Big 12 United: The Case for UTEP and Rice's Admission to the Big 12

Very cool to see a grassroots movement slowly starting to form that is very clearly articulating the case for the UTEP Miners and Rice Owls to become members of a redesigned Big 12 conference. With the Big 12 now sitting at 10 teams, and with a college football playoff finally looming, it does seem somewhat reasonable to believe that the Big 12 could further expand. Will that include two additional Texas schools? Big12United.com states UTEP's case.

But Texas A&M is gone – and as the saying goes, "one man’s trash is another man’s treasure." Much like Cal- Berkeley and UCLA have benefitted from playing in the Pac-12, UT-Austin and UTEP can both benefit from playing in the Big 12 and at the same time transform the Big 12 into the conference of the future, because no public university in the country is better positioned for growth than UTEP, with its emerging role as a Tier I institution and the country’s premier minority-majority university.

With the WAC officially dead and a playoff looming, I do wonder if any further movement will occur or if the latest wave is finally over.