Reading BlueBrotha's excellent post from Saturday left me wondering about the possibility of joining the Big 12 as a football member only, and leaving the other sports in the WCC. That post said that the initial talks centered around football only and that BYU didn't like it because of the perceived instability of the Big 12 at the time (OU and Texas still considering bolting to the Pac 10) which I understand. There was a time there where the Big 12 was in bad shape. It rebounded and now it looks foolish of us not to have jumped on it, but it was pretty shaky there for a while.

The question is, why not 'football only' for BYU? If the Big 12 is interested in this at all, why isn't this our main objective? It's a better deal than a 2-3 game per year agreement with them. From a football standpoint, it gives us everything we want. From a basketball perspective, we're still in a decent league and in a position to ultimately move over when it's beneficial for everyone. Count me as one that doesn't mind the WCC at all for basketball. The Big 12 would be better, but if we had to stay in the WCC for a while I'm fine with it (I'm not going to whine about a league until we actually start dominating it or are left out of the Dance because of it, and neither of these have happened). BlueBrotha's post said that he heard in the upcoming meetings between TH and the Big 12 that the FIRST play is to get the 2-3 game alliance with them, and if that falls through to look at football only. For me, being a member of the Big 12 in any capacity, whether it's football only or whatever, should be priority one. Get the big boy (football) in the door THEN step two is working on getting the rest in.

The reason cited in his post is that the ESPN contract goes away and that we get less of a piece of the pie as a football only member. How much money are we talking about? Because I, for one, am totally fine taking a hit to add the security of a P5 conference. Obviously, a full member is better than football only, but isn't 'football only' better than indy with very little access to big time bowls? I don't know how we're going to solve the Bowl Game Question in indy, but I guess that's a whole different conversation..

I see it this way:

Big 12>>>Big 12 (football only)>>>Independence

And it sounds like the BOT see it this way:

Big 12>>>Independence (w/ 2-3 game alliance)>>> Big 12 (football only) >>> Independence (as is)

Am I looking at it wrong?