Poll: Big 12 coaches favor BYU, Houston in expansion
With Big 12 expansion looking like a certainty, ESPN’s Brett McMurphy polled the league’s 10 coaches to see which schools they’d like to see join the conference.
The coaches, polled anonymously, of course, were asked choose their “top two candidates among schools not currently in a Power 5 program.”
The voting ended up like this:
BYU (5)
Houston (5)
Cincinnati (4)
Memphis (4)
Colorado State (1)
UCF (1)
The conference announced Tuesday that it has given commissioner Bob Bowlsby permission to evaluate candidates for expansion. Bowlsby told reporters that the league is open to adding two or even four new members. He said the league is factoring athletic department strength, fan base size, media market, reputation and academics among the qualifications for potential candidates.
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The league lost Nebraska (to the Big Ten), Colorado (Pac-12), Missouri (SEC) and Texas (A&M) in the last round of expansion before adding TCU and West Virginia from the Mountain West and Big East, respectively. The league currently stands at 10.
For Houston, Cincinnati, Memphis, UCF or other candidates like UConn and USF to leave the American Athletic Conference for the Big 12, those schools are required to “provide 27 months’ notice and pay a $10 million exit fee,” according to ESPN.
The Mountain West, home of Colorado State, has an exit requirement of one year’s notice. If that requirement is not met, the school must pay the league $5 million “or double the school’s final year of conference revenue.” The larger sum, per ESPN, would be the payout.
BYU is an independent for football and a member of the West Coast Conference for many of its other sports.
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Yahoo’s Pat Forde broke down the pros and cons of each expansion candidate here.
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Sam Cooper is a writer for the Yahoo Sports blogs. Have a tip? Email him or follow him on Twitter!
