The truth is that there are enough member schools' pres/admins/fat-boosters that don't like us for no good reason other than bias that we likely won't get an invite no matter how much a better choice we are... otherwise we would already be in the PAC10+2, or the BOG12...

I would really love to be part of a P5...especially THE PAC10+2, but I just don't see it happening as culturally the divide just keeps getting bigger if anything. 

And frankly the BOG12 scares me because of their instability - it seems like Texas and Oklahoma will always be looking for greener pastures, and their are a few other members that could still be poached to another P5...

Independence has some serious negatives to be sure, but with no P5 invite likely coming maybe TH should really spending most of his energy getting us a Notre Dame-like scheduling alliance with a P5 (Pac10+2?) with inclusion into their bowl picture... that way they could include us without actually including us, which okay I think.

...then at that point renegotiate with ESPN to get into the kind of P5 money we need to keep competing, and go from there until MAJOR seismic shifts occur in conference realignment (e.g. 4 super conferences) happens.

Really,the main things we are after beyond what we already have are:
1) P5 money so we can compete
2) November games - a normalize schedule
3) Access / Tie-in to P5 bowls
4) P5 status and respect

A scheduling alliance with the PAC10+2 (and perhaps also the BOG12 could potentially give us all of that while keeping most of the positive benefits of independence.