Let Expansion talk begin anew for the Big 12.
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While Baylor players were meeting with the media, interim university president David Garland and two members of the board of regents met with the Big 12 board of directors for two hours. “I don’t think we have to make apologies for stipulations we both agreed to”.
“(Dannen) is one of those people who comes to work every day looking to make things better”, Bowlsby said when Dannen was hired in December. We will make them as carefully and consistently as we can. Oklahoma President David Boren and Commissioner Bob Bowlsby said they wanted to be filled in on the investigation and what measures Baylor is taking in response.
“We want to find the strongest possible partners for expansion”, Boren said.
Numerous schools have been pitching the Big 12 behind the scenes for months, including much of the American Athletic Conference along with BYU, Colorado State and others. Air Force was tops in the Mountain West and finished behind only BYU, Princeton and Denver among non-Power Five leagues. How would expansion affect the Big 12?
Holgorsen also supports the board’s earlier decision to have a conference championship game beginning after the 2017 season.
The reconstituted Big 12 in 2014 hailed its round-robin football schedule as the way to produce “One True Champion”, but the slogan looked silly when it ended up with co-champions that season. It was thought to be dormant after the league’s decision to add a championship game and pass on a television network. Did the Big 12 see it could be left behind without a bigger conference?
West Virginia’s Dana Holgorsen on the possibility of accepting a football-only newcomer: “I don’t think that’s good for the Big 12”.
Boren has been the leading advocate for expansion. Boren did not comment publicly on the specific schools that have contacted the Big 12, but said each school has approached the league individually.
When the Big 12 held its meetings in June, they told potential expansion targets to stop calling. Even Boren was backing off.
The announcement on Monday of an ACC network and a new ACC grant of rights deal through 2035-36 changed the college realignment calculus.
Forget, for a minute, the curiously ill scheduling of a board of directors meeting right in the middle of the conference’s football media days. Some even made personal overtures to Big 12 university presidents and chancellors or involved corporate sponsors in making their cases for inclusion.
“What, there’s going to be beauty pageant to see who they select?”, one industry observer said.
Boren and Bowlsby stated that possible expansion could involve two or four more teams, and listed a set of criteria for candidates which did not include geography- an omission which may give UConn fans hope. None is guaranteed to deliver both highly competitive teams – especially football teams – as well as large new markets to increase the value of future media deals. Commissioner Bowlsby says that the conference is looking for members that will grow with the conference, that bring stability to the conference, and that have a high ceiling.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report. AP material published by LongIsland.com, is done so with explicit permission. Doing so may result in civil and/or criminal penalties.
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