Iowa State AD: Without Texas and Oklahoma, the Big 12 is the Mountain West
Iowa State athletic director Jamie Pollard isn’t delusional about his school’s place within the now not-expanding Big 12.
In an appearance on KXNO Tuesday morning, Pollard lamented the expansion talk from people who aren’t Big 12 athletic directors and downplayed dissent between the athletic departments at Texas and Oklahoma. And he said without those two schools in the conference, the Big 12 wouldn’t nearly be the marketable conference that it is right now.
The ADs aren’t the ones having the disagreements. When I hear people saying ‘Texas and Oklahoma this’ I laugh. I’m in the room. That’s not the case. The Big 12 exists because we have Texas and Oklahoma in the room. If we take Texas and Oklahoma out of the room, we’re the Mountain West Conference and we’re going to get $3 million [in distribution money as opposed to $20+ million from the Big 12].
It’d be like someone saying “I don’t want [former Iowa State basketball player] Georges Niang on our team because he shoots too many shots. OK, we can take Georges Niang off our team, let’s see how good would have been over the last several years. We’ve got two star players. Whether people want to like that or not, we’ve got two star players, Texas and Oklahoma. And I’m glad to be on a team that’s got two great players. And we benefit from being on that team.
We could go play on that weaker team and be the star but then everybody would be saying ‘How do you get us in one of those Power Five conferences Mr. AD?’ So I think the best thing for the Big 12 is the waters — everyone else that’s talking about what they think they know is the right answer to quit talking about it and let the ADs just go do what they need to do.
You can listen to the great interview with Pollard in its entirety below. Pollard’s honesty is refreshing about the Big 12 (and Iowa State’s) place within the college athletic landscape as well as the endless discussion about expansion. If you’ve been consumed by Big 12 expansion talk, the interview is a must-listen.
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Pollard said he understood there never was a vote on Monday about expansion because school presidents “never got to that point” and the only vote was to not expand.
He also explained that he and other athletic directors in the conference felt the best way to proceed was to continue having 10 teams in the conference because an additional team could dilute the Big 12. And that he understood why the topic of the Big 12’s flirtation with expansion became the subject of a bunch of jokes and one-liners.
We made good fodder for a lot of people. I understand why people joke about it or are sarcastic about it, because I probably would too if I was on the outside. But in the end, because that’s the hand we were dealt because the president of Oklahoma came out and said what he did, Commissioner [Bob] Bowlsby was kind of forced into going through with this process. And I think more good probably did come out of the process because of where we’re now ending, but I don’t fault anybody for making a mockery of the process from the outside because if you were on the outside, that’s what it looked like. But there was more strategy to it than more people would know or care to understand.
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Nick Bromberg is the assistant editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
