Big 12 expansion still remains a far-fetched dream for Oregon State and Washington State as votes become a challenging factor for their inclusion
One of the bigger storylines heading into the college football season was the rate of the Big 12 expansion.
Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark knew the conference had to make a splash as it was losing the Texas Longhorns and the Oklahoma Sooners to the Southeastern Conference. They seemingly did so as in 2024 they will be adding the Arizona Wildcats, Arizona State Sun Devils, Utah Utes and Colorado Buffaloes as the Pac-12 implodes.
However, two teams that are still on the outside and were rumored to be part of future Big 12 expansion are the Washington State Huskies and Oregon State Beavers. They are the two remaining Pac-12 teams that have not announced new homes once the Pac-12 dissolves on July 1, 2024.
College football insider C.W. Lambert posted earlier on Tuesday how there has been no movement in terms of the Big 12 expansion adding Washington State or Washington State.
It will be interesting as the college football season gets deeper to see if there is any news regarding those two programs. It seems that the Big 12 expansion will continue if the two universities are willing to join at the right price.
Will there be any more Big 12 expansion teams coming in the near future?
It seems as if the Big 12 expansion is going to stay at 16 teams for the time being. Commissioner Brett Yormark is in no rush to continue expansion or is at least posturing to the media right now.
In the middle of August before the season began, Yormark told reporters on a Zoom call:
"We had a vision, we had a strategy and effectively we’ve been able to execute it. Initially, I wasn’t sure if we’d go to 14 or 16. I think 16 was kind of the dream scenario candidly. From our perspective, our focus right now is to integrate the four incoming schools as quick as we can — get them comfortable.
"We’ve already had a couple of transition calls and Zooms with the corner schools, and I’ll be making some campus visits. That’s my focus right now.” H/t USA Today
Yormark is in no rush to continue adding teams, and unless he sees an opening, the Big 12 is in a great spot. With the issues surrounding the Atlantic Coast Conference, he may be monitoring that situation before adding another program.