Big 12’s Top Candidates in Expansion Remain Four Corners: Report
The Big 12 and Pac-12 conferences have been in a Cold War-era arms race of sorts for almost a year now in the aftermath of both conferences losing their cash cows to the SEC and Big Ten, respectively.
Brett Yormark and the Big 12 have been clear about their intentions to add teams from the Pac-12, and conflicting reports have both sides thinking they have the upper hand in this engagement.
Two weeks ago, the Big 12 and Pac-12 were both in Phoenix for conference meetings, and while there, discussed strategy concerning the future.
According to Sports Illustrated’s Ross Dellenger, the Big 12’s game plan is and has been, targeting the four corner schools from the Pac-12: Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, and Utah.
“Just paces from the Pac-12’s gathering, Big 12 leaders discussed a list of expansion targets, four of them residing in the Pac-12: Colorado, Arizona, Arizona State and Utah,” Dellenger said of the Big 12’s discussions at meetings earlier this month. “Other targets are from a variety of leagues: San Diego State and UNLV from the Mountain West; UConn, which is independent in football and in the Big East in basketball; and Memphis, from the American. There are others too, such as Colorado State, SMU and Fresno, but they seem further down the pecking order.”
While the media and Twitter might tell you that the Big 12 isn’t a serious threat to the Pac-12’s integrity, the writing is on the wall. While the Big 12 might not have started this wave of conference realignment, it intends to end it in a better place than it began.
Stay tuned, because there’s bound to be big news on this in the coming weeks, regardless of whose favor it ends in.
