Generally these guys do a pretty good job of covering this stuff right, daily coverage from 3 to 6 om CST and some really good interviews from all over. But, on this issue they sort of just did a drive-by.

Back in 2016, the Big-12 seemed to seriously want to bring in at least two teams and there was a small window where 4 were considered out of the 9 or 10 officially reported to have been considered.

The usual suspects were involved then that are on the hit list now and should all get in. The Big-12 is going to 12 or 16 as we speak for those not keeping up. Talks are under way with 15 schools but only half of them are on the serious list.

At the time though in 2016, the expansion committee really wanted Cincinnati with BYU being the partner if just two were selected. But, then Texas had a fear:

If two schools outside of Texas and not under control of the Texas State Legislature, where Texas had powerful friends, Texas would see it s voting block diminish on conference decisions.

If either Cincinnati or BYU was to come in, Texas would vote not if Houston was not the other partner, to keep the voting balance of power. Texas assumed - probably correctly - that they could lean on all of the Texas schools to vote the "Texas Way" on matters important to Texas.

The committee was at a cross roads, they really wanted both BYU and Cincinnati, but if they had to swallow Houston to get them, there would have to be a 4th team to balance the divisions - because at the time, this was about setting up the Big-12 mechanism for a conference championship to get the 13th data point for the play off votes.

While there was a long list of who could be number 4 after a dozen site visits, there was no consensus on number 4:

Texas offered SMU, which would further strengthen their hand - every one else said no, not because SMU was a bad choice but because of the power it would hand Texas.

Gee thought UCF or Memphis would be good choices and the rest though Memphis too beneath them, which was shortsighted of them and that UCF was too far, generally true in this situation.

Boise State had the same problem as UCF, too remote and part of this expansion was to fix the "WVU" problem, so that was also a no. Nothing against Boise St. just the mechanics.

The rest of the list was scratched off for various reasons but you get the pettiness of it all by now.

So it came down to Texas and TCU, Baylor and Texas Tech all under pressure by Texas to say no to anything unless Houston was in. Texas talked to Houston and their primary donor, Tillman Fertitta who is a the Hollywood Texan in every way. To Texas and Houston this was to put it in old terms - "A DONE DEAL". Houston and Fertitta were planning the press conference wherein Houston would SAVE the Big-12, such was their ego.

So, the committee finally said we want both BYU and Cincinnati and we do want a 4th it will just take some time. But, in the next week, the committee split on the issue - time was not their ally and camps for for just bringing in either Cincinnati or BYU but not both. At that point it was all in doubt and pretty much over night, the expansion died.

Fertitta went ballistic! Houston was left holding their box of party favors and cake and just got the door slammed in their face. The committee went home and went with the stupid championship set up we have now and Texas just snickered up their sleeve at the morons they had to play with and how easy it was to wreck anything that did not suit them.

The fracas had nothing to do with Houston's merit or even Fertitta had his attitude. Fertitta then took things too far, he started giving orders to the Big-12 on how Houston was still getting in no matter what. The rest of the Big-12 was like "WTH?" But after a week or so of running his mouth nothing much happened except Texas swooped during this time and stole Tom Herman from Houston to be their new coach.

Ain't Texas a real pal?