1. Conference Commissioners are like city managers: most of the work of a city manager goes on behind the scenes. City managers take the fall when things go bad sometimes. They nearly always stay out of the way and let the mayor and city council take the credit when things go well. Conference commissioners do the bidding of the conferences.

Take away: Bob Bowlsby can suggest and recommend, he can't put much pressure on anyone. What he says publicly is probably what at least a substantial percentage of the schools want him to say.

2. If the Big XII is like most modern organizations, a quorum can be obtained and presidents (members) can attend and vote by phone or Skype etc.). The fact they made a big deal out of getting a quorum for a meeting and it appears they will meet in person means they intend to have serious face to face discussions on at least one important issue that hasn't been decided yet.

Take away: Chances are BYU's fate with respect to the Big XII hasn't been decided with finality. I suppose there could be consensus on expanding and which teams but they need to agree on divisions, but that kind of thing seems unlikely. If I'm Iowa State, I don't vote in favor unless I know the divisions.

3. This next one isn't so much of an insight. I can't believe anyone in the Big XII thinks they have a shot at Florida State and Clemson anymore. I don't think they're that dumb. Any mention of that is designed for leverage or to throw people off the scent of whatever is going on.

4. My conclusion: They haven't completely decided to expand. It could go either way. If they do decide they already have the teams picked and the deals worked out.

5. Best case they vote to expand and we're in. But we won't hear anything about it until some time after their media days and before the start of the season. There are two reasons for this: A) they want the focus of their media days to be as much as possible on the upcoming season and the current teams, and B) they can grab headlines during a dead spot in the next few weeks.

6. The bottom line is unless they announce expansion is dead, all this speculation keeps going until the earlier of the start of the season or the announcement of expansion.