The article reads like one of the many such articles to be published since the Big 12 was snubbed at the hands of the College Football Playoff committee. The Big 12 needs to be proactive, think ahead, yada, yada, yada. But it also includes a legitimately new piece of information that is going to send every UC fan I know bouncing off the wall.

Big 12 officials recently met with administrators from the University of Cincinnati, a source close to the university told Sporting News. That is not an indication membership will be offered to the Bearcats in the immediate future - only that they would be a candidate were such an expansion to be undertaken.

This is coming from Mike DeCourcy, a pretty well respected journalist that has lived in Cincinnati for a long time. He has covered the Basketball program in particular with incredibly high standards. Because of all that he is very well connected at the Lindner Center. Other than his inexplicable recalcitrance to the expansion and renovation of Nippert Stadium he is a good dude and a voice that you can trust 100 percent.

This doesn't mean that the Big 12 is expanding, today or in the near future. Personally I still think it will take a couple more years of their teams getting shut out of the playoff for the Big 12 to finally accept that they must expand. However this news is the first bit of information from a reputable source that states in no uncertain terms that expansion is, at the very least, on the radar of the Big 12 conference and that the Cincinnati Bearcats are on the shortlist. That is not nothing.