OU's Boren comments on Big 12

Oklahoma president David Boren, with fresh authorization in hand to determine the university's future athletic affiliation, had pointed comments about the status of the Big 12 yesterday. A few summary notes/highlights:

* The threat of litigation by some conference members was not a helpful way to keep the conference together.
* Oklahoma has no desire to be in a position to dominate a conference politically.
* The ongoing instability of the conference going forward into next and later years was, essentially, intolerable.
* Boren's options are the Big 12 or the Pac 12
* OU wants to be in a conference with equally shared revenue.
* Nebraska's departure last season was "regrettable."
* The Big 12 conference office bears some of the burden for the conference's condition

Although remaining in the Big 12 is an option, the criticisms Boren laid out make it hard to believe that remaining there is a realistic option.

Oklahoma City's KWTV-9 sports anchor Dean Blevins reasserted yesterday that the framework of a deal sending OU and Oklahoma State to the Pac 12 regardless of Texas' decision remains in place as it has been for nearly two weeks. All that remains to make it official is to wait for the "ink" to dry.

Texas legislature worried about OU, Texas moves?

Orangebloods.com reporter Chip Brown is reporting that movers within the Texas legislature are moving rapidly to "slow down" conference movement actions from Texas A&M and Texas. Most interesting is that Texas officials have reportedly told legislative contacts that OU's moving kills the Big 12, and that UT should follow suit, but that those same legislative contacts are telling UT reps to, in turn, tell OU to "slow down."

Somehow, I don't think the suggestion that the Texas legislature is trying to muscle OU will go over very well in Norman. The idea that UT is now, apparently, worried about what OU is doing is almost staggering.

The legislature is apparently also letting A&M know it no longer has their blessing to jump to the SEC. Now, why they waited to make this known to the Aggies four days after they announced the move is stupefying, which suggests perhaps that the OU rumblings are making a lot of people in the power structure of Texas very, very nervous very quickly.

Right now, claims are that the legislature received assurances that the Big 12 would survive without A&M, which means they never expected OU to publicly contemplate a serious jump to a different conference. That means that OU president David Boren could be playing a serious poker game with Texas, and they might do well to remember that Boren's past history as a former governor and powerful, multi-term senator gives him more than enough political acumen to stare down sabre rattling from the state powerbrokers in Austin. It also means that Texas legislators only view A&M as relevant to the extent it protects the Big 12, and by extension only to the extent the Big 12 protects Texas' interests as they relate to its nascent Longhorn Network.

The bigger question is whether Boren and Castiglione are playing an "all-in" game with Texas, even risking the future of the OU-Texas rivalry to make the Pac 12+ happen. Texas has vowed never to play A&M in any sport again should it depart, but can it make a similar threat to the Sooners and eliminate their only other high-profile rival in the process? Texas never doubted that OU would follow its lead; now, the Horns are terrified that the Sooners will go rogue, and bust the LHN by killing the Big 12.

Texas worried about what OU does? Whoulda thunk it?