College conferences shaking up

The college athletics landscape as we know it looks to be undergoing massive changes. Officially all we really know to this point is that Nebraska will be joining the Big Ten in 2011 and that Colorado will be joining the Pac-10 at the same time. Rumor has it that the Pac-10 is trying to lure five other schools currently in the Big-12 (Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State) to join the conference and form a Pac-16. Texas A&M is also reportedly considering joining the SEC. Should those five schools all leave the Big 12, the conference could dissolve with Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri, Iowa State and Baylor possibly looking at joining the Mountain West Conference.

Big 12 Commissioner Dan Beebe is said to be working feverishly to preserve the Big 12 with the ten schools that remain in it by trying to convince them that they would be better off financially by staying put than joining the Pac-10. That could happen, but those five all could depart at which point the remaining five schools could try to preserve the Big 12 brand and expand to a viable number while maintaining BCS Automatic Qualifier status or look at joining the Mountain West.

Boise State joined the MWC last week to bring membership to ten. The conference reportedly would pursue the remaining schools from the Big 12 should the conference dissolve with the exception of Baylor. TCU reportedly would lobby strongly to block Baylor from joining as there are administrators and powerful alumni who remain upset about Baylor being picked over TCU to join the Big 12. Personally I would be fine with Baylor being stuck on the outside as I think that their membership in the Big 12 should never have happened and wouldn't have if it weren't for the then Texas governor saying the conference couldn't have the other schools without Baylor. I feel this led to Utah being snubbed from the conference, so I would be happy to see Baylor in turn snubbed.

So many things could still happen, it's hard to say what the outcome will be. If the Big 12 stays put with the ten teams it now has, Utah would most likely be asked to join the Pac-10. This would be a favorable situation and I would be pretty happy with it. I'd also be pretty confident in Utah's chances at joining a revamped Big 12 that tried to remain intact following potential desertions by Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State. If the Big 12 dissolves I'd see it as being pretty likely that most of the remaining schools would join the Mountain West at which point the MWC would be strengthened to the point of probably commanding BCS Automatic Qualifier status in the near future. Any way you slice it, it looks like Utah will probably face a conference with increased competition. But in these times it's hard to know exactly how things will shake out.