Reports: David Boren Now Against Big 12 Expansion

Tuesday, September 27th 2016, 3:19 pm

By: News 9

Big 12 expansion may be dead – for the time being – after multiple reports that Oklahoma president David Boren has changed his mind after leading the expansion charge for the past 18 months.

Boren called the 10-team league “psychologically disadvantaged” in June of 2015; it was a reaction to the Big 12 getting shut out of the first college football playoff after Baylor and TCU shared the conference title.

Then, this summer, an 18-candidate list was leaked and followed by meetings between Big 12 leaders and presidents of the prospective schools. It was all very serious until Sept. 14th when Boren surprisingly announced that expansion was no longer a sure thing.

Without Boren’s assertiveness, we’d have never talked seriously about expansion in the first place. If his mind is changed, all likelihood of adding teams is finished.

So what happens to the Big 12 when expansion talk dies? One could argue it’s in trouble regardless. With just one team, No. 13 Baylor, ranked in the Top 20, it is highly probable the conference is left out of the playoff once again. That’s not good for fans, not good for TV rights posturing, not good for recruiting.

Are Texas and Oklahoma already exploring their options? Campus Rush’s Pete Thamel suggests there are “rumblings throughout the league as to whether Boren is the right public face considering he could be in the position of shopping Oklahoma around to other leagues in the near future.”

This thing is dangerously close to unraveling. Boren and the rest of the Big 12 presidents are set to meet on Oct. 17th and should provide an update on conference expansion at that time.

When asked by the OU Daily, Boren denied the speculation, saying OU has yet to take a position on expansion.