1. Colorado (yes, Colorado..I don't get it either) first gets invited
2. Texas, Texas Tech, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State all get invited.
3. The ink is drying when all of a sudden, Deloss Dodds says "wait a sec here, boys. We think we might want our own network." kaboom.
3a. Oklahoma won't come w/o OSU.
4. PAC 12 commish Larry Scott moves to Plan C, holds Dr. Young and Chris Hill over his lap and says "AND DON'T ASK ME FOR ANY REVENUE FOR 4 - I REPEAT - FOUR YEARS! OK?!"
5. Larry Scott, now calmed, refreshed, and spritzed, suddenly appears in Salt Lake to welcome the University of Utah as its twelfth member. Says nice things after the spanking.
6. Pac-12 logos blanket the valley and a fog of new-found confidence with it.

Sometimes circumstances dictate outcomes of necessity. And conferences don't always reflect the state of the programs in those conferences (read: Vanderbilt football, Kentucky football, Ole Miss football, USC basketball, Oregon State anything, etc., etc., etc.).