Bowlsby, Boren announce Big 12 decision against expansion

The members of the Big 12 board of directors met Monday to discuss multiple issues regarding the status of the conference, most notably the notion of potential expansion, and the board decided unanimously against expanding at this time.

Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby along with Oklahoma president David Boren met with the media Monday evening to discuss the findings of the meeting, and Boren described the gathering as one of both strength and unity for the conference.

"I would describe it as a very, very thoughtful and candid meeting, which showed a great deal of unity and strength in the conference," Boren said. "We decided after very thorough discussion that we would remain at ten members. We committed ourselves to that proposition, and each other, and along with that discussion and that decision to remain at ten members at this time."

Boren went on to address the notion of a discussion of particular schools that could be included in the discussion of expansion and asserted that there were no such discussions of the sort at all.

"There was no such discussion," Boren stated. "We had no discussion of individual schools in the sense of taking votes on individual schools, trying to sense support from individual schools. We've gone through a very thoughtful process here in the course of the last year or so, in terms of looking at options to strengthen the conference because we all want to see a stronger Big 12 conference."

The Oklahoma president confirmed that the participation of each school was unified in the decision not to expand at this time, and that the decision was reached unanimously.

"Right now, it's the best for us to stay where we are, to keep our options open about all the ways in which we can move to strengthen the conference," Boren said. "The fact that so many schools of such stature expressed interest in the Big 12 at this point in time is, again, another sign of strength for the conference."

Bowlsby reiterated many of Boren's comments, praising the board for making a strong and unified decision, as well as commending the implementation of a Big 12 championship game.

"We're glad we added a championship game and we think we have through an RFP process, identified some great sites for the hosting of our championship. I think there is a lot of enthusiasm around what that will do for us in terms of giving us an extra opportunity to compete at the highest level."