MORGANTOWN - Leave it to the Big 12 to do the contrary, even as it moves away from being the contrarian.
For now, this remains the smallest of the Power 5 conferences, and it's still OK to chuckle when you say the name and remember it has 10 teams. But that's about to change after the conference's presidents and chancellors voted unanimously Tuesday to "actively evaluate" schools that want to be a part of the conference.
That means the Big 12 is expanding, and the announcement came at a time when we were right to assume the league wasn't so aggressively interested in doing so.
But what do we ever know about the Big 12?
Remember, the smallest conference with the funny name was also the only major football conference that had every team play one another in the regular season and the only major football conference that used just the regular season to determine its champion.
Now there's a conference title game coming in 2017, and not long after just about all the head coaches said they liked things as they were. Expansion means the round-robin days will soon be finished, too.
The Big 12 has saved its best and weirdest trick for last, though.
When the SEC, ACC, Big Ten, Pac-12 and even Big 12 expanded in the past, they did so surreptitiously. Discussions, negotiations and invitations were handled with such stealth that it created an irresistible desire for information, which in turn spawned a whole new subsection of sports reporting.
What the Big 12 is about to do is the total opposite. There's going to be much more pandering than what we're used to, and much of it will happen in public.
If you don't believe that, you missed the athletic director at BYU, a leading candidate to jump into the Big 12, saying he was "obviously excited" that the Big 12 is readying to expand. A full statement was then posted on Twitter, letting the world know the Cougars are waiting.
"BYU is known for its academic excellence and I believe we have an exceptional athletic program," Tom Holmoe wrote. "As I've stated before, I would like our student-athletes to compete at the highest level."
"Highest level" is a compliment to the Big 12, which is behind the SEC and Big Ten in revenue and is doing what it's doing now because the ACC, which is launching a network, and Pac-12, which has a fledgling one, are threatening to get in front in other areas and watch the Big 12 shrink in their rear-view mirrors.
The parts about academic excellence and an exceptional athletic program? That's Shelton Gibson jumping up and down and waving his arms in the end zone while Skyler Howard looks for someone to throw the football to, but there's much more to it than just that.
David Boren, the president at Oklahoma and the chairperson of the league's board of directors, listed six factors the Big 12 desires. One was academic excellence. Another was a strong and competitive athletic department.
Holmoe's statement came out within an hour of the Big 12's conference call that revealed its intentions.
There will be more of this, and that's what makes the episode so unusual and appetizing. In the past, conferences went after schools. In the near future, schools will be wooing the Big 12, and they'll be biding against one another to be among the two or four schools the conference adds.
And the Big 12 should absolutely maintain some of its quirkiness even as it does away with being the outlier. The Big 12 should have 14 teams.
Now, it should also be the pioneer about a conference network that isn't beholden to the traditional cable network model, and when that's done and new teams are added, there should be an extension to the grant of rights to keep Texas and Oklahoma in place.
That's easier said than done. Adding four teams is easy. Forget about the name. Remember why this is happening.
If this is about catching up - and it is - then it makes no sense to add just two teams. It makes no sense to grow now and leave other options out there for other leagues when there are indications the power leagues might not be done expanding. So add four teams. Leave the Pac-12 with the smallest conference. Join the SEC and Big Ten in the 14-team club, which is just a door down from the ACC and the 14-plus-Notre Dame club.
The Big 12 will figure out who it adds soon, but it's silly to think it doesn't have an idea already. For now, assume the additions are coming from a list that includes BYU, Cincinnati, Memphis, UConn, Houston, UCF, USF, Boise State, Colorado State and maybe a few others.
Ultimately, it's the Big 12's call, but the decision will be made by the schools that make the best sales pitch.
Contact Mike Casazza at 304-319-1142 or mikec@wvgazettemail.com. Follow him on Twitter @mikecasazza and read his blog at http://blogs.wvgazettemail.com/wvu/.