Two powerful Big 12 voices offer differing takes on current state of expansion

With a series of announcements coming out of meetings last month, including the return of a conference championship game, some observers saw all signs pointing toward the Big 12 stepping back and away from expanding the conference.

As it turns out, that may not be the case. Or it may be. One of the two. Possibly.

In a wide-ranging interview with Randy Peterson of the Des Moines Register Tuesday, conference commissioner Bob Bowlsby had the following to say about the expansion issue.

“Assertions that expansion is a foregone conclusion are certainly not accurate. Equally inaccurate is there’s absolutely no way we would expand.”

Fast-forward to today, and here is what Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione had to say to CBSSports.com‘s Dennis Dodd in a piece titled “Oklahoma AD says Big 12 expansion is dead ‘for the time being.'"

“There aren’t any signs that we’ll talk anymore about expansion for a little while. We don’t have a timeline on it. ...

“I stop short of speaking in absolutes about anything regarding conference realignment outside the contracts that exist. We’ve seen things happen that one could never imagine ... [but] I don’t see any conversation in the near future.”

I’m officially tapping myself out on this subject. Wake me when the Big 12 gets in the same library, let alone on the same page, and makes an official announcement, one way or another, on expansion.

That announcement, incidentally, could come in less than two weeks. Maybe. Possibly.