Looks like conference realignment will remain a hot topic throughout the college football season. The latest news is a report coming from The Oklahoman that the Oklahoma Sooners are looking at making a push to join the Pac-12:
Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott was in Arlington, Texas, on Saturday night for the Oregon-LSU game.
Prime opportunity for OU officials to meet with the head of the conference they are considering joining. But an OU source said Saturday there were no plans for Scott to meet with the Sooners.
Not because something has gone wrong, but because something went right.
"I don't think anybody needs to go" meet with Scott, the source said, indicating the Pac-12 has become the Sooners' sole focus.
The Pac-12 preference is to add four schools - OU, Oklahoma State, Texas and Texas Tech.
The Pac-16 was discussed last year and nearly happened before Big 12 Commissioner Dan Beebe was able to secure a lucrative television deal that was to keep the Big 12 conference alive. Now that Texas A&M is officially on their way out of the Big 12, Oklahoma is looking at their options and from the sounds of the report have little to no interest in staying in the Big 12.
The Longhorn Network had been a key sticking point to why the Texas Longhorns would not be joining the Pac-12, but there is a report from ESPN's Joe Schad that the Pac-12 is indeed courting Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State. It seems now that the Pac-12 is willing to work with Texas and the Longhorn Network which will allow the league to add Texas.
If the Pac-16 does come to fruition the Colorado Buffaloes would be the biggest losers in all of this. The money may increase with the four new schools, but Colorado moved to the Pac-12 because they felt they were a better fit with the West coast schools. Adding four schools from the Big 12 would put Colorado right back where they were only a year ago by being in a division with Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma and then most likely the two Arizona schools and Utah. That would shut out Colorado from playing in California as often as they would with their current arrangement.