...torn out or missing. I liked the history, but a little caution with the exact parallels...

1) Geography matters. The Big East was always competing with neighbors that could at any time find a program attractive snd poach it.

2) The Big 12 had poachable teams (Nebraska, Colorado, Missouri, aTm, and now the evil axis of Oklatexahoma) and they have been poached.

3) Being poached had mostly to do with monetary value of their fan bases and markets. When you look at the remaining programs, the are every bit P5, but other than TCU, none are major eyeball programs. Its WHY they have not been poached.

4) of all of those programs, and assuming academics becomes less important (Louisville Jr College 🤣) is the obvious precident) WVa really belongs in the ACC or SEC. But I do not see the SEC growing past 16. The ACC is slready at 14-1/2 with sort of member Notre Dame. Adding WVa would give the ACC the 16 team feel. The Big TEN is at 14 and honestly does not seem to look like its interested in expanding. It already has Iowa and Missouri so adding Kansas and ISU adds no extra money and dilutes the split.

In the end, I suspect there are after the OU-TX buy-out fallout in 8 months to a year probably somecform of survival mode. In the quiet of cherrywood rooms future moves are planned and being discussed. You will not know. But it is eight prograns in a year that will have come to grips eith survival in ways the Big East could not.

WVa will have with league consent already approached the ACC again and tested the interest through to a conclusion. If it looks like it can jump, the Big-12 will make one type of decision regarding footprint. If WVa remains in the Big-12 then expansion will bridge that geographic gap in spite if very limited options. To my thinking, grabbing UCF makes the most sense as its in a destination city, has a huge state footprint, already has gained entire east coast familiarity in the AAC and works to bring WVa into the more national footprint the B12 needs to partially replace the loss of Oklatexahoma.

That gets the Big-12 to 10 teams. It needs western anchors to compete with the PAC as well, so adding huge destination cities and orcfan basses is again, the most important. BYU and SDSU not only do that. They come with P5 facilities. Programs, market, recruiting footprint, of these four adds gives the old seven mid continent programs places to play in 4 time zones before a growing national audience and they would remain P5.

Regardless of the ESPN desires to create a super-elevated D1, I just don't see it in my crystal ball because CFB is a national sport, not an SEC or B1G sport. Fox has a much bigger incentive to see the P5 survive than ESPN does and fans, plus talking heads keep forgetting THEIR BUSINESS MODEL RIVALS. Fox is heavily invested on the west. It's NOT surrendering in an era where currently of 66 P5 programs (including ND and BYU) only 23 of those programs are located west of the Missouri-Mississippi River Basin. The east has the most people, programs and day-break interest. It also closes up shop at midnight when programs in the MTZ and PTZ are playing in their prime time. The clock isn't changing.

So the approach has to change. To survive the Big 12 needs to straddle the continent and iFCC it does, its going to get a decent TV and GOR package in 2025, mot as good as now, but probably in the $20m/team range. Its not SEC money, but it will be several times ACC or MWC $. That is the best option because there will not be anywhere else to go.