Arizona State and Utah reportedly apply to Big 12, Big 12 to discuss tonight

Submitted by COLBlue on August 4th, 2023 at 6:07 PM

Title says it all.

Sources: Both Utah and Arizona State have applied for formal membership to the Big 12 Conference, and there’s a call tonight with the Big 12's presidents and chancellors to discuss their membership. Arizona applied and was approved yesterday.

— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) August 4, 2023

snarling wolverine

August 4th, 2023 at 6:19 PM ^

So you can lose Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas in a span of a dozen years and still be viable as a conference.  The Big 12 has done pretty well for itself these past 12 months, all things considered.

Solecismic

August 4th, 2023 at 6:42 PM ^

It seems Apple's streaming offer didn't impress anyone. But they could certainly get the MAC with a fraction of that offer. Throw in a bit more and they'd change the conference name to Macintosh and play iFootball.

mackbru

August 4th, 2023 at 11:14 PM ^

Dear Grandpa: 2024 will NOT suck. It will be awesome. It will have a 12-team playoff, and it will see Michigan play Texas, USC, UCLA, OSU, and MSU (with maybe Oregon or Washington substituting for one of them). That schedule will bring far more thrills than 2023, which is basically OSU, MSU, PSU and a bunch of twinkies.

Don't be that guy. Embrace the new.

Michfan777

August 4th, 2023 at 7:05 PM ^

I really like Utah/BYU/ASU/Arizona/Colorado all coming into the new Big 12. They all are realistic targets for them that make sense financially, culturally, and geographically. As an ASU alum for one of my degrees, I am happy to see them keep improving facilities and now conference.

I still think West Virginia, Cincy, and UCF are very odd schools in the conference, and I wonder if some of them don't get approached by the ACC if the SEC ever steals some of their schools and/or the Big Ten takes Notre Dame.

But its insane to watch the Pac12 completely disintegrate in under a year - and really in the span of 2-3 weeks. When its all said and done, the Pac12 will probably lose Stanford and Cal to the Big Ten, and its 2 remaining schools merge (along with another school or two) with the Mountain West Conference, which probably takes the old Pac12 name for branding purposes. That would actually make a nice and balanced non-P5 conference:

  • Washington State
  • Oregon State
  • Boise State
  • Nevada (UNR)
  • UNLV
  • San Jose State
  • Fresno State
  • San Diego State
  • Utah State
  • Wyoming
  • Colorado State
  • New Mexico
  • New Mexico State
  • Air Force or UTEP

UMinCincy

August 4th, 2023 at 9:42 PM ^

The fact that the Big 12 jumping in line ahead of the Pac 12 to sign a TV deal is enough to kill the Pac 12 conference is quite the condemnation of the state of college football imo