Oh heck! I thought this was over.

[EM_Puma]

I'm sorry, I still doubt an invitation will come our way and at least I thought we would be at a point where the discussion was over for now and we could all just adjust to the status quo. The Big 12 just opened the biggest can of worms imaginable and this furor will explode once more.

[SpiffCoug]

[BroncoBot]

http://www.cougarboard.com/board/messag ... d=15829276

probably some cherry picking goin on, but I like the info

[BOID]

Same here, Puma. Although BYU is almost universally sitting at the top of the pundits' lists, I still doubt that Big 12 presidents will vote for BYU. I like independence, but don't want my Cougars to be snubbed. So it's a quandary.

Oh, well. At least this news has silenced (for now) the Utard trolls. They were so much hoping for the Big 12 vote to slam the door on expansion. They'll be crying their eyes out tonight, on their huge pilla's.

[BlueK]

It's happening. The fears of BYU fans notwithstanding, the B12 has quietly been collecting information on potential expansion targets, including BYU, for quite some time. You don't spend $15M and set up an expansion committee for no reason. They may be individually prone to some petty disagreements and in-fighting, but it's clear from yesterday that the few leads on the internet about Bowlsby being in favor of expansion were correct. He just needed to get everyone to see the big picture benefit to the entire league, and it worked. Obviously the ACC's announcement had a lot to do with the convincing. On the hard data they collected it's nothing short of obvious that BYU kicks the other candidates' butts on every measure. They actually mentioned what the criteria were in the press conference. The league has to do this to survive. Picking teams that have small fanbases and are mired in debt and not ready for primetime is not going to meet the conference's overall goals.

[blue42]

I give BYU's chances of getting into the Big 12 at 80%+. Bowlsby in June announced the CCG scheduled for 2017 season, and during the news conference yesterday he mentioned they could add teams by next year, which would help the CCG schedule. This is only one of the reasons I see BYU as being in, the Big 12 could get two teams already in other conferences but I don't think they would want to pay two buyout exit payments, so with BYU as one of the teams, they would only need to pay one exit fee.

I think what the Big 12 did in the news conference yesterday was extremely smart. They started right off talking about Baylor and went into talking, very cryptically about expansion, never actually coming out and saying they were going to expand but they are taking the next step into looking at expansion. What this did was very effectively take the spotlight off Baylor and directed all the media's questions about expansion and what are they really going to do, expand or not.

So with that I am saying Big 12 expansion is 100% and BYU's addition greater than 80%!

[dsmith1212]

Obviously the ACC's announcement had a lot to do with the convincing.

I missed the ACC announcement - what did it say?

[dsmith1212]

Obviously the ACC's announcement had a lot to do with the convincing.

I missed the ACC announcement - what did it say?

[vancouvercougar]

Obviously the ACC's announcement had a lot to do with the convincing.

I missed the ACC announcement - what did it say?

I may be wrong--been at girls camp--but I thought the ACC announced a conference TV network.

[BlueK]

Obviously the ACC's announcement had a lot to do with the convincing.

I missed the ACC announcement - what did it say?

I may be wrong--been at girls camp--but I thought the ACC announced a conference TV network.

That was part of it, along with more money from ESPN. But the part that got the Big 12 people worried was that they also extended their GOR to the year 2036, meaning there is no hope of getting one of those teams to leave for the B12.

It also underscored the fact that the B12 with 10 teams is a sitting duck waiting to be poached. Their GOR isn't that much of a barrier to the other leagues because imagine if the other four P5 leagues all decided to raid the Big 12 at the same time. it's a scenario that is NOT all that far-fetched. Only one league would have to get the process started and the others would probably all try to jump in and get what they can. There is added incentive today because there are only 4 CFP spots but 4 P5 leagues. The other 4 would love to kill P5 league #5. All they'd have to do as a group is pick off 5 teams and the league falls apart per NCAA rules and therefore the GOR can't be enforced.