RYAN BLACK

It is a very rare event in college athletics when the big-time decision-makers elect to keep things the same, or God forbid, downsize. 

Everything in college sports is always about getting bigger, and supposedly, better. 

Witness the expansion of the NCAA Tournament to 68 teams in late April. 

Though the format still must be approved by the men’s basketball committee later this summer, it seems like a foregone conclusion it will go through. 

Another example of the “bigger equals better” philosophy of the NCAA is to look at how many teams go to bowl games now. 

There are 35 (!) bowl games approved for the next four years, with the addition earlier this year of the New Era Pinstripe Bowl in New York City and the Dallas Football Classic at the Cotton Bowl. This is not to be confused with the old Cotton Bowl game, which moved to the new Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

So count me among the surprised when earlier this week it was announced that the Big 12 Conference would not “dissolve,” as some people forecasted after the departure of Nebraska to the Big Ten Conference and Colorado to the Pac-10 Conference. 

ESPN’s Andy Katz reported June 15 that “a number of influential people inside and outside of college athletics mobilized over the past week to save the Big 12 Conference,” mainly due to the fact they did not like how the Pac-10 went about trying to poach six teams from the Big 12, and then turn themselves into a “super-conference” involving 16 teams.

I was all but ready to give Texas, Texas A & M, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Texas Tech a pat on the back for not going after the money and head westward to the waiting, open arms of the Pac-10 Conference. 

However, that was only until I realized they stayed in the Big 12 for one reason — money. 

Quite a shocking revelation, right? 

Katz reported Texas will see increased revenue from television rights and the chance to have its own network, and this new configuration stands to make UT between $20 and $25 million annually. 

There’s a reason for the phrase “everything’s bigger in Texas,” you know.

But now that the dust has settled and revealed the Big 12 will not be going away, where does that leave the state of college athletics? 

One of the biggest doubts I have is the Big 12 will stay at only 10 teams. 

Is the Big 12 comfortable not having a conference championship game in football? And if not, what schools will they go after to return to 12? 

Texas Christian seems like a logical fit for geographical purposes and Utah seems like an upgrade over Colorado football-wise. 

Utah has been much more of a BCS contender than Colorado in the last half-decade, going undefeated and winning two BCS bowl games in 2004 and 2008. 

And while Nebraska is on the way back towards prominence with head coach Bo Pelini, there is no doubt that TCU owns a better program than the Cornhuskers at this juncture.

The Pac-10 is in a similar quandary to the Big 12. 

With the addition of Colorado, they now have 11 teams, just one short of the NCAA minimum needed to hold a football conference championship game. 

Now spurned by the Big 12 schools, who would they look at? 

Utah would have to be considered the front-runner, and reports from Comcast Sports on June 15 said the Pac-10 will extend an invitation for the Utes to join the conference.

If for some reason Utah does not accept the Pac-10’s overture, don’t count out Brigham Young. 

They certainly would not pass up the chance to head to a guaranteed BCS conference, and BYU could hold that as a recruiting advantage over Utah, their bitter in-state rival. 

Though most experts feel the Mountain West will be awarded an automatic bid to the BCS party next time the talks come around, one can never be too sure. 

One less serious issue is the way the three conferences in question — Big Ten, Pac-10 and Big 12 — are misnomers. 

The Pac-10 now has 11 teams, and added a team in Colorado that isn’t close to the Pacific Ocean. 

And for the Big Ten and the Big 12, there is a reversal of sorts going on, where the Big Ten has 12 teams and the Big 12 has 10. 

Might I propose they just trade conference names? 

Or would that make too much sense? 

But the NCAA isn’t in the business of making “sense” — they’re more about making “cents.” 

This recent reshuffling of conferences reminds us that though the NCAA is open to change among its member institutions, one thing, one phrase, always stays the same- — money talks.