The Big 12 apparently is exploring data on multiple levels of expansion.

Hadn't seen this confirmed outside of the blogger world until this recent article:

"Chicago-based Navigate Research gave ADs a presentation that ran the gamut of possibilities for the Big 12 as a 10-team league, a 12-team league, a 14-team league and even a 16-team league. The firm’s variations — some 40,000 of them, Bowlsby said — included a championship game, no championship game, an eight-game schedule, a nine-game schedule, and came up with percentages for making the College Football Playoff and even going undefeated."

http://www.tulsaworld.com/blogs/sports/johnehoover/john-e-hoover-big-s-bowlsby-relying-heavily-on-data/article_beb557d7-1d2e-5028-87ae-b2c105fc7a0a.html

Also this:

"Bowlsby said league ADs immediately asked presenters to configure everything again, with allowances for rivalries, two rivalries, and even three rivalries.
“Probably ended up with maybe a half-dozen more that we wanted to have modeled,” Bowlsby said. “They’re gonna get back to us with some additional data. … We’re doing a deep dive on all this stuff and are intent on making very intelligent, very meaningful and reliable decisions.”

The metrics being brought in for May and June are NOT the initial phase. The initial phase is already past tense.

It is also VERY clear that the Big 12 is talking about and studying expansion.... only that the finalization of which teams will come after the vote to move on expansion occurs. It would be naive to believe that there is not a process already vetting the candidates with associated data available for the AD's and presidents.

Elephant in the room = Texas.