By Ralph K.M. Haurwitz and Kirk Bohls AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Updated: 1:14 a.m. Saturday, June 12, 2010
Published: 10:35 p.m. Friday, June 11, 2010
The University of Texas is virtually certain to abandon the Big 12 Conference for the Pacific-10 Conference when its governing board meets Tuesday. Texas Tech University is expected to follow along.
Texas A&M University officials apparently are undecided on joining the Pac-10 or the Southeastern Conference. Baylor University's prospects for joining the Pac-10 remain bleak. And the Big 12 is history.
That, in a nuts , is how the high-stakes, high-dollar game of college athletics conference realignment — Texas edition — is shaping up this weekend after Friday's announcement that the University of Nebraska will leave the Big 12 for the Big Ten. A day earlier, the University of Colorado said it will quit the Big 12 for the Pac-10.
One highly placed Big 12 school official said there was no doubt that league members UT, Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State would join the Pac-10.
"The decision has been made," he told the American-Statesman. "We're bringing everybody to the Pac-10 but A&M."
The official said that formal offers could be made over the weekend and that the Aggies could still decide to go along. If the Aggies don't go, he said, the Pac-10 would consider including Kansas or Utah as a replacement.
The ongoing shake-up in college sports has national implications for which schools will be in the major conferences and therefore in the best position to participate in lucrative television contracts as well as football bowl games and NCAA basketball tournament appearances.
The shake-up also may have political ramifications. As the workweek ended, the state House Higher Education Committee called a hearing for 10 a.m. Wednesday "to discuss matters pertaining to higher education, including collegiate athletics."
The official message from the UT camp on Friday was one of studied uncertainty regarding what might happen when the Board of Regents meets at 11 a.m. Tuesday in Ashbel Smith Hall , the UT System's headquarters in downtown Austin.
"It is both premature and inappropriate to speculate on what our UT System regents will discuss at next Tuesday's meeting," said DeLoss Dodds, the men's athletics director.
Colleen McHugh, chairman of the regents, declined to comment. "It's (standard operating procedure) that the regents don't discuss matters before meeting," said her spokesman, Anthony de Bruyn.
Texas Tech regents have called a meeting for 2 p.m. Tuesday, at which they are expected to sign on to the Pac-10. A spokeswoman for Kent Hance , chancellor of the Texas Tech University System, said he had no comment, but the university issued a statement saying it has been committed to supporting the Big 12.
"However," the statement said, "there are significant ongoing conversations, and we will make a decision in the best interest of the university at the appropriate time."
A&M's regents have not scheduled a meeting.
The Big 12 school official said that A&M President R. Bowen Loftin wants to explore joining the SEC but that the Aggies' athletic director, Bill Byrne, wants to go to the Pac-10. A&M's regents also have not reached a consensus.
Despite such differences, the Pac-10 option would seem to be more likely not only because it would avoid disrupting the Aggies' storied rivalry with the Longhorns but also because SEC powerhouses Alabama and Florida would be formidable opponents for a football squad that has struggled of late.
Nebraska's departure from the Big 12, even more so than Colorado's exit on Thursday, dims the league's prospects for attracting the mix of fans, TV viewers and national buzz that drives the college sports enterprise.
The Pac-10 is arguably the best fit for UT. True, the Big Ten's academic profile is appealing: All of its member ins utions belong to the Association of American Universities , the elite club of major research universities. But Penn State, Minnesota and other Big Ten schools are far away, both culturally and geographically, from Austin.
If the Pac-10 realignment plays out as expected, UT would be in a division that includes five other schools from the Big 12 — Colorado, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech and, possibly, A&M — and Arizona and Arizona State.
The academic pedigree of that division doesn't match up to that of the Big Ten — Texas Tech, Arizona State and Oklahoma State are not AAU members — but the other members of the Pac-10 include some of the nation's leading ins utions, such as Stanford, UCLA and the University of California, Berkeley.
http://www.statesman.com/news/local/...10-742900.html
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