Big 12 Conference announces decision not to expand

After much speculation that it might actually happen this time, the Big 12 Conference has formally announced its decision not to expand

Whether you’re sick of it by now or not, the fact of the matter is that you can never escape the topic of the Big 12 Conference potentially expanding, abandoning the 10-team format that it currently possesses. On Monday, however, many thought that we would actually see some programs added to the Power 5 conference, as they called a press conference after exploring the option of adding a plethora of schools.

Well, if you had your hopes up about the conference finally joining the rest of the big boy world and getting themselves to at least 12 teams, then you’re going to be sorely disappointed. A short while ago, the conference announced that they will not be expanding at this time.

Now to be fair, it really did seem this time that they would add two schools at the very least, especially given recent history. While they did put a one-loss team in the College Football Playoff in the Oklahoma Sooners last season, they still were left out in the cold during the inaugural College Football Playoff two years ago when both Baylor and TCU were on the outside looking in. It was at that point that the talks of expanding the conference really started to heat up.

But if there is anything that we have learned about the Big 12 Conference, it’s that they just love to stick with the status quo, and reportedly it’s the two big wigs in the conference that continue to make that happen — Texas and Oklahoma. If those two traditional powerhouses are against something, then the fact of the matter is that it probably won’t happen within the conference. Reportedly, over the course of these past few years, they have had really no interest whatsoever in expanding.

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Is this all over right now? No, probably not. We’ll almost certainly revisit this topic again in the near future, probably as soon as this offseason following the 2016 campaign. For now, though, the Big 12 will remain a home for just 10 schools and hope for the best.