First off, I'll say that he immediately expressed that BYU was his first choice for an invitation to the Big 12 - and this was before he knew I am a BYU grad. It's what made me reach out to him. However, I thought he had some interesting thoughts, and those that are similar to mine but coming from an outsider it carried more weight.

-2020 proved how Independence for BYU can work and not just kinda work, but work at an ideal level. Just win. When it comes to exposure and money, the only thing BYU would need is better access to the post-season, which is in the works, and to lock down some scheduling agreements, which is not impossible, especially if we continue to win.

-If Texas and OU were to leave the B12, would BYU actually want to join the Big 12? If it meant giving up a lot of the things that come with independence to go to a conference that might not be a P5-caliber conference when all is said and done?

-BYU really dug themselves into a hole by publicly announcing that independence is not ideal and that they want in to a p5 conference BADLY. Many outsiders actually believe that BYU "ought" to join a P5 conf. but just don't want to because they like independence too much. Kinda like ND. Strategic wise, from this point on, BYU needs the narrative to be that we absolutely love the autonomy to do our own thing and maintain a sweet agreement with ESPN and BYUtv and would have to really have a sweet deal come along to make us pass up this setup we have now. When we are perceived as "oh oh look here, please let me in, look how good we are, please?" and we have NO cards to play. BYU needs to focus on damage control and move forward like independence is the only option that will ever work from here on out and project the image that we just love it and figure out how to make it work and even flaunt it. Very few programs can do this. BYU is one of them. That's cool.