As I explain below, I think the choice of going to divisions is a clue the Big 12 plans to take its consultants' advice and go to 12 teams with 8 conference games.

As for the developments on the Big 12 Network front, I agree with Kirk Bohls and several others that the calculus has changed. And I think BYU and Houston's chances are most improved by the new calculus. Historically, those two football programs have a lot more Top 25 finishes than Cincy, Memphis, UConn, UCF, USF and Colo State combined.

Bohls wrote today:

The criteria for the expansion candidates may have changed overnight. Less important might be new television markets. More valuable could be the fortunes of a candidate’s football and basketball programs, improving academics and proximity with less travel expenses. Hello, Houston. Bad time for Paxton Lynch to leave Memphis. Cincinnati, whatcha got? Expansion may be more about selling tickets when these teams come to Big 12 stadiums than what their ranking as a national TV market. As Boren put it, “Our fans don’t want to see us play lesser or mediocre teams.”

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My initial take on the title game with divisions, as posted on a Houston site:

A conference of less than 12 teams can stage a title game in one of two ways:

1. Split into equal divisions, where each school plays everyone in its division. Then the two division winners meet.

or

2. Everybody in the whole conference plays each other, and the top 2 teams meet in the title game.

If your goal, as a 10 team conference, is to maximize your playoff chances, then you would go option 2. It guarantees the two teams with the best conference records make the title game. Option 1 might result in a title game mismatch that either: 1) does not help the SOS of the good team, or B) produces an upset knocking the conference out of the playoff. Why take the risk if Option 2 is available?

The Big 12 has apparently decided to go with Option 1!!  This, even after their highly paid consultants ran 40,000 simulations and found that a 12-team model with 8 conference games is the best set up.

So that raises the question: why split into divisions at 10 teams?

The only rationale I can think of is that they plan to follow their consultants advice and go to 12 teams and 8 conference games. This 5-team division set up is just the first step in getting where they want to go.