Oklahoma president David Boren has never been shy about expressing his opinions with regard to expansion in the Big 12, but even he is not convinced it is a given the conference that is home to the Sooners will expand its membership. Asked about his thoughts on the possibility of the conference expanding following a regents meeting today, Boren suggested it is far from a guaranteed development.
“I wouldn’t take expansion as a given,” Boren said according to Eric Bailey of Tulsa World (via Twitter). “I wouldn’t take it as a sure thing.”
Keep in mind that Boren has always been on the record of being in favor of conference expansion for the Big 12, although he has also suggested the Big 12 is in no danger of collapsing either. It was Boren who helped ignite expansion talks by suggesting the Big 12 was “psychologically disadvantaged” compared to other power conferences.
The top candidates for expansion appear to be Houston, Cincinnati, BYU, UConn, UCF and USF. A number of other Big 12-hopefuls have been in the mix to some degree or another but schools like East Carolina and Memphis have fallen out of contention as the Big 12 continues to evaluate its options.