It may have been a surprise to many that the Big 12 chose not to expand after a three-month process of vetting and interviewing candidates, but don't include Iowa State athletics director Jamie Pollard in that group.

"(Big 12) commissioner (Bob) Bowlsby was kind of forced into having to go through this process." Pollard said in an interview with iHeartRadio. "When you know that the athletic administrators think that the best solution is the solution we currently have, why would we then want to say no we'd rather have 12 members?

"Because we want to add more schools to this league that are going to be like Rutgers or Boston College in their conferences? Which have no fans coming to the games, and they're getting outscored 170 to whatever it was. In Boston College's case, haven't won a game in two to three years in their conference. That totally dilutes your value."

Pollard seemed to infer that Texas and Oklahoma, the schools which hold the largest influence in the conference, had little to no interest in expansion.

"At 10 (members) we give ourselves a lot more flexibility down the road versus adding maybe members that would only clutter up the process," Pollard said. "People say 'in eight years Texas and Oklahoma are going to bolt', we'll if we added teams and forced it on them, I guarantee they'd bolt. So that's a part of this process that people aren't thinking about.

"The Big 12 exists because we have Texas and Oklahoma in the room. If we take Texas and Oklahoma out of the room, we're the Mountain West Conference, and we're getting $3 million (a year in TV revenue).

"We've got two star players, whether people want to like that or not, Texas and Oklahoma. I'm glad to be on a team that's got two great players. We benefit from being on that team. We could go play on a team and be the star, but then people would be saying 'how do you get us in one of those Power Five conferences Mr. AD?'"

While Pollard seemed to indicate that expansion was never a viable option among Big 12 athletic directors, he was critical of the way the process played out publicly.

"I don't fault anybody for making a mockery of the process from the outside, because if you were on the outside, that's what it looked like," Pollard said. "I think the best thing that could happen for the Big 12, is that everybody who's talking about what they think they know is the right answer to quit talking about it, and just let the ADs go do what they need to do."

The Cyclones athletics director thinks the best is yet to come for the conference, and the criticism of the Big 12 in recent years has been unwarranted.

"I think it's fair to say that a lot more money will be coming into the Big 12 over the next eight years," Pollard said. "The league is really strong. Everybody just wants to beat it up.

"I guarantee as it appears today, somebody's not going to get in the College Football Playoff this year. If it's a Big 12 team, I can guarantee somebody's going to say 'it's because the Big 12 didn't expand.' I guarantee that will be the narrative, because it's an easy narrative to pick on. But I'd remind them, it's never quite as clear as any of us would like it to be."

What is clear, however, is that Big 12 expansion talks are dead. And if you believe Pollard, don't expect them to be resurrected any time soon.