Big 12 Football 2012: Bob Bowlsby Will Breathe New Life into Big 12

According to CBS Sports' Bryan Fischer, Stanford athletic director Bob Bowlsby will assume the Big 12 commissioner position heading into the 2012 season.

Chuck Neinas, the interim commissioner, can now get back to his life of headhunting coaches and pulling the strings of college football from behind the scenes.

The Big 12 can start the process of building for the future. The biggest question surrounding the league hinges upon expansion at the moment, and Bowlsby will be working on its next move.

Aside from the expansion front, Bowlsby brings experience in breaking new ground on the media deals front. He worked closely with Larry Scott to get the Pac-12's dynamic multimedia deal done and that speaks mightily to what he can do for the Big 12—a league due for a new television deal.

However, the most important key to the bulk of the Big 12 members is that Bowlsby does not have any true, direct ties to Oklahoma and Texas. He enters the job as a man who has spent the last 28 years as far from the Big 12 footprint as possible.

From 1984 to 1991, he was at Northern Iowa as the athletic director. He moved to Iowa from 1991 to 2006. From Iowa, Bowlsby moved out to Stanford until this new opportunity presented itself.

That's 28 years of not getting told what to do by Texas and Oklahoma. That's 28 years of schools that got treated in a relatively equal fashion by their respective league offices. That's 28 years of working with people, not being told how things are going to work.

That is the type of breath of fresh air that the conference needs. That is what TCU, West Virginia, Kansas, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, Baylor, Kansas State and Iowa State have desperately needed. That is the type of approach that might have kept Nebraska in the fold.

Working so hard on the Pac-12 media deal, it was about raising all ships—not working to make things easier on the big-time moneymakers. Washington State looks at its new deal and salivates in the same way as when Oregon and USC look at their share of the cash.

Equality, everyone getting paid and doing what's best for the good of the many is what the conference has been screaming about. Doing what's best for all the league's members is what Texas A&M wanted before it took off for the SEC.

Whether it is expansion or the new television contract, Bob Bowlsby is going to do what is best for the league. That is what the Big 12 desperately needed in a commissioner.