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Big 12 Expansion: Why NOT Brigham Young

Gracey Terrill, seasoned fact checker, dives into the reasons the Big 12 should avoid adding BYU at all costs.

Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

Cougar day here at BotC, as we spoke earlier with Matt Brown of Vanquish the Foe to find out what's awesome about BYU. Gracey, however, seems to have some issues...

As with most topics that involve things that I love, such as the Big 12, I have a lot of questions. Not only do we need to be thorough with our examinations of possible schools, we need to be factual. Below are some questions and undisputed facts that I compiled for those left wondering about what Brigham Young University would do for the Big 12 as a whole.

Does BYU want to join the Big 12 to prove to Utah that they are superior and can find their own Power Five conference to join?

It is a tale as old as time. No, not Beauty and the Beast. Classic love story involving rival colleges with cool lakes and both colleges in the Mountain West Conference. One college leaves the shaky conference and upgrades to a Power Five conference like the Pac-12. Meanwhile, the other school is left without a conference and is a strong independent school that don’t need no man.

Utah, flourishing in the Pac-12, drives BYU crazy for a while and then they realize they are okay being on their own. However, they still long for a conference that loves them and allows them to thrive without changing who they are as a program. Can they ever find one? Oh wait, look at that illustrious Big 12 in need of their program’s rich history of football and dedicated fan base! Could it be?

This is a classic tale of upgrading so your ex can see how much better you are without them. With the built in rivalry with TCU, BYU seems to be an opportunist in this situation and is capitalizing on the Big 12’s weakened and desperate state. The Big 12 doesn’t want to be BYU’s rebound, yet ever since they got dumped by four programs as recently as 2012, it might be time for the Big 12 to move on.

No games played on a Sunday?

The outrage! The horror! This is offensive. This would make time for student athletes in the Big 12 to catch up on homework and have a set day to relax. You cannot spell college sports OR NCAA profiting from unpaid student athletes with “relax,” so this would be a very bad move.

This would also leave an entire day for Big 12 sports fans across the nation to fully focus on the NFL during football season on any given Sunday. This would almost guarantee crime rates skyrocketing among the youth of the Big 12.

Would the prestigious Big 12 tailgating atmosphere suffer?

For a majority of the fans watching Kansas State, alcohol is a must. While I cannot speak on behalf of all of the schools in our conference, I can almost guarantee Kansas Football fans feel this way. When I first learned about the addition of West Virginia to the Big 12, I was absolutely elated. Burning couches, moonshine and Morgantown! What a great time to be had!

Our conference has some of the best tailgating in the nation, we would be taking a major L in regards to fun levels of tailgating. Is it even possible to have fun without alcohol? What do people do for the first 21 years of their lives? So many questions that need to be answered.

Cougars as a mascot?

Your mascot is an oversexed middle aged mom? Think of the children, BYU.

How do we split up the conference with BYU and keep inter-conference rivals?

1 Kansas State TCU
2 BYU Oklahoma State
3 Oklahoma Kansas
4 Iowa State West Virginia
5 Baylor Texas
6 Texas Tech ?????

Well, that was too easy. Next argument.

Do people know that it would take 25 days for West Virginia to get to Provo, Utah by foot?

This is just ridiculous! Are we trying to alienate Bob Huggins? What if there were no planes left, no buses available and all the cars were broken? Sure, this would be considered an apocalypse, but college athletics MUST go on regardless of something silly like a natural disaster.

The NCAA might want to review just how incredibly far we would be making the self proclaimed “Mountaineers” trek across part of the country with very few mountains. In my own opinion, this would be a very dangerous risk that Bob Bowlsby should review thoroughly before making any irrational decisions.

As you can tell, these reasons alone should halt any consideration of BYU for the expansion of a conference desperately in need of programs with a rich history in football, a built in market and fans that travel well with others.