Gordon Gee now thinks Big 12 expansion is on hold.

A member of the expansion committee, Gee had expressed support of moving to 12 members. He said that the NCAA deregulation of the conference championship game "helped a lot" (in removing the pressure to expand).



For the last several weeks, various writers, bloggers and pundits have said that their sources indicated that there weren't enough votes for expansion or on the potential new members. The bylaws require approval of 75% of the members for any new candidates.



If Gee is correct, it means that Boren hasn't been able to persuade enough school presidents to expand.



The last two paragraphs, of the article, indicate the position of the Big 12:



- the analytics, of all potential members have been gathered and evaluated.



- none of the data is compelling enough for expansion.



https://westvirginia.n.rivals.com/news/realignment-and-expansion-on-hold-for-now

Which means--

1. Money and more of it means more than the threat of missing playoff.

2. Sharing money with mid-majors does nothing for us but carve away money and lower SOS.

Which means--

Same old for BYU--good thing BYU has such a competitive schedule this year. Cause going 6-6 looks really attractive to the Big 12.

Which means--

Tom Holmoes strategy has failed. And he has sold 2016 and these boys down the river of desperation. But hey, had to try something right?

Ps. For all you who want to contend, name me BSUs schedule of weaklings they played the years they went to BCS bowls? Exactly. Exactly Montana state, et.al. What hurts them is no media market, poor academic institution, other sports suck, etc.

BYu has so much but lacks big wins and winning records and a big bowl appearance.

I think that it is perhaps more of a money issue than it is a judgement on whether any candidates are worthy by virtue of their quality of play. For most of the presidents (except maybe David Boren) it's more about how much money the conference media contracts would bring them before, compared to after expansion. Present TV contracts were supposed to be structured around a yearly amount per member program, so would not be divided further by 12 members. However, I imagine that bowl money still would be divided.



If I really cared about conference membership, I guess I would be complaining that Pres Gee is not too bullish on BYU, considering that he is an alumnus. It is interesting that he says none of the data favors any of the known candidates. Hmmm. I think that he's wrong on that. BYU looks particularly strong on the data (see Jeff Fuller's postings).



I still think BYU looks good as an Independant. BYU is not a Group of Five member, and so cannot be catagorized with them. BYU is definitely NOT a Mid Major, but would be so catagorized if they went to the MWC or AAC. There is only one way to catagorize BYU, and that is as a Major Independent. The tough schedule against established powers is an important part of what makes BYU a Major program. Therefore, I support Holmoe's efforts to ramp up the schedule. Being a 7-5, or 6-6 major program is not what will keep BYU from getting a Big 12 invite.

FWIW, very few candidates would have the data to make $$ sense for the Big 12 in the short term. Alabama, LSU, Ohio St., Michigan, Notre Dame, Nebraska, and a few others. The vast majority of the P5 would not make $$ sense for the Big 12 right now, including Colorado and Missouri.



The Big 12 has a sweet deal right now. They are being paid a media contract that was based on the 12-team conference price, have a Sugar-bowl contract and payout, and good representation in the NCAA tournament and lots of the associated payout credits. And they only have to distribute that pot amongst 10 schools. Plus, they can stage a conference championship game without expanding.



And, they have a round-robin schedule, so you play everyone in both football and basketball (H-H) every single year. The SEC, B1G, and ACC have schedules where some teams only play once in like 6 or 7 years. I believe it is ACC members North Carolina and Wake Forest that have scheduled an OUT-OF-CONFERENCE series so that they can play each other more frequently than the conference schedule provides.



To make matters more difficult, Texas makes an additional $15 million from the Longhorn Network. Oklahoma and Kansas also make some decent money - $6-8M for Tier 3 rights (football and basketball).



The list of teams that would add $25+ million or more in value each year is fairly short - and none of those teams are available.



I believe the data that will be most important for the Big 12's analysis includes the 2016-17 CFP rankings. So far, the Big 12 is 1 for 2 in making the CFP. And, that first year, the Big 12 was just as close to having TWO schools in the CFP as they were to having none. While the Big 12 may be psychologically disadvantaged, it hasn't really proven an insurmountable disadvantage yet when it comes to CFP access and especially $$$.

Correction made to my post of April 17: I meant to say "possible exception of Boren." That's U of O president David Boren, and not Worthen. I was up late.... Sorry.

Here's the Big 12 problem expansion problem in a nutshell as I see it: BYU's Sunday play.



No other school really makes sense or is consistently at the top of expansion relevant categories as BYU is--see Jeff Fuller's tweets. But the Big12 can't take BYU or they would have done so already. They can't take BYU because of Sunday play. But they can't say that they can't take BYU because of Sunday play. And since the B12 couldn't make a reasonable, robust argument that anybody else is ahead of BYU, the B12 can't expand. Revising the championship game rules takes a lot of the pressure off of expanding.



None of that will change. The other havenots may have some reasonable years, but the gap between G5 and P5 will continue to widen. BYU will continue to be somewhere in the middle--a "peculiar people."

Brother Gee helped me get into Vandy in 2005 when I was displaced from Tulane when Katrina hit. I'm all rose colored glasses here.

The Big 12 is a dead man walking without expansion.

Big 12 (as it is currently constituted) will never invite BYU.