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Big 12 Expansion Could be Felt Across College Football

The only Power Five conference without 12 or more members and a conference title game is the Big 12; however, it did get permission from the NCAA to hold a title game with just 10 members earlier this year.

That would help the conference crown a true champion. But it would have helped in 2014 when both Baylor University and Texas Christian University both finished with one conference loss and were declared co-champions.

Even with a title game, the Big 12 is exploring adding more members to better position itself for the college-football playoff. The conference was shutout in 2014, but the University of Oklahoma got one of the four spots in 2015.

Adding more members will also help the conference in its next TV deal and could lead to the Big 12 developing its own channel. Right now the Big Ten and SEC have leveraged their channels to big dollars for their conferences.

The Pac-12 also has its own channel but hasn’t seen the success the Big Ten and SEC yet. Not having a deal with Directv has hurt the growth.

There has been plenty of talk that the Big 12 would like to add two schools, which would likely come from American Athletic Conference.

The AAC has some interesting teams and had some solid success last season.

Temple University in Philadelphia could be attractive to the Big 12 because of the team's large media market and the fact that the Owls beat Pennsylvania State University out of the Big Ten and nearly upset the University Notre Dame.

The University of Cincinnati beat the University of Miami in Florida out of the ACC and played Brigham Young University tough. Both the University of Connecticut and the University of Central Florida are interesting options, even though they have struggled on the field the last couple of seasons.

The University of Houston fits the Big 12 geographically and had a standout season last year with wins over Vanderbilt University in the SEC, the University of Louisville in the ACC and Florida State University in the ACC a bowl game.

The University of Memphis beat the University of Mississippi out of the SEC and University of Kansas out of the Big 12 last season. The Naval Academy would be an interesting choice as well.

Colorado State University is being linked with the Big 12 out of the Mountain West Conference. The Big 12 used to have a presence in Colorado with the University of Colorado until it left to join the Pac-12.

Mountain West team Boise State University could also be in the mix at some point. The only reason the Broncos would be left out in the cold is the small TV market in its location.

The University of Texas will have a lot to say about what school the conference adds. It might object to say the University of Houston because the Cougars could cut into recruiting. The Longhorn Network already is an obstacle to a Big 12 network.

No matter who the Big 12 adds, it could open doors for teams out of Conference USA to join the AAC. That means the University of Southern Mississippi could move up a level in conference standing.

But does the Big 12 want to stop at just 12 teams? Both the ACC, SEC and Big Ten all have 14 teams, and the ACC is looking into starting its own network.

Should the Big 12 go big and add as many as six teams? Sucking up all the good leftovers in small conferences before the other conferences get wind might be the best route.

No one is leaving one Power Five conference for another. TV deals and buy clauses has made that nearly impossible. The lesser conferences are all that is left to raid from at this point.

In my personal opinion, every power five conference is going to have 16 teams at some point. The ACC is close to 17 teams if it could just add Notre Dame as a full-time football member.

The Big 12 should go ahead and add six more teams. That might spur the other Power Five conferences to add more.

This should do two things:

One, it should end all the conference jumping among the Power Five forever. This would be the last big conference realignment for the five biggest conferences that are dictating NCAA change to the rest.

Two, this would finally give the non-Power Five conferences a chance to add some stability. The AAC, Mountain West, Sun Belt Conference, C-USA and Mid-American Conference could figure out how to survive in this new world together.

If the schools in the non-Power Five weren't jockeying for position at the grownup table, they could work at getting better TV deals and becoming more financially stable—even if that means breaking away and forming a new football division.

One final conference jump could end up helping the University of Southern Mississippi get into a stable conference after years and years of C-USA being raided by other conferences. USM might come out better and stronger if the Power Five would stop jerking the non-Power Five conference around every five to 10 years.

But it all depends on what the Big 12 does in the next few months.

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