HOUSTON — Almost as soon as the Big 12 announced this summer that it was open to expanding to 12 teams, from the conference’s current stable of 10, nearly two dozen universities clambered forward like shoppers outside a Walmart on the day after Thanksgiving.

It is a diverse group — Brigham Young and Boise State, Temple and Tulane, Cincinnati and Connecticut — but at the front of the line, to the chagrin of some, stands the University of Houston.

Left behind 20 years ago when several of its rivals in the defunct Southwest Conference teamed with the old Big Eight to form the Big 12, Houston, whose sixth-ranked football team is the best one in the second-tier Group of 5 conferences, presents itself as a geographic, historical and just plain logical fit for the Big 12, which already sends almost half of its mail to Texas addresses.