The Big 12 is now at 10 teams if West Virginia makes it official in their exit from the Big 12. But can the conference feel stable again? That's highly unlikely. Given the state of the vultures perched on the fringes of a conference waiting to poach something as we all observed last year, conferences will once again wonder this year and next whether thye can rely on the teams that are currently committed or whether major moves are coming. Perhaps that's behind the strike-first rumors that the Big 12 could be expanding into places like BYU and Cincinnati.
Matt Hayes of the Sporting News says that those schools could be next on a list of a conference trying to make its namesake an accurate one. Perhaps not. But if they were to expand, names like the aforementioned Big East schools and Louisville as well make a lot of sense. He writes:
Louisville – which lost out to West Virginia in the last Big 12 expansion – is at the top of the list this time around. Other possibilities: BYU and Cincinnati.
"I don’t want to send the message, ‘Oh, they’re getting ready to expand,’" Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione told the Chronicle. "But you’d be naïve to think there’s not instability still in our business."
That instability leads to insecurity which is why so many moves were made last summer. Money speaks more than anything else and if the Big 12 can keep secure about their money by adding some teams (and taking from others), they'll likely make that move, or at least attempt to.