Dan Beebe had his chance two years ago to save the Big 12 Conference, but the commissioner blew it by deciding to put his trust in Big Ten counterpart Jim Delany.
Instead, as many as eight Big 12 teams could get offers this week to join other conferences. Beebe, in a last-ditch effort to keep his league together, has given Nebraska and Missouri a deadline of Friday to commit to the Big 12.
Six other Big 12 teams are reportedly being targeted by the Pacific 10, which is looking to create a 16-team superconference.
All this could have been avoided if Beebe had decided in 2008 to support a proposal for a "Plus One" format to the Bowl Championship Series, writes Dan Wetzel of Yahoo! Sports.
The proposal, backed by the Southeastern and Atlantic Coast conferences, would have created a four-team playoff. The added revenue from the playoff would have kept Big 12 members rolling in cash. But Beebe chose to follow Delany's lead and, along with the Pacific 10 and Big East, opposed the measure.
Now he's looking at the breakup of his league.
Delany's opposition to the Plus One format, according to Wetzel, was merely a ploy to buy time for his fledgling Big Ten Network to get fully operational. Now that the cash machine is rolling, Delany and new Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scott are ready to make their moves.
"Protecting the BCS wasn't about greed. It wasn't about determining a real champion. It was about power. Now the Pac-10 and Big Ten have it," Wetzel writes.
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