Earlier this month, the collegiate Big 12 Conference announced its plans to expand the league's current roster by two or four more teams. The 10-school athletic conference's fans are already very eager to learn which new teams will make the cut.
Well, it seems like Big 12 fans will just have to wait for at least more than a month to know how the expansion process will turn out. Citing three anonymous sources familiar with the process, CBS Sports reported that the Big 12 Conference would like to wrap up the expansion process before the start of the 2016 football season.
CBS Sports' sources reported that "the Big 12 doesn't want expansion to overshadow the league's football season with a drawn-out process that would extend into the 2016 campaign."
The Big 12 Conference this year is scheduled to start on Sept. 2, when Kansas State travels to Stanford and Baylor hosts Northwestern State.
Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby was, however, tightlipped when asked about the timeline of the conference's expansion process.
"I have not made any comment on time frame and do not plan any such statement," Bowlsby also told CBS Sports.
New schools that will be added to the Big 12 Conference are likely to start playing in 2017. Some of the schools most commonly mentioned to benefit from the conference expansion are Brigham Young University in Utah, University of Connecticut, University of Central Florida, Houston, Cincinnati, Memphis, Colorado State, South Florida and Boise State.
These universities are very eager to join the Big 12 Conference, with school officials pitching their cases before the media. University of Central Florida athletic director Danny White, for instance, told ESPN that his team can "elevate" the Big 12 Conference if it indeed makes the cut in the expansion process.
"We check every single box," White told ESPN.com over the phone. "It's inevitable that UCF will be a top 25, even top 10 athletic department. Of the Group of 5 athletic departments, our place has been at the pole position for some time. When you consider the future, it's not even close. We can build a monster here."
