Introducing EXPANSIONPALOOZA 2016: Examining Big 12 Expansion Candidates

This really isn't anything new, either. Although most fans tend to think of the "realignment age" as having begun with Penn State's move to the Big 10, it's really been a thing... well, forever. It's a shame we didn't have the internet back in 1933. Can you imagine the #TwitterFire from the then-13 SEC teams bolting the Southern Conference? Kinda giddy just imagining it, to be honest. The ACC was born 20 years later in exactly the same fashion. The Big 8 (at the time the Big 6) actually predated the SEC in the "Y'all too small for us" competition, breaking away from the Missouri Valley in 1927.

In fact, the perception that conferences grew by extending invitations to independents was never true. The major conferences were formed either via divorce or the banding together of independent schools, and with a few notable exceptions every time the major conferences have expanded it's been a case of the major conference poaching a smaller one, and that's a paradigm which goes back to the 1950s.

And make no mistake: although there was no internet, there was talk. It wasn't uncommon to see sportswriters discussing things such as the possibility of Notre Dame joining the Big Ten even when your grandpa was just a wee Wildcat-in-training. People used to dream up massive realignment scenarios and send them via the postal service to sports editors. (They also used to ask questions like "When is Washburn going to become a big-time school again?" The idea of schools spending money to boost their athletic profile is also not a new one.)

So here we are, six years removed from the beginning of the second-messiest divorce ever covered by sportswriters, and it's time for our annual flagellation of the topic. This time out, we're going all-in. We've reached out to the editors of the five SB Nation blogs actually devoted to legitimate Big 12 expansion candidates (South Florida, Brigham Young, Connecticut, Cincinnati, and Boise State), and to the editors of Underdog Dynasty and Mountain West Connection to gather intel on the other five (Memphis, Tulane, Central Florida, Houston, and Colorado State).

Over the next ten weekdays, starting Monday, we'll provide you some noon reading with a Q&A between Jon and the respective blogger from the candidate school -- and then in the afternoon, a BotC writer will present a rebuttal. Some of those rebuttals may be deadly serious; some may be more tongue-in-cheek than anything. None of those rebuttals, however, will be written by Panjadrum. Sorry, guys. I tried. I really did.

The schedule, assuming nothing goes awry: