http://v4.texags.com/Stories/2741

A&M is asking for the official B12 withdrawal procedures.
This is how Nebraska did it.

A&M NEWS RELEASE - August 25, 2011

COLLEGE STATION, Texas – Texas A&M University today officially notified the Big 12 Conference that it is exploring options related to the institution's athletic conference affiliation. Texas A&M also requested that the Big 12 outline the process to be followed should the university elect to withdraw from the conference.

In the letter to Big 12 Commissioner Dan Beebe, Texas A&M President R. Bowen Loftin indicated that if the university withdraws from the conference, Texas A&M would do so in a way that complies with the Big 12's bylaws. Additionally, Texas A&M would be supportive of the Big 12's efforts to seek a new member of the conference.

"As I have indicated previously, we are working very deliberately to act in the best long-term interests of both Texas A&M and the State of Texas. This truly is a 100-year decision," said Loftin. "While we understand the desire of all parties to quickly reach a resolution, these are extremely complex issues that we are addressing methodically."

"Ultimately, we are seeking to generate greater visibility nationwide for Texas A&M and our championship-caliber student-athletes, as well as secure the necessary and stable financial resources to support our athletic and academic programs," Loftin added. "As a public university, Texas A&M owes it to the state's taxpayers to maximize our assets and generate additional revenues both now and well into the future."


http://www.tamu.edu/athletics/big12Exploration.html

Looks more & more like Texas has destroyed the B12. I always felt a sense of pride that there was a major BCS conference here in the middle of the country to constantly throw a monkey wrench into those east and west coast people's plans. B12 wasn't a bad football conference, and after the departure of CU and NU, it was a helluva basketball conference. Oh well, nothing stays the same.

I hope/expect that OU & oSu will join Texas and Tech going to the Pac-12. A 16-team conference with a mix of new & old rivals in the western division: Arizona, Arizona State, Utah, Colorado, Texas, Tech, oSu, and OU. I won't miss Baylor or Iowa State. Nor KSU...I've been to Manhattan...snoozefest. I think I should plan a roadtrip to Lawrence and see their campus in autumn.

As far as A&M going to the SEC...good luck you're gonna need it. Seems to me A&M underachieved greatly...I thought they would be a bigger force in B12 football, but except for the first or second year, their bark was worse than their bite. They gave OU all it could handle in College Station, but stunk like yesterday's diapers in Norman.

Time for OU to put on the big boy pants and join the SEC. Texas has no interest in the PAC 12 and that conference has no interest in Tech. With no Texas schools, that conference has no football cred. People in LA (USC and UCLA) do not support college athletics(or pro) and outside of Oregon the conference is made up of a team on probation and members always out of the top 20. Heck, before Peter Carroll USC wasn't even good. Give me a break, who wants to be associated with mediocre?

Time for OU to put on the big boy pants and join the SEC. Texas has no interest in the PAC 12 and that conference has no interest in Tech. With no Texas schools, that conference has no football cred. People in LA (USC and UCLA) do not support college athletics(or pro) and outside of Oregon the conference is made up of a team on probation and members always out of the top 20. Heck, before Peter Carroll USC wasn't even good. Give me a break, who wants to be associated with mediocre?

OU won't join the SEC. First and foremost, David Boren wants to improve OU's academic standing, and you don't do that by allying yourself with SEC schools - you go Pac 12. Additionally, neither Joe C. nor David Boren want any part of the corrupt SEC recruiting culture. Granted, the Pac 12 is hardly full of angels, but I believe the conventional wisdom holds that recruiting the southeast region of the US is rife with corruption, with someone like a Cam Newton just happening to get a bit more exposure.

So, all that is to say that if the Big 12 goes, the only other option for OU will be west.

Reports that A&M has officially notified the conference of its intent to leave.

http://eye-on-collegefootball.blogs.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/entry/24156338/31622997

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/30/sports/ncaafootball/texas-am-closer-to-withdrawing-from-big-12.html?_r=3&ref=sports

Texas A&M Closer to Withdrawing From Big 12
By PETE THAMEL
Published: August 29, 2011

Texas A&M’s departure from the Big 12 Conference drew closer to reality on Monday when the university’s president, R. Bowen Loftin, sent a letter to the Big 12 board chairman, the Missouri chancellor Brady Deaton, notifying the league that the Aggies would formally withdraw — very likely on Tuesday — according to two college officials with direct knowledge of the decision.

OU won't join the SEC. First and foremost, David Boren wants to improve OU's academic standing, and you don't do that by allying yourself with SEC schools - you go Pac 12. Additionally, neither Joe C. nor David Boren want any part of the corrupt SEC recruiting culture. Granted, the Pac 12 is hardly full of angels, but I believe the conventional wisdom holds that recruiting the southeast region of the US is rife with corruption, with someone like a Cam Newton just happening to get a bit more exposure.

So, all that is to say that if the Big 12 goes, the only other option for OU will be west.

Cheating is and has been pervasive through big time college athletics for quite some time. No region of the country is it more rife than in other parts. Ohio State easily eclipsed Auburn this past year and it did not deter Nebraska. To improve academic standing, you go Ivy League or maybe Big 10, not Pac 12. Tyrell Pryor and the gang of 5 were not in the SEC, nor was Reggie Bush. Your argument is rationalization to not compete against the best. Spin, pure and simple.:dizzy:

Let me also add, Miami and North Carolina (both under serious investigations) are in the ACC with Duke, Boston College, Wake Forest, and Georgia Tech. So much for correlating academic standards and cheating.

OU has recruited well out of California in the past, not much out of the south. I'd rather OU go West.

That's cool, just your preferance. My preferance is going to a stadium with big time college atmosphere and more teams that are 12 hours or less travel time by auto.

Not only distance - but we are talking 2 time zones out west. For us east coast sooners, we would be off by 3 hours. I love OU but staying up till 2AM to watch the 4th quarter of the Washington St game does not appeal to me. EST and CST already share the same TV time slot. And I am not sure a 10PM start time for a home game (so Cal fans can watch it in prime-time) will go over well either.

Not only distance - but we are talking 2 time zones out west. For us east coast sooners, we would be off by 3 hours. I love OU but staying up till 2AM to watch the 4th quarter of the Washington St game does not appeal to me. EST and CST already share the same TV time slot. And I am not sure a 10PM start time for a home game (so Cal fans can watch it in prime-time) will go over well either.

Good point. So many times I hear of teams on the west coast not getting much TV time due to the Pacific time zone thing. I just don't want any part of having to spend Sat. nights post 10 to watch OU from Pullman Washington or Eugene Oregon.

Good point. So many times I hear of teams on the west coast not getting much TV time due to the Pacific time zone thing. I just don't want any part of having to spend Sat. nights post 10 to watch OU from Pullman Washington or Eugene Oregon.

I am as big a college football fan as anyone, but watching PAC-10 games after midnight is where I draw the line. And yes - the PAC-10 always cries that they don't get on TV as much. Maybe if they had a 9AM kick-off they could be on TV when the rest of the country starts up. Here on the east coast the late SEC game is wrapping up by 11PM. No one is going to watch the final 2 minutes of LSU/Florida and then turn over to watch the kick-off of OU/Arizona St.

With us planning a future move to Denver the move to the Pac-16 would work out great for both of us if Tech were to go as well. I hate the late Red Sox and Ranger games when they are playing on the coast but I still tend to watch the late college football games more since I don't have to get up and early and go to work the next day. That said, I would still rather OU would go into the SEC, it's just a better, more competitive conference with tremendous game day venues. Even if OU doesn't play much in SEC stadiums one of these days I plan on hitting most of them for a game. I enjoyed the game that I went to in Fayetteville against Kentucky when Lorenzen was their QB. Nice stadium and Fayetteville is a great town but then it was also the only school that I barely considered other than OU. Fay Jones had recently retired as the Dean of the School of Architecture but was still teaching some...of course in-state tuition was the deciding factor. At the time 15 hours at OU (tuition/fees) was $341.00 a semester and at Arkansas it would have been something like $2,800 for out of state tuition IIRC.

I'd love to see them move out west. Living in Denver we'd at least get to see them play CU again.

It's all over but the crying..... http://www.tamu.edu/athletics/conferenceChange.html

B12 is losing its 3rd large state-supported university. So either B12 finds suitable replacement(s) or it falls apart. Is there another institution around here that is ready to step up? That would've been TCU. SMU seems interested but they don't bring much to the table. If SMU is worthy, then so are schools like Tulsa, UTEP, Rice, and Houston. Do they add value to the league? Not much, but they would fill the holes. Maybe B12 adds a requirement that a smaller school show some kind of commitment to increasing its athletic department as a condition of membership.

So I guess we could just decide to call it the " * Plus 8 " Conference come summer?

Although OU is a storied program, we don't bring many television sets to any conference. I fear that if we accept schools such as SMU, Tulsa, UTEP, Rice, etc just to fill holes and keep the Big Twelve on life support, OU will eventually fade into obscurity. What has kept us in the public eye is not just our program, but the teams we play. I sincerely believe OU needs to join the SEC or PAC-whatever, or our days of being a major force in college football are numbered. We have to be realistic about the fact that we're a small state population-wise.

If we go to a PAC-16 we will likely play most of our games against the other 5 teams in our division (presumably OSU, 2 other Big 12 schools, Colorado, and Utah), thus meaning that we'd probably have 3-4 games against the other division. So only about 1/3rd of OU's games would be played in the Pacific time zone. How many of those would be late starting night games? Maybe half. So 1 in 6 games would actually start late. Just one or two a season.

Although OU is a storied program, we don't bring many television sets to any conference.

I think you under-estimate the national appeal of OU. I run into a lot of OU fans here in Florida that have no direct connection to Oklahoma. If you walk into a sports store here in Jax you will find an overwhelming amount of Gator, Seminole, and Hurricane gear. Next on that list is OU. They have as much (or more) OU merchandise than the rest of the SEC teams.

Yeah, the eastern inter-division games of the PAC16 would all play Central or Mountain timezone, only 1 hour difference.

I think what's going to happen is B12 will try its best to survive like any organism whose life is in jeopardy. B12 will extend invite to Houston definitely, and possibly UTEP and SMU. Houston is a public research university with enrollment of 38,752. Houston is a no-brainer. The next two I'm going based on enrollment size only: SMU with 11,000 and UTEP with 21,000. Tulsa and Rice are simply too small, both with under 6,000 enrollment.

Will B12 survive? I just don't know but I would put money that it does not. I think PAC will make a sweet offer to Texas, Tech, OU, and oSu and that will be the end of the B12.

I think you under-estimate the national appeal of OU. I run into a lot of OU fans here in Florida that have no direct connection to Oklahoma.

Right now. But, that will fade quickly if we start playing SMU, Houston and UTEP on a regular basis rather than Nebraska, Colorado and Texas A&M. Sports fans are notoriously fickle and it's the fact that OU has been to 4 national championship games in the recent past, as well as holding down a regular top 10 slot that has been responsible. ESPN won't be interested in paying big money to televise games if they've got those teams, Iowa State, Kansas, etc to look forward to hosting, so I suspect our next television contract would be a lot less lucrative as well. It will also negatively affect strength of schedule computations and we will be less BCS appealing too. I hope the athletic department at OU has the savvy to realize this as well and look at our population base.

The Big XII needs to become the Big XVI is it going to survive. Disband the Big XII and create the BIG XVI (and don't invite Texas)

North Division:
OU
OSU
Kansas
Kansas St
Missouri
Iowa St
BYU
Air Force

South Division:
TCU
Texas Tech
Baylor
SMU
New Mexico
New Mexico St
Southern Miss
Houston

Look at the teams you have listed. How many of them are you seriously interested in watching if they're not playing your team? We would in essence become the Big East, without basketball powerhouses. Again, it would be a disaster for OU.

Right now. But, that will fade quickly if we start playing SMU, Houston and UTEP on a regular basis rather than Nebraska, Colorado and Texas A&M.

You might be right about that.

Look at the teams you have listed. How many of them are you seriously interested in watching if they're not playing your team? We would in essence become the Big East, without basketball powerhouses. Again, it would be a disaster for OU.

You can't get excited about a Baylor/New Mexico St match-up? LOL!

I actually hope OU goes to the SEC, my suggestion was only if saving the conference was the goal.

I could care less about the conference. It's barely out of its infancy anyway...not like it's got some grand and glorious tradition. I care about OU, and it's a mistake to try and save the conference IMO. It's time to take it off life support and do what's right for us. Let Texas do whatever they want.

Betts is right...from a financial aspect, the B12 won't be able to maintain or increase TV revenue with a watered-down product. But I expect Beebe to argue adding Houston and SMU will increase viewership in their respective markets. Not sure if anyone will buy that.

If it is TV market - my plan adds Dallas/Ft Worth, Houston, Jackson, Colorado Springs/Denver, Albuquerque, Salt Lake City, plus global Mormons and Air Force personnel.

You have to ask how many people in those markets will actually watch those games. Plus, how many random people across the country will tune in. The answer to the second is: not very many. It's a losing idea, and if we stay in the Little 12, we'll lose in the long run.

It is a bigger TV market than the old Big XII.

You can't get excited about a Baylor/New Mexico St match-up? LOL!

I actually hope OU goes to the SEC, my suggestion was only if saving the conference was the goal.

OU won't go to the SEC... too many good teams in the SEC and OK is pretty much king of the hill in the Big 12 and gets that BCS game.

OU won't go to the SEC... too many good teams in the SEC and OK is pretty much king of the hill in the Big 12 and gets that BCS game.

If Texas goes indie, OU is the Boise State of the conference.

First, Houston is NOT a no brainer. Their athletic programs and facilities are not on par with a major university. Just because they are in a huge market does not mean the people there are huge Houston fans. I would not even consider Houston. If schools like Houston and SMU and New Mexico State are even being considered then it is time to end this conference.

Secondly, OU will not fade into oblivion if we are in a crap conference. Boise State succeeds year after year in a crap conference. If you are good then people will care about you. OU also has the most important factor on its side - great tradition. This helps recruiting, fund raising, and everything else. OU's 7 national championships means we will always be relevant (even in down years).

I hate that Texas' arrogance has led to the downfall of a great conference, but since it is falling apart, these would be my preferences for OU:
1. Join Big 10 with UT (if they drop LHN; Nebraska would be pissed), Notre Dame, and 2 other schools
2. Join Pac-16 with several Big 12 schools
3. Expand Big 12 if decent members can be attracted (doubtful)
4. Join SEC

Options 1 and 3 are unlikely in the short and long term. I think option 2 is the most likely by far. There are a lot of moving parts in this so nothing is certain. That's probably the only certainty - uncertainty.

Kilgore, it's not just that Houston is in a big market, it's that UHouston is a large public research university and they have big plans to upgrade football & basketball facilities: http://www.uhcougars.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/061010aaf.html

If B12 extends invites, I think UH is most likely to get one and accept.

I'd love to see them move out west. Living in Denver we'd at least get to see them play CU again.
I was planning on going to the game up there this season that was supposed to happen. Instead we are coming up to go to a Broncos game and look for jobs.


If we go to a PAC-16 we will likely play most of our games against the other 5 teams in our division (presumably OSU, 2 other Big 12 schools, Colorado, and Utah), thus meaning that we'd probably have 3-4 games against the other division. So only about 1/3rd of OU's games would be played in the Pacific time zone. How many of those would be late starting night games? Maybe half. So 1 in 6 games would actually start late. Just one or two a season.
More than likely there would be 8 teams in a division if they go to 16, add Arizona and Arizona State to the eastern division and there's your 8 teams. Then the original members can go back to their Pac-8 division.


If it is TV market - my plan adds Dallas/Ft Worth, Houston, Jackson, Colorado Springs/Denver, Albuquerque, Salt Lake City, plus global Mormons and Air Force personnel.
The problem is the DFW and Houston markets are already counted as Big 12 markets because of the Texas teams. Adding SMU, TCU or Houston adds nothing market wise. In fact OU probably has a bigger "share" of those markets than the local teams do. I went to SMU games when I lived in Dallas, which was right after their resurrection, no one in Dallas paid attention to them and for the most part even though TCU has done well recently no one paid attention to them. Dallas is really a bad college sports market, it is a professional winners market. If the Dallas teams aren't winning everyone goes back to the teams that they grew up with since most of the population came from somewhere else. The University of Houston barely gets a mention in their own hometown.


You have to ask how many people in those markets will actually watch those games. Plus, how many random people across the country will tune in. The answer to the second is: not very many. It's a losing idea, and if we stay in the Little 12, we'll lose in the long run.
In this modern day actual viewers matter little, to sell ad revenue they rely on sheer number of television sets, so the larger the market the better in their minds whether eyes are on the televisions or not.

One thing that may happen is the BCS conferences expand but not necessarily grabbing the top teams from other BCS conferences. I could possibly see a situation where the "mid-major" teams in conferences like the Mountain West, C-USA and the few higher profile members of the WAC or the MAC get added to get the conferences to 16 teams. I still think one of the keys to 16 team leagues is Notre Dame finally choosing a conference.

i could care less about the conference. It's barely out of its infancy anyway...not like it's got some grand and glorious tradition. I care about ou, and it's a mistake to try and save the conference imo. It's time to take it off life support and do what's right for us. Let texas do whatever they want.


yes!!

I could care less about the conference. It's barely out of its infancy anyway...not like it's got some grand and glorious tradition. I care about OU, and it's a mistake to try and save the conference IMO. It's time to take it off life support and do what's right for us. Let Texas do whatever they want.

My hope for saving the conference was in that if we go to an east or west conference then games will much more frequently go out of a time that is convenient for us to watch since we will rarely be the largest market in the SEC or PAC-??. With OU seeming to prefer the PAC over the SEC in the previous talks I was a bit concerned of ending up with PAC officials at every conference game as well.

Or just boot TX out of the Big 12 and get some decent teams to come in... everybody is happy, except TX and who cares lol

The more I think about it the more I would like to see the Big XII stay intact. Kick Texas out and go back to an 8 team league. Barring that, I would like to see OU go to the SEC and OSU go to the PAC-12. That would assure some great college footbal in Oklahoma every Saturday and would really help OSU season ticket sales because if fans want to see PAC-12 teams play they have to buy OSU tickets to do it. It would also allow all Oklahomans to root for both teams since they won't be competing against each other in the conference.

^^^That would be nice albeit highly unlikely. When I lived in Georgia, it was cool having UGA competing in the SEC and Tech in the ACC. I got to see a lot of teams in person who normally would only be on my TV screen...a good weekend was going to a day game in Athens between the hedges then driving over to Atlanta for a night game at Tech, then a Falcons game on Sunday. That's when I was in my 30s, I wouldn't want to do that now!