With the reported dance between UT and Big Ten being publicized and CU a potential player in any Pac 10 expansion (rumblings of Missouri and Nebraska to the Big Ten as well), it would seem that the Big 12 is vulnerable to the various conference expansion goals of the Big Ten or Pac Ten.

Why is the Big 12 vulnerable? The outright incompetence of the conference office in negotiating the conference's TV package for starters. Not being aggressive in looking for expansion opportunities ahead of time. Seriously, an offer to Utah or BYU and TCU should have been made yesterday. You could easily add those two teams for a 14 team conference with some realignment. The obvious move is to split up OU and UT. They are the powers of the conference, and show zero signs of losing that status. Play 6 games in your division, 1 permanent game from the other division and then rotate the rest of the teams. Big 12 conference would be strengthened by the addition of the new teams.

Now, there's a lot of doubt that any change will occur. However, just like the start of WW1 basically occurred due to a fringe regional issue in the Balkans, one domino falls, the next domino falls and all of a sudden you have folks looking for seats on a lifeboat and others looking to make sure they don't get lost in the shuffle and miss out on a payday. If the recent acquisition of teams by the ACC several seasons ago has taught us anything it's that it is better to be in acquisition mode than in reacting mode.

So let's presume a massive conference swap meet is about to occur. How could it shake out.

1. Big Ten/Eleven goes to the Big 16 - for Football and Basketball

East: Penn State, Syracuse, Ohio State, Indiana, Purdue, Michigan, MSU,Northwestern West: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Illinois, ND, 

2. The Pac Ten becomes the Pac 16 adding - for Football and Basketball

North: UW, WSU, Oregon State, Oregon, Boise, Cal, Stanford, CU     South: ASU, UA, USC, UCLA, UT, Utah, BYU, TCU

3. The SEC becomes a 16 team conference adding OU, ATM, FSU, Clemson. OU and ATM added to the West, FSU and Clemson added to the East.

4. The ACC/Big East merge for football with the following 16 (6 teams needed due to defection of Clemson/FSU); Add WVU, Cincinnati, Rutgers to the Coastal, add Pittsburgh, Connecticut, USF to the Atlantic.

5. The remaining teams from the Big 12, Big East, probably would find themselves added to a much improved 16 team Conference USA strengthened by the addition of Louisville, OSU, Baylor, Texas Tech, and ISU

The 4 new 16 team super-conferences legitimately would be in a position to divide up the BCS Bowls and create a plus one system. Conference champions meet in the Semis, Championship two weeks later in a massive TV event. You'd be hard pressed to suggest that out of those 64 teams you don't have the real elite of college football, the winner of one of those conferences who is then able to beat 2 additional conferences champions was not the best team in college football.