OK, so maybe WVU couldn't beat Oklahoma the other night.
But maybe, just maybe, the Mountaineers should join 'em.
The effort, that is, being put forth by Oklahoma president David Boren.
As we've reported, the NCAA has relaxed the rules in regard to staging football championships. That, by nature, put the brakes on expansion talk within the Big 12.
"Ten is a beautiful number," said TCU athletic director Chris Del Conte.
Beauty, however, is very much in the eye of the beholder. And, within the Big 12, Boren sees the number as anything but attractive.
He issued a release to the OU Daily, the student newspaper, saying the Big 12 is "disadvantaged."
"We do not have at least 12 members," Boren said. "We do not have a conference network and we do not have a championship game. I think all three of these disadvantages need to be addressed at the same time. Addressing only one without addressing all three will not be adequate to improve the strength of the conference."
When reached on Monday, WVU president E. Gordon Gee was anything but shocked at the comments.
"I think [the remarks] are fairly consistent with the thinking in the Big 12," he said. "It's nothing new. I'm in favor of expansion. I think he's expressing what we've been thinking."
Those words are significant. And so is this from Gee, a member of the Big 12's expansion committee: "I think the notion of going to 12 [schools] is most likely."
"Some of these issues will be discussed and resolved in February," Gee added. "It's all part of a package."
More significant yet. The league presidents and chancellors will meet Feb. 4-5. And both Boren and Gee are respected within that circle. Boren, especially, has much clout.
His idea is to add teams, fold Texas' Longhorn Network and other third-tier properties into a Big 12 Network and stage a football championship.
"I think if we try to do it piecemeal, we're just gonna kind of end up with just a Band-Aid on top," Boren told the Tulsa World. "I think we need a comprehensive plan to strengthen the conference and give it equal status with the other Power 5 conferences."
Boren said he was "for adding Louisville [when WVU and TCU were taken in]. I obviously did not prevail, and [the U of L has] now gone into another conference... They'd have been a good fit."
Boren continued, saying he was "very frustrated" and even made a not-so-veiled threat of moving Oklahoma from the Big 12. ("I think there are always opportunities for Oklahoma," he said.)
"I think if - if - we can get the Big 12 on the right track, if this comprehensive plan could be adopted, then I would rather stay in the Big 12," Boren said. "I think that would be to our advantage. But it's something that we really need to have happen."
Perhaps some of the above chafes WVU followers. Boren could have been saying he favored Louisville over West Virginia.
That's in the past though. Going forward it would be in WVU's best interest to throw complete support to Boren _ as long as expansion moves eastward.
Let's face it, membership in the Big 12 is tough on Mountaineer fans that want to see their team outside of home games. Adding Cincinnati would be a terrific help to Gee, athletic director Shane Lyons and WVU.
There are many other expansion candidates out there, but let's examine a few. First, Houston sounds sexy these days, yet the Big 12 gains nothing by adding the Cougars. The league already owns Texas. BYU and Salt Lake City is over 1,000 miles just from Texas. Colorado State is, well, Colorado State.
And then there are the schools located more toward WVU. The last thing the Big 12 needs is more schools in the Southwest or in the Rocky Mountains. If Boren and the others in the league truly want to be more of a national conference, a la the Big Ten, they need to look at markets like New York (Connecticut) or Orlando (Central Florida). Memphis would be a nice fit geographically and would help WVU as well.
Yet let's move to Boren's other desire: a Big 12 network. If the league wants to start such a network it would have to do so in what one television insider called "the least cabled environment" among the conferences. The old Big East was wired with cities like Baltimore, Washington, New York, Philadelphia, etc. The Big 12 would be helped by moving into, say, New York via Connecticut. The Huskies, according to the insider, draw more television numbers, at least in basketball, than Rutgers for the Big Ten.
You might think it would be impossible to talk Texas into ditching the Longhorn Network. It just screams "stumbling block." That, though, is not the case. The Longhorn Network has never worked. It's lost money from Day 1. ESPN would give it back tomorrow. Those in the know say dissolution of that could be negotiated in a day. The Big 12 would simply cover the money Texas would earn within the Big 12 Network structure.
So the "comprehensive plan" Boren has proposed isn't far-fetched at all. In fact, it could help not only the league but WVU. The Mountaineers could have travel partners. Their fans could get to more games. The Big 12 could become more of a national brand. And a Big 12 Network could be more wired to more homes.
Sounds like a win, win, win, win to me.