BYU Cougars release statement following Big 12 decision

The BYU Cougars released their statement about the Big 12’s decision on Monday evening to not expand beyond 10 teams at this time.

So the Big 12 is cool with being a 10-team Power 5 conference for the time being? They held a press conference on Monday saying that the conference will not expand in the near future. The Big 12 made it a point to talk about television contracts and waste everybody’s time.

There were three legitimate mid-major teams that got hosed by the Big 12’s reluctance towards 2017 expansion. Those teams were the BYU Cougars, the Cincinnati Bearcats, and the Houston Cougars. Here is BYU’s statement on the Big 12’s decision to not expand beyond 10 teams.

Brigham Young University (BYU) was proud of the strength displayed by the university during these expansion talks. The school believes that “BYU can significantly contribute to the athletic and academic excellence of a [Power 5] conference.”

The LDS school was pure class in its statement, but clearly has some bitterness in its tone about the Big 12’s unanimous decision to stay pat at 10 teams. BYU is a top-25 football program all-time and has a huge national following from those of the Mormon faith.

By adding BYU, that would have given the Big 12 a huge media market like Salt Lake City into its desperate plea for more viewers. Austin is big and Norman is essentially suburban Oklahoma City, but it’s not like the Big 12 have huge metropolitan areas to draw from.

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Not bringing BYU into the fold was probably a mistake for the Big 12. It was an opportunity to be inclusive with the LDS school and the Big 12 chose to be exclusive at this time. BYU is a great independent program and hopefully will get the Power 5 opportunity the Cougars deserve one day.