Big 12 leaders held an emergency meeting Thursday, and the schools that didn’t attend said everything in their absence. The league is hanging by a pair of threads—one burnt orange, the other crimson—and the scissors are looming.
The conference’s reality has been an open secret for 10 years, since it last was shaken by realignment: Texas and Oklahoma are the premier athletic properties, and everyone else is along for the ride and hanging on for dear life. If the big dogs move on, the Big 12 suddenly resembles the American Athletic Conference. And now the big dogs are very serious about moving on.