The lawyers will settle all of this, not the presidents or the member institutions. The best thing the remaining Big-12 schools can do is sit tight.

The first need to wrangle Texas and Oklahoma out of 80 million each or as much of that of that as they can get. The longer they drag this out, the longer ESPN is contractually obligated to pay the full media rights package to all 10 schools.

Next, the Big-12 can silence Texas and Oklahoma in all future meeting until they are gone and make any changes they want to the conference in spite of any argument from Texas or Oklahoma.

Once the exit terms are agreed too, it will include a payment schedule and end date for Texas and Oklahoma to remain active in the Big-12.

The Big-12 could let them leave immediately and take all of the bowl, media rights and tv money until July 2025 even if they were in the SEC. Would be more valuable than the buy out as the SEC media rights deal is approaching 65 million per annum per school.

Once Texas and Oklahoma go, there is no strong need to stay together, but it would be the wise thing to do. Those eight schools and 3 to 4 of the best out there in the landscape are good enough to earn 1 or 2 slots in any CFP-12 playoff. They may not make a huge tv deal but they each pull in 10 to 15 million in 3rd tier - WVU does. The other 9-10 from a tv deal would be enough to see them survive and each team in the CFP would get money that would be shared. It might not be a feast but it is also not starvation.