We have a saying here in Washington:”Those who are saying don’t know and those who really know aren’t saying.”
Never has that old adage been needed more than when you begin a conversation about the latest round of conference expansion.
The Big 12 will meet today and they are wrestling with the idea of expanding at the expense of another conference.
First on Saturday came a report out of The Austin American-Statesman with some confirmation from ESPN, both fine news organizations, that West Virginia would be added to the Big 12. This of course would happen once Missouri moved to the SEC.
In that same column coming out of Austin another Big 12 representative was quoted as saying that Louisville had some strong support even though their football program was not as strong as West Virginia’s. Add to that ESPN’s Andy Katz reported that West Virginia had a slight lead over BYU and Louisville.
Over the weekend I spoke with four highly placed sources from the broadcasting industry that had knowledge of expansion talks going on in the Big 12. Of my four sources two came from Texas and one each from Oklahoma and Kansas. The conclusion that all four gave me despite what was written – there is no favorite at this point to replace Missouri. They agreed that the Big 12 will only add one team staying at ten members (for business reasons) but as to who replaces Missouri, well there will be plenty of no doubt spirited discussion before the matter is settled.
At this point all four sources told me that West Virginia, BYU and Louisville all had their supporters but none of them had the required number of votes to be deemed the favorite. Furthermore there was a very strong debate on the topic of whether the Big 12 wanted to possibly kill off the Big East by poaching one of their teams.
Over the past year both the Big 12 and the Big East have informally discussed the possibility of a football only merger- conversations that were ongoing a month ago-before the Pac 12 decided not to add Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State. The two conferences felt a kinship because both had been poached – the Big 12 by the Pac 12 and the Big East twice by the ACC.
So there will be two main questions debated by the conference leaders.
- Do we poach either West Virginia or Louisville from the Big East? (as I mentioned before it won’t be both. For the record I do feel that West Virginia would get the nod over Louisville if they voted to poach.)
- Do we add BYU (which has some strong support) and leave the Big East alone?
It likely won’t take too long to find out but there is still plenty of talking left to be done as well as some good old fashioned arm twisting before the team that replaces Missouri in the Big 12 is announced.
