Big 8 voting block intact, they would have kept the power of Texas down.
That makes a lot of sense, as usual, I wasn't paying any attention at the time. [Reply]
Originally Posted by WilliamTheIrish:
Correction: That's all on OU, NU and aTm. They sided with UT on every facet of tiered financial compensation until they realized they weren't getting what they wanted.
Yup, the Nubbs never had a problem with unequal revenue until they sucked balls and lost that TV appearance based revenue. [Reply]
