It wouldn’t be the Big 12 without a little drama, now would it?
Tuesday, Pete Thamel of SI.com reported it’s believed that Oklahoma president David Boren, long thought to be a major proponent of expanding the Big 12 beyond 10 teams, “has reversed course on his view of expansion.” This report comes nearly two weeks after T. Boone Pickens’ BFF infamously -- and very surprisingly -- tapped the expansion brakes.
“I wouldn’t take expansion as a given,” Boren said Sept. 14. “I wouldn’t take it as a sure thing.”
According to Thamel’s report, it appears that BYU, long a favorite of Boren, and the uproar over its honor code has caused Boren, and thus the university, to shift gears when it comes to expansion. Additionally, OU’s regents are reportedly not in favor of expansion and are pressuring Boren “to convey that message.”
That shift, at least what he’s putting out there for public consumption, is news to Boren.
“I do not know where the speculation came from,” Boren said in a statement to ESPN.com, “but Oklahoma has not yet taken a position on expansion.”
It was thought that expansion could be decided at a meeting of chancellors and presidents in Irving, Tex., in the middle of next month, although that could be pushed to the end of the year, if not the beginning of 2017. A total of 11 schools made the cut as “finalists” should the Big 12 expand, with those nearly dozen schools presenting their cases over the past couple of weeks.
Of the 11, seven come from the AAC -- Cincinnati, Houston, SMU, Tulane, UCF, UConn, USF -- two from the Mountain West -- Air Force, Colorado State -- and one from Conference USA -- Rice. The lone remaining school, BYU, is a football independent.