Roundtable: What is the future of the Big 12? Soundtrack included

As you’re reading this post, the powers of the Big 12 are meeting to decide whether to expand their league. The entire process, which has taken about three months — but has been in the works for the last 18 months — has been a farce to say the least.

More than 20 schools have applied, the league has quarreled (very publicly) about the reasons for and against expanding, television presidents have said expanding would kill the conference, and in the end nothing might happen.

So, this week’s roundtable is all about the Big 12 and what our panel thinks of its future. And just for fun, I decided to add a soundtrack.

OOPS, I DID IT AGAIN

The Big 12 isn’t going to do anything.

It feels like the conference has been vacillating on expansion since before the iPhone was introduced, but the best thing for it to do is stand pat. Houston may be much less attractive than it is now if Tom Herman leaves, and if Texas really does run the Big 12, any expansion has to include the Cougars. The other Cougars (BYU) make sense from a football standpoint but not much else, and is Cincinnati really that much of a draw? Quick, name Cincinnati’s last football opponent.

It makes the most sense — on the surface — for the conference to expand. The addition of a football title game almost demands that the Big 12 find two more teams so that the conference’s round-robin schedule goes away. Playing a conference title game after everyone has played each other is nothing short of absurd.

But it’s not nearly as simple as that. TV is reportedly lukewarm on the expansion idea because of the candidate pool. And we all know just how important TV money is. The Big 12’s hemming and hawing has had everything to do with money. And given that there may be no added financial security to add two non-Power Five teams, my bet is the Big 12 stays where it is. (Nick Bromberg)

NOBODY’S FOOL

No matter how it’s framed, if the Big 12 doesn’t expand — and recent reports make it seem like that is very possible — this whole charade is going to look pretty bad. Everybody will make their jokes on Twitter (me included, probably), but on the field, it may not be the worst thing in the world. Sure, adding a team like Houston would bolster the Big 12 in the short-term, but who knows if that program can maintain this level of success when Tom Herman inevitably leaves for a bigger job? None of the other expansion candidates really move the needle, either. So maybe the league should just stay at 10, especially if its TV providers buy out that pro rata clause (as reported is possible by SI.com) to distribute more money among the members.

David Boren said last year the Big 12 was “psychologically disadvantaged” having 10 members in the College Football Playoff era, but we still don’t know that to be wholly true. Oklahoma showed last year that a Big 12 team can crack the top four if it is good enough. How do we know Baylor or even West Virginia won’t run the table and put the Big 12 back in the playoff again this year?

I guess what I’m getting at is I don’t really buy the idea that the Big 12 will just fall apart in the next couple years whether it expands or not. Maybe I’m naive to the revenue disparities relative to the SECs and Big Tens of the world, but I think a conference with schools like Oklahoma and Texas has its merit.

Also, I think conference officials were more into the *idea* of expansion more than what it really entailed. Plus, coming to a consensus on schools to add is not the easiest thing. But hey, maybe they will surprise us. (Sam Cooper)

LOST AT BIRTH

To quote Public Enemy, the Big 12’s future holds nothing else but confrontation.

I just don’t see it ending well for the fifth and most flawed of the Power Five conferences. There is too little consensus, too wide a gap between haves and have-nots, too little unifying leadership.

When the current meda-rights deals expire in eight to 10 years, I expect the Big 12 to very likely be raided the way the Big East was in the last realignment spasm that altered the college sports map. This time, Texas and Oklahoma will make their moves in search of greater profits and stability — I’m guessing Texas to the Pac-12 and Oklahoma to the SEC — and others will disperse accordingly. And we will have the much-prophesied four super conferences of 16 (or so) schools.

I wrote about that scenario 10 weeks ago. Nothing I’ve heard since then leads me to believe otherwise.

Do I think that will be a good thing for college athletics as a whole? No. Neither have the other recent realignment moves. But nobody is looking out for the greater good, just for themselves and their own bank accounts. (Pat Forde)

I WILL TRY TO FIX YOU

Has any conference in the history of college football had more ridiculous drama than the Big 12? Conference expansion has been a charade, a farce, an embarrassment, and part of me believes that even if the conference expands today, it might be disband in five years.

The problems with the Big 12 are far deeper than the number of members. There’s jealousy, pettiness, bickering and all the perfect ingredients for a really good reality show, but a terrible football partnership. In a way, this whole scenario reminds me of the WAC. Remember when the WAC was raided by the Mountain West, Conference USA and Sun Belt and ultimately had to fold? A similar scenario could play out in the Big 12.

Look, for the Big 12 to become the conference it once was — the conference I proudly played soccer in — it needs to work out its in-house issues before it invites anyone else into its mess. (Graham Watson)

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Graham Watson is the editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at dr.saturday@ymail.com or follow her on Twitter! Follow @YahooDrSaturday