College Football Realignment: Can the Big 12 Be Saved?

The winding roller coaster ride that is college football realignment now seems to be going up another long incline. With the authorization of Oklahoma president David Boren to negotiate with the Pac-12, it appears that we are moving slowly towards the dissolution of the Big 12 Conference.

Today, some Oklahoma leaders came out and said what needed to be said a long time ago. The Big 12 is not a viable conference as long as Dan Beebe is the commissioner.

With all of the tweets, updates and breaking media stories, it is easy to become numb to the latest piece of realignment news. Everyone should pay attention to what this article says for the simple fact that it makes sense.

Dan Beebe is the worst commissioner in college sports right now. He has given one school in the Big 12 free reign to do whatever they want, and in the process, has driven off three other schools.

The Big 12 had the worst television contract of all of the major conferences until the networks stepped in at the last minute in the summer of 2010 to save the conference. The commissioner position basically exists to negotiate television rights.

With a different commissioner, the conference would have a chance to survive.

Larry Scott took over the Pac-12 and immediately began making changes. Scott moved the conference media day to New York in order to gain more publicity.

Scott negotiated an extremely lucrative television deal for the conference that included regional networks to highlight the individual schools. He has moved the Pac-12 from being an afterthought conference with games on at 11 and 12 p.m. to much of the country into a conference on the leafing edge of media technology.

That is the kind of visionary the Big 12 schools should demand for their conference.

If the Big 12 can find a real leader to be the commissioner, it could survive the loss of Texas A&M and even thrive in the future.

They will need to implement some common sense rules regarding the Longhorn Network to limit the competitive advantages the network could provide.

That is something any decent negotiator should be able to get accomplished.

Texas does not want to leave the Big 12. Oklahoma does not want to abandon their best recruiting base in the state of Texas.

The conference is viable if everyone would take the advice from Oklahoma. Replace Beebe with someone who is competent and implement some rules to prevent Texas from running roughshod all over the other members of the conference.

It would be ridiculous not to have an athletic conference in middle America. The Big 12 can thrive; it just needs some real leadership.