Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby was unapologetic Friday as the Power Five start to move ahead after securing more control than mid-major and smaller conferences.

The NCAA Division I board of directors on Thursday voted 16-2 to allow the schools in the top five conferences to write many of their own rules.

"I think the only message is that our student-athletes and our programs are largely the face of what America knows as college athletics," Bowlsby told ESPN's "SportsCenter" on Friday. "We win more than 90 percent of the NCAA championships every year.

"... I think this [vote] recognizes that there are some differences, and programs at our level have some unique challenges, have some relationships with student-athletes that are evolving. We need to have rules that respond to that evolution and those changes. I think it's an acknowledgment that some of us have challenges that are unique. It's because of those challenges that we felt like we needed an opportunity to control a little more of our destiny."

The autonomy measures will allow the top 64 schools in the richest five leagues (ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, SEC and Pac-12) plus Notre Dame to decide on things such as cost-of-attendance stipends and insurance benefits for players, staff sizes, recruiting rules and mandatory hours spent on individual sports.