If Texas was smart, they would jump ship with Oklahoma to the Pac 12 in order to get some of this big conference money floating around. Then again, the Pac 12 may no longer want Texas. They are about to kick off their own network with the schools they already have, and probably have no desire to invite a bunch of alpha male personalities from Texas into their league and screw everything up.
I'm not a big Clay Travis fan, but he has this right. Texas misplayed their hand. I do think the Pac-12 would take them though, for two reasons. 1) It would give them an opportunity to re-negotiate their TV deal. Right now, their TV network is largely regional, and I'm betting they're wishing they got more than they did. Adding OU and Texas would allow them to take it national, which is A LOT more money, and 2) getting 2 other states into their conference would be a big boost to their TV contract as well.
The tricky part is that I don't know that the state legislatures in Texas and Oklahoma would allow those two to skate without taking Okie State, Texas Tech, and Baylor along for the ride.
I know Baylor was a big hang up the last time the Big 12 tried to make a play for Texas, Texas A&M, Tech, and OU.
The Pac-12 may have to go to 16 teams to make it happen and figure out which way it could work politically. Certainly, the Big 12 is on the shakiest ground of the Big 5 right now, and only because of Texas's TV deal.
The other reason it won't happen is because it would require Texas admitting they were wrong, and it would require them going to a conference where they had to share equally, a conference that treats Washington State the same as USC. They like their tipped scales conference, and they certainly don't want to admit they made a mistake.
The LHN turned out to be a huge bust, and it is in large part because the LHN can only show Big 12 games if the opponent agrees to it (they never do), and therefore the LHN only has access to non-conference games, and as of right now, teams entering into home and homes with Texas are almost universally having it written into the contract that they can't use the LHN for the game in Austin.
Our game in Austin last year will probably go down as the best game (for viewership) that the LHN will ever broadcast, and the only reason they got rights to that game is because the contract was signed before the LHN existed. No future contracts with major OOC schools are going to allow for that.
