The board of regents at Oklahoma and Texas gave their school presidents authority Monday to take “appropriate” action concerning conference affiliation, and Oklahoma appears ready to ask for membership in the Pac-12.
Oklahoma president David Boren told reporters after the OU board’s meeting in Tulsa, Okla., that his school has “had informal discussions with the Pac-12. Those conversations have been warm, constructive.”
Meanwhile, Mountain West commissioner Craig Thompson told the Idaho Statesman that he is having discussions about a football-only merger with Conference USA.
What happens next, at Texas and Oklahoma, will determine the future of the Pac-12 and the Big 12, which is on verge of collapse if its two highest-profile members leave. A spokesman for the Pac-12 said commissioner Larry Scott would not comment. Nationwide, other conferences are watching closely and are ready to react.
After Monday’s meeting, Boren said his board is unified and he sounded close to making the call.
“Very important to us . . . is long-term stability, for the university within a conference framework,” Boren told reporters. “Obviously, we do not want to continue to have these kinds of situations, where our membership in a conference is still undecided, has to be revisited every year, the stability of the conference has to be revisited every year.”
The Big 12 lost Nebraska (which joined the Big Ten) and Colorado (Pac-12) this summer and is in the process of losing Texas A&M to the Southeastern Conference.
Boren said last month that he is interested in the Pac-12 if the Big 12 can’t find a viable replacement for Texas A&M. Pitt was believed to be a possibility, but the Panthers were accepted into the Atlantic Coast Conference on Sunday.
“I would say that the principal focus, beyond the Big 12 itself — which is still a focus for us — is the Pac-12,” Boren said Monday.
Boren added that he has been in steady communication with Oklahoma State and the two schools plan to stay together in the same conference. He said he has no time-table to make a decision but indicated it would come soon.
“I’d love to see a result sooner than later,” he said.
Texas’s options are dwindling. Texas president Bill Powers and athletic director DeLoss Dodds met with Scott in Los Angeles for three hours Friday, the day before Texas played UCLA at the Rose Bowl. No one confirmed any agreement, but they surely discussed Texas’ Longhorn Network, which appears to be the biggest hurdle in Texas joining the Pac-12. When Scott added Colorado and Utah, he promised equal funding for all 12 schools. Texas signed a 20-year, $300 million contract with ESPN to broadcast the Longhorn Network.
How Scott folds the network into his six regional TV networks and still appease Texas will be a key in adding Texas and Texas Tech, which likely would come along as the league’s 16th member.
If Scott can satisfy Texas, he will need at least nine votes from the 12 conference presidents for approval to expand. University of Colorado president Bruce Benson has indicated he’s not in favor of expansion. How Scott arranges the divisions will be crucial in appeasing schools wanting exposure in the fertile Southern California recruiting area.
The Austin American-Statesman reported that the Pac-12 is considering a football alignment of four four-team pods if it goes to 16 teams. Every year each football team would play the other teams in its pod plus two teams from each of the other three pods for a total of nine conference games. The pod makeup would change every two years.
College sports hasn’t seen a 16-team football conference since the Western Athletic Conference expanded to 16 in 1996. It lasted three seasons.
“If the 16 teams going into it are committed to it and believe in it and there’s enough money to distribute and make everybody happy, yes (it could work),” WAC commissioner Karl Benson said. “But if there’s resistance from one or two or someone goes into it opposed, it creates divisiveness that builds. That’s what happened to the 16-team WAC. It failed from within.”
While the SEC is hoping to expand to 13 schools and the ACC expanded to 14 over the weekend with Pitt and Syracuse coming over from the Big East, the Mountain West is being proactive.
“Consolidation,” Thompson told the Idaho Statesman, “is, at least, worth exploring.”
Thompson has contacted potential stray members of the crumbling Big 12 and Big East about joining the new league. He said he has had extended conversations with Texas Christian, which is leaving the Mountain West next summer to join the Big East.
“Inviting them back to the league is not my position,” he told the Idaho newspaper. “But it is being strongly considered and would probably — ‘probably’ emphasized — be endorsed by the Mountain West board of directors.”
John Henderson: 303-954-1299, jhenderson@denverpost.com,
