Amid the SEC’s growing stature and power within the college sports landscape after the league added Texas and Oklahoma this summer, the ACC, Big Ten and Pac-12 announced an “alliance” between the three conferences on Tuesday that will involve game scheduling as well as a shared vision for the future governance of college athletics. Notably, the Big 12 is not involved.
It remains unclear whether the Big 12 will keep its eight teams and add two more or whether those eight will leave for other conferences. Despite constant rumors since the possibility of Texas and Oklahoma’s defection first surfaced in July, no movement has happened.
Fox’s Dave Wannstedt, former head coach of the Chicago Bears, Miami Dolphins and Pittsburgh Panthers, claimed this week on 670 The Score’s “Mully & Haugh Show” in Chicago that a handful of Big 12 schools will be on the move. Wanntstedt said he is hearing that Kansas, for instance, will “probably” go to the Big Ten.
“I was at the Fox meetings in Phoenix a week ago, and we were talking. A lot of the Big Ten people were there,” Wannstedt said. “The Big 12, we know that Oklahoma and Texas are gone. For any of our listeners, it sounds like Oklahoma State and Kansas State are going to the Pac-12. So that’s done. It sounds like West Virginia is gonna end up in the ACC, which would make sense with Virginia, Pitt, everybody there. And it sounds like Iowa State and Kansas, they’re the two schools that are gonna probably join the Big Ten here locally.
“There’ll be a few schools — the Texas Techs, the TCU’s — that right now no one knows what they’re gonna do. Unfortunately, this is what it said — it said the Big 12 is talking, ‘Oh, we’re all together on this.’ But they’re not. It’s really when that thing happened with Texas and Oklahoma, everybody is pretty much on their own. I think this news today just verifies it and makes it real clear now that there is no Big 12 being mentioned anywhere.”
One other issue remains: While Texas and Oklahoma have publicly stated that they will not join the SEC until the Big 12’s Grant of Rights agreement expires in 2025, it is too early to rule out the possibility that they can speed up that timeline. Wanntstedt advocated for the addition of a college football commissioner in light of the conference realignment and NIL chaos this summer.
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“There’s just a lot of uncertainty, and it’s moving awful fast,” Wannstedt said. “That’s the scary thing. I’ll be quiet after this. What college football does not have is a commissioner. They do not have one voice. Every commissioner from every conference is always doing their own thing. In the NFL, there are a lot of different opinions but Roger Goodell is the guy. We know who it is in basketball, we know who it is in baseball. Right now, there’s nobody that has the last say and the voice of college football. That, to me, in my opinion — that’s the first thing that needs to be addressed.”
Sam Marsdale contributed to this report.
