U. Texas: Either ya' can't live with 'em, or (in B-12) ya' can't live without 'em.
U. Texas may have the worst reputation of any school in the P5, at least as far as being a conference member is concerned:
1) They are in some ways considered "the destroyer of conferences," because they alienated Arkansas enough to drive them out of the old Southwest Conference (SWC), and then led a group of 4 schools (UT, A&M, TT, Baylor) into the Big-8, which became the Big-12, causing the SWC to go out of existence and casting TCU, Houston, SMU, and Rice adrift.
2) Once in the Big-12, UT started to piss off its conference mates by throwing its weight around and basically exercising veto power over all conference decisions. As a result, they drove Nebraska, Missouri, Colorado, and even Texas A&M out of the Big-12. The remaining schools have no other P5 option but the Big-12, and simply have to put up with UT's "bull"y-ing ways. They simply can't live without 'em.
3) Arkansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Colorado, and Texas A&M, it turned out, "couldn't live with 'em."
4) For the same reason, the ACC, B1G, PAC-12, and SEC probably can't live with 'em either.
5) For that reason, the Big-12 will probably remain in existence, and since U. Texas has no interest in losing part of its share of Big-12 income by adding any schools, the Big-12 will probably continue along with 10 members into the foreseeable future. The Big-12 had a chance to add as many schools as they wanted to a couple of years back, but concluded that not even one available school would boost their income enough to make it worthwhile. That situation hasn't changed.
If Texas doesn't switch conferences, and if they again veto the idea of adding any more teams to the Big-12, is any realignment involving possible? If so, how?
1) Some limited FBS realignment could take place if one or more of the other four P5 conferences add G5 or independent team(s).
2) Some current Big-12 teams might follow Nebraska, Missouri, Colorado, and A&M out of the Big-12 and into other P5 conferences.
3) The B1G or SEC could expand to 16 teams by raiding the ACC or Big-12, or the PAC could expand to 14 teams by adding teams such as Utah St., Colorado St., San Diego St., or BYU.
4) The ACC could add 1 or 2 teams, such as West Virginia or one of the AAC schools.
5) Although extremely unlikely, there could possibly be a mass exodus of most of the current Big-12 schools, not including U. Texas, similar to the mass exodus of the Big East schools from 2008 to 2013.
--The most unlikely, yet most interesting form that such a mass exodus could take would be for 4, 5, 6, or 8 of the Big-12 teams to leave Texas behind and set up a new conference, along with 4, 6, or 8 AAC or MWC schools.
--In such an extremely unlikely scenario, Texas, TT, TCU, Baylor, and perhaps Oklahoma and OK State could reload with as many AAC and MWC schools as they want (e.g., Boise St., Colo St., BYU, Houston & Memphis), with some of the other AAC & MWC schools going to any conference that the hypothetical "Big-12 rebels" might invite to join them.
--This would probably result in an expansion of the number of power conferences from P5/A5 to P6/A6, with the existing P5 conferences being joined by a new P6 conference made up of schools such as Kansas, K State, Iowa St., West Virginia and AAC/MWC schools such as Air Force, Utah State, Colorado State, BYU, Cincy, SMU, and possibly Temple, UCF, &/or USF.
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