I posted elsewhere about the Big XII simply turning to the American Athletic Conference as a source of expansion candidates. Big oversight on my part there was the AAC's relationship with ESPN -- and there have already been suspicions raised about ESPN's manipulation of the Big XII essentially by proxy through the AAC.

So if the Big XII has to negotiate around ESPN-affiliated schools, that narrows down the list of options pretty considerably -- and pretty much squares focus on BYU and the Mountain West. Then that will have to be blessed and coordinated with Fox (assuming that the long-term strategy is to try to get another deal with that network once the Big XII's current arrangement expires).

Weird, wild stuff. This will be very interesting to watch.