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OU president says Big 12 is not ready for conference title game

Graham Watson

Dave Boren wants to assure everyone out there that the Big 12 is in no danger of collapsing, or even expanding at this point.

Oklahoma’s president held a 54-minute session with media on Thursday to lay out the future of the Big 12 and stress that the conference is not in bad shape.

“I would emphasize: I don’t think the Big 12 Conference is in any danger of falling apart,” Boren said. “I don’t. There’s no imminent danger of that, nor is there anybody even considering that, I don’t think. Our first choice by far in every possibility for us is to stay in the Big 12 Conference and enhance it, make it stronger, make it better.”

Boren also said he doesn’t expect the Big 12 presidents to take a vote next week to add a conference championship game.

Earlier this month, the NCAA deregulated rules that required conferences to have 12 teams and divisions in order to have a conference title game. Therefore the Big 12 could implement a game with 10 teams and have the teams with the best records play each other for a second time (the Big 12 plays a round-robin format).

Boren said he believes any talk of a conference title game also would come with talk of league expansion to 12 teams and the creation of a Big 12 Network.

However, Boren said there are a lot of differing opinions and interests holding up possible expansion.

While the Big 12 has been resistant to expansion in the past — mostly for financial reasons — Boren said he received binders full of information regarding possible expansion teams more than two weeks ago.

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Graham Watson is the editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at dr.saturday@ymail.com or follow her on Twitter!

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