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Big 12 realignment: FOX analysts says OSU, KSU to PAC 12; not sure about Tech

By Matthew Conner

PHOENIX, AZ - JANUARY 30: FOX Sports 1's Dave Wannstedt attends SiriusXM At Super Bowl XLIX Radio Row at the Phoenix Convention Center on January 30, 2015 in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo by Cindy Ord/Getty Images for SiriusXM)
PHOENIX, AZ - JANUARY 30: FOX Sports 1's Dave Wannstedt attends SiriusXM At Super Bowl XLIX Radio Row at the Phoenix Convention Center on January 30, 2015 in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo by Cindy Ord/Getty Images for SiriusXM) /
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Another day brings another rumor concerning conference realignment and of course, the Big 12 is at the center of it all once again.  Monday on radio station 670 The Score in Chicago, FOX studio analyst and former NCAA and NFL head coach Dave Wannstedt said that he has heard from a source that Oklahoma State and Kansas State will be headed to the PAC 12.

But when it comes to Texas Tech and TCU, Wannstedt said that their futures are still uncertain.

"“I was in the FOX meetings in Phoenix a week ago and we were talking and a lot of the Big 10 people were there,” Wannsteadt said.  “It sounds like the Big 12-we all know that Oklahoma and Texas are headed to the SEC-but it sounds like Oklahoma State and Kansas State are going to the PAC 12.  That’s done.  It sounds like West Virginia is going to the ACC, which would make sense with Virginia.  Then it sounds like Iowa State and Kansas, they’re two schools that will join the Big 10.  There are a few schools-TCU and Texas Tech-that no one knows what they’re going to do.” (You can listen to the entire interview here.)"

While Oklahoma State has been rumored throughout this process as an attractive option for the PAC 12, it seems hard for Texas Tech fans to wrap their minds around how Kansas State could be more attractive than Tech.

For instance, Tech brings a footprint in the Dallas and Houston markets as well as opens the door for the PAC 12 to have a presence in arguably the nation’s most fertile recruiting state.  Those are factors that Kansas State simply can’t match.

So might the last line of Wannstedt’s comments be the most important?  That no one knows what Tech (and TCU) are going to do.

Perhaps it means that the two schools have options and that they are weighing them.  But what option would there be?  Many Texas Tech fans hope it is the SEC.

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We know that the Big 10 and the ACC are unlikely to extend an offer to Tech for various reasons.  But should the SEC decide that it is not finished with its expansion, perhaps Tech could be a target.

While it seems like the SEC would be content to sit pat after adding Texas and OU, the new alliance that has officially formed between the Big 10, PAC 12, and ACC could change all of that.  With those three conferences banding together and promising to vote with each other in order to counteract the SEC’s power play, the SEC may then want to gobble up more teams in order to try to get closer to the superconference numbers that many believe they desire.

Remember, the more teams that the SEC (or any conference) houses, the more eyeballs, and TV markets will be on their network thus increasing that conference’s power when it comes to negotiations with television partners.  So the SEC, which has been the most aggressive league in all of this realignment mess, might have a twitchy trigger finger and jump to add even more schools.

It still feels like a long shot for Tech to end up following the Sooners and the Horns to the SEC but that is an outcome that can’t be overlooked as it seems anything is possible right now.  And that includes the possibility that the PAC 12 will not expand at all.

John Wilner of The Mercury News, (a publication from the Bay Area), reported as recently as Monday that the most likely outcome is that the PAC 12 will remain as is for now.

"“…multiple industry sources contacted by the Hotline in recent weeks believe the most likely outcome for the conference is to remain at 12,” Wilner writes."

So either Wannstedt’s source is wrong or Wilner’s is.  And perhaps that’s the lesson to be learned here.  Every report seems to be countered by an opposite report and that is what makes this whole fiasco so maddening and fascinating at the same time.

But for right now, it does appear that the landscape of college athletics is changing rapidly.  What that means for Texas Tech, though, remains a mystery.

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