BYU no-brainer for Big 12 expansion, if league survives

BYU no-brainer for Big 12 expansion, should league survive

Turbulence is nothing new for the Big 12.

The Big 12 was born from pillaging a conference. The Big 12 took half the Southwest Conference’s members in 1995 and left the SWC to die. Which it did.

But what goes around comes around, and the soon departure of OU and Texas to the Southeastern Conference will leave the Big 12 one step from death. One more exodus – OSU and friends to the Pac-12, Kansas and/or Iowa State to the Big Ten, West Virginia to the Atlantic Coast — would topple over the Big 12. All Bob Bowlsby’s horses and all Bob Bowlsby’s men couldn’t put the Big 12 back together again.

More and more, I believe that won’t happen. At least not anytime soon. Of course, the OU/Texas news blindsided me more than the end of “Fight Club,” so what do I know?

But unless the Pac-12 or one of its new best friends bites the expansion apple, the Big 12 remnants’ best bet is to stick together.

Expand. Add two or four schools and get about the business of remaking a brand that once glittered in college athletics but now is tarnished like Great Lakes steel towns.

The Big 12 must reverse the everhow-many-stages of grief that has afflicted the conference since The Longhorn Network, Nebraska frustration, Texas A&M jealousy and Oklahoma greed conspired to send the league on

GEORGE FREY/AP BYU has a decades-long tradition of winning football, all-around athletic success and a worldwide following, as the educational Mormon mecca.

KIRBY LEE/USA TODAY SPORTS BYU isn’t trying to build a big fan base. BYU has a big fan base.