Conference Realignment: Will Potential Addition of BYU Save Big 12?

The hottest topic during the college football season is conference realignment, which is sad, because there have been some amazing stories coming from this 2011 season.  

So far we have five elite teams in Oklahoma, Alabama, LSU, Boise State and Stanford. There has been the surprising play at the quarterback position from Michigan’s Denard Robinson, Baylor’s Robert Griffin III and Wisconsin’s Russell Wilson. 

The Baylor Bears should be the best story in college football that everyone is talking about. But instead, we’re stuck hearing about teams wanting to move conferences like a kid changing songs in his iPod.  

Texas A&M led the charge this year for changing conferences midseason. The Aggies left the Big 12 for the Southeastern Conference, leaving a hole in the conference that already had two teams leave it after last season. 

Now, the Big 12 not only has less than 12 teams, but once Texas A&M leaves, they’ll have less than 10. Being at nine teams it puts the Big 12 below the rest of the BCS Conferences in total number of teams.  

They need a new team member in the conference before another university decides to leave for another conference, like the Pac-12, Big Ten or SEC.  

Rumors have surfaced that Brigham Young University has been in talks with the Big 12. The move would give the Big 12 its 10 team minimum that it currently has. It would allow Texas to keep their Texas Longhorn Network inside of the Big 12 while keeping Oklahoma and Oklahoma State happy as well.  

Adding BYU into the Big 12 would allow the Cougars to keep their BYU Network, which was a reason why BYU moved from their conference to become an Independent like Notre Dame.  

A BYU move to the Big 12 would make sense geographically for everyone. The Cougars would take the place that Colorado once had inside of this conference. BYU is located in the Mountain Time Zone, which means only an hour difference for those students traveling between classes and games.  

The BYU move to the Big 12 will not only bring the Cougars into a BCS Conference, but, it will save the Big 12 as a conference. They will not have to worry about contracting the conference or merging it with another one, like the Big East. 

Now all of this can go to hell if Missouri is accepted into the SEC as the 14th team member.  

If that’s the case, then it will be BYU and another team, like TCU, that will save this floundering conference.

Twitter: @tjmcaloon