Randy Peterson

rpeterson@dmreg.com

Whether to expand the Big 12 Conference or not expand could be determined within the next two weeks, commissioner Bob Bowlsby said Tuesday.

Bowlsby said a July 19 meeting of the league’s Board of Directors could be the day of determination – whether the league votes to add additional schools, or whether the current round of expansion talk ends.

“That’s up to our presidents and chancellors, but I think we have provided a lot of information, and the intention of that was to get the athletics directors and presidents to spend some time talking about the issues that are in hand, and to formulate some institutional positions,” Bowlsby said. “I think they’ve had an opportunity, and everybody’s been engaged on it.”

Bowlsby made his comments during a taped segment for The Des Moines Register’s weekly Cyclone Insider show that airs Tuesdays from 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. on KXNO radio.

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“I think it’s possible,” Bowlsby said when asked if a decision can be reached this month.

That might be a longshot, however.

“It’s more likely that there will be some continued discussion,” the commissioner continued. “I have indicated that I think it’s about time we made some decisions one way or the other; whether that’ll be on the 19th is yet to be determined.

“We’ll not be served well by an ongoing, extended, protracted discussion of this. We’ve got the data we need. I think we need to establish institutional decisions and make some decisions.”

That information, Bowlsby said, is stored in a database accessible only by Big 12 officials.

“One of the things (the data) told us is that we’re better served by having a championship game than by not having a championship game,” Bowlsby said. “Beyond that, I’m not at liberty to talk specifically about the data that’s been provided to us. We certainly are going to use it.”

The Big 12 will have a championship football game in 2017, and presumably it will be between champions of two five-team divisions.

“That’s probably a better possibility than any other available option,” Bowlsby said during the 25-minute interview. “The good thing about that, is that we can do it with 10 teams, we can do it with 12 teams and we can do it with 14.”

There are many divisional concepts making the rounds, but Bowlsby talked primarily about one that makes the divisions as competitively equal as possible.

“We’ve actually looked at one equity model that would have the divisions configured on an every two-year basis,” Bowlsby said. “You have balance based upon place finish.”

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That format would be based on Big 12 Conference standings over a two-season period. The team with the best conference record during that period would be placed in one division, and the team with the next-best two-year record placed in another.

Essentially, it would be first, third, fifth, seventh and ninth places on one side, and second, fourth, sixth, eighth and 10th in another.

The same divisions would be used two seasons – to preserve home-and-home scheduling. Cross-over games would be played as early during the season as possible.

“It is intriguing and it is unusual,” Bowlsby said. “It’s actually developed in concept by (ISU athletics director) Jamie Pollard.

“We just need to model it enough times so we can ensure that it’s going to do what we want it to do.

“We’re looking at other traditional models as well.”

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Whether the divisions eventually include five teams or more is up to the Big 12’s presidents and chancellors.

“I wouldn’t presume how it’s going to turn out,” Bowlsby said of the July 19 meeting. “There are those who are expansion advocates, there are those who are status quo advocates, and there’s probably a group of people in the middle who are waiting to be convinced by the discussion and by the data that’s presented.”

Who would be candidates, if expansion passes?

Houston, BYU, Memphis, Cincinnati, Connecticut, Colorado State, and Central Florida have been mentioned.

“There’s a lot of talk about ongoing discussion (among) the members of our conference, the conference office, and so-called candidate institutions,” Bowlsby said. “That absolutely has not taken place. We do not have a list of candidates, per se, but we certainly are looking at the landscape out there just like everybody else is.

“Assertions that expansion is a foregone conclusion are certainly not accurate. Equally inaccurate is there’s absolutely no way we would expand.”