Big 12 football: What teams should the Big 12 look to bring in if they decide to expand?

The Big 12 hangs its hat on being the only conference that can crown a “true champion”, but is the current 10 team setup the best?

The Big 12 football conference consists of, Oklahoma, Texas, Oklahoma State, Kansas, TCU, Kansas State, West Virginia, Texas Tech, Iowa State and Baylor. That’s right, the “Big 12” is standing at a total of 10 teams. In this article, i’ll be going over a few possible scenario’s where I bring in a couple of potential schools into the conference to expand it.

So how exactly did we get here? The Big 12 conference formed when the eight members of the former “Big-eight conference” joined with the “Southwest conference” schools of Texas, Texas A&M, Baylor, and Texas Tech. Oklahoma and Oklahoma state were grouped with the former SWC schools in the Big 12 South division, While the other 6 teams from the former “Big Eight” (Kansas, Kansas State, Colorado, Nebraska, Missouri and Iowa State.) formed the Big 12 North division.

We got to where we are today when Nebraska left for the Big-10, Colorado joined the Pac-12, and Texas A&M and Missouri joined the SEC. TCU and West Virginia came from the Mountain West and Big East conferences to get the 10 school lineup we have today.

So what would it take for a team to leave a conference?

A SBNation article by Matt Brown had this to say about the exit process:

Here’s how you leave the Mountain West:

"“Per the conference’s bylaws, a school like Boise State or Colorado State can resign effective June 30 of each year, but must announce it “on or before” the previous June 30…. that school would forfeit its final year of conference revenue and pay the MWC either $5 million dollars or double the amount of the final year’s revenue, whichever is greater. Boise State, for example, earned $5.1 million from the MWC in 2015, while Fresno State and Utah State earned more than $4 million. When you factor in a year of lost revenue, plus the penalty payout, an MWC team could lose $10-to-15 million dollars.”"

Here’s what he said about leaving the AAC:

"“Per the AAC, a school is required to give 27 months notice before leaving. Additionally, conference bylaws require a $10 million payment to depart.”"

Matt also included the price teams had to pay to leave conferences in the past:

"“When Temple left the MAC to rejoin the Big East, it paid $6 million to the MAC. Pitt and Syracuse paid $7.5 million to leave for the ACC. West Virginia paid a healthy $20 million to leave the Big East early. Missouri and Texas A&M paid $12.4 million to leave the Big 12.”"

So, with that out of the way lets get down to listing certain schools by conference (or lack thereof) that I personally think could come into the Big12, and list reasons as to why or why not they would be good additions to the conference.

So.

Sit back.

Relax.

Enjoy some snacks.

And here we go!!!!