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Can the Big 12 pull off the year's biggest comeback?
Missouri chancellor Brady Deaton is hopeful the Big 12 can stay together after Texas A&M leaves.
By Orlin Wagner, AP
Missouri chancellor Brady Deaton is hopeful the Big 12 can stay together after Texas A&M leaves.
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By Orlin Wagner, AP
Missouri chancellor Brady Deaton is hopeful the Big 12 can stay together after Texas A&M leaves.
Even as Oklahoma weighs an exit that could push the distressed conference toward extinction, the chairman of its board of directors says he has gained confidence in the past week that it can survive.
Brady Deaton is heartened, he said, that OU and others are looking before they leap. "I think this period of just a bit more calmness and reasoning . . . makes us all feel as if the various issues can be dealt with in a rational way and in a way that's in the best interests of each of our institutions and the Big 12 - and of other leagues around the country," the Missouri chancellor told USA TODAY on Wednesday.
"I'm not Pollyannaish about it. I'm not naïve. But I'm looking at the factors that are important to the future of the athletics and the academics of institutions in the Big 12. And as we all assess them, my hopes are that more and more will conclude, as I have, that a continuation of a strong Big 12 is in all of our best interests right now.
"I am hopeful, let me say."
He didn't speculate beyond that on the league's chances of survival. It's teetering, with Texas A&M pointed toward the Southeastern Conference and multiple Big 12 officials telling USA TODAY this week that Oklahoma is conditionally pursuing a move to the Pacific 12.
Those officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said the Sooners are exploring the financial parameters of Pac-12 membership and where they'd fit in its divisional alignment, as well as how open the league is to accepting them - almost certainly with Oklahoma State in tow. Texas, in turn, is weighing its own options, though the Longhorns have made it clear they prefer Big 12 preservation.
Nebraska and Colorado opted out of the conference a year ago. The Big 12 seemingly weathered that, but was destabilized anew by Texas A&M's pending departure.
"It's not what I think any of us want as a characteristic of our conference," said Deaton, a former agriculture economics and sociology professor who became Missouri's chancellor in 2004. "We've worked hard for a stable, strong, aggressive, fast-moving Big 12, and spent the past year looking at new ways in which we can be a more exciting league, one that's stronger in all dimensions, going beyond athletic competition and beginning to think about the ways in which we could strengthen ourselves in academic cooperation.
"To have that dialogue interrupted or altered by the range of considerations going on today certainly is a concern to all of us."
Chances of preserving the Big 12, slim or otherwise, hinge on somehow re-stabilizing the conference and convincing member schools that it's for good.
"That's the challenge that the Big 12 board has in front of it," Deaton said. "I think we have a pretty good understanding of the various tools and structures that would lead to that, but we don't have them all resolved."
He told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that he expected a decision from Oklahoma on its future within the next two weeks.
"I just have had an understanding that within 10 days to two weeks we were likely to have some indication of where things stood, but with no firm deadlines there," Deaton told the newspaper. "We're being patient and working together, and certainly right now we're in a little bit of a position where we need for Oklahoma to give us a sense of what they're thinking about and take it from there."
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