Conference Hokey-Pokey™: Why did the chicken cross the road?

♦ Oklahoma, Oklahoma State to apply to Pac-12, report says (SeattlePI.com)

Oklahoma will petition the Pac-12 Conference for membership before the end of the month and Oklahoma State will follow, Chip Brown of Orangebloods.com reported, citing a source in the Oklahoma administration.

The move would confirm suspicions that the departure of Texas A&M from the Big 12 Conference would cause a chain reaction of other Big 12 teams seeking new conferences. Oklahoma’s move was expected to dictate what other schools, such as Texas and Texas Tech, decide to do.

♦ UT tries to convince OU to stay in the Big 12 (Houston Chronicle, 9/12)

Texas reportedly is offering to pool revenues from the conference's tier I football television games (those broadcast on ABC and ESPN) as a way to equalize revenue for the remaining Big 12 teams if they would stick together.

It would not affect the money generated by the Longhorn Network for UT's tier III games through its 15-year, $300 million contract with ESPN. The Longhorns remain the Big 12's biggest moneymaker by a wide margin because of that contract.

But UT's late offer still might not be enough. A published report Monday indicated the Sooners have formally applied to the Pac-12 to become its 13th member, citing the revenue discrepancy caused by the Longhorn Network as one of the primary reasons they want to leave.

♦ Realignment threats creating game of chicken in college athletics (sportsillustrated.com)

Since the second edition of the Big 12 Missile Crisis turned into the first edition of the Big 12 Hostage Crisis last week, the descriptions of the situation have grown more theatrical.

"It's a big game of chicken," one insider said of the impasse, which began Sept. 6 when Baylor president Ken Starr left a voicemail for SEC commissioner Mike Slive threatening to sue the SEC for accepting Texas A&M's application for membership.

"It's like a bunch of guys sitting around a table pointing guns at each other," said another insider of the situation that will remain gridlocked until Oklahoma decides whether it wants to remain in the Big 12 or move to the Pac-12, where the prevailing attitude is anti-expansion until another conference -- the SEC -- expands, at which time said attitude will become aggressively pro-expansion.

♦ Notre Dame, Texas joining the Big Ten? (Bucyrus Telegraph Forum)

In the Internet community, when Purple Book Cat talks, folks listen. On Thursday, the anonymous PBC started a thread revealing at a Wednesday night meeting, Notre Dame and Texas jointly presented the Big Ten Conference a proposal for terms of entry into the league. Such terms came after lengthy discussions involving both schools over the past several months.

Interestingly, the top priority for both institutions was to get the Big Ten to back off its mandate of a 9-game conference schedule beginning later this decade and maintain the current 8-game slate. This would allow Texas and Notre Dame to continue traditional rivalries, with Oklahoma and USC, respectively.

According to PBC, the status quo would be maintained until 2014, at which point the Longhorn Network would become a part of an expanded Big Ten Network when both schools would join the league.