The never ending rumor of Oklahoma moving to the (fill in the blank) conference refuses to die. OU president David Born kept Paul Finebaum's rumor embers burning in interview with The Oklahoman newspaper. To me, it looks like Oklahoma's bottom line decision will be the bottom line.
By Ryan Aber | May 12, 201
NORMAN—University of Oklahoma President David Boren challenged the notion that OU was desperate to escape the Big 12 on Thursday but Boren said the school also wasn’t closed off to leaving the conference either.
“I think it’s very important for us to always have the possibility of making a move if we want to, but I assure you that we don’t have any plans to make a move,” Boren said Thursday following an OU Board of Regents meeting. “That’s just my responsibility to the institution not to get us into a position where we can’t make our own choice when the time comes. … It’s in our interest that the Big 12 succeed. So no, we’re not desperate to go anywhere else.”
SEC Network and ESPN personality Paul Finebaum said recently that the Sooners were “pretty desperate” to escape the Big 12.
Boren was asked if he knew who Finebaum was.
“No, not really,” Boren said.
The league’s grant of rights, which essentially locks teams into the conference at least until near the end of the deal, runs until the 2024-25 year. The Big Ten’s rights deal expires after the 2022-23 season.
Boren said a few years before that Big Ten deal expires could begin the next wave of realignment in college athletics.
“I’ve been thinking three or four or five years down the road if there’s any need to make a change, but I haven’t wanted us to extend our grant of rights by 20 years or something like that so that OU would have no choices,” Boren said.
Boren didn’t quell the notion that if a conference change is made that he’d rather it be to a conference that has a high academic standing.
“Well, let’s put it this way — the Big Ten and Pac 12 have both emphasized academics and they do have, I think, deserved stature in the academic community,” Boren said. “That’s not the only factor that should be considered obviously. I’m a football fan too—and athletic fan—and I want us in a conference that’s very competitive regularly.”
But Boren also said he remained regretful that the Big 12 didn’t make a move to add more teams during the last major round of realignment—specifically mentioning Louisville and Rutgers as possibilities before the former landed in the ACC and the latter wound up in the Big Ten or that the Big 12 didn’t add a conference when networks were pursuing and paying big money for such projects.
“I wouldn’t write the Big 12 off yet,” Boren said. “It’s had its struggles and obviously our losing the opportunity or letting the opportunity pass us by to have had a network when, back at the time, the networks would’ve been anxious to have us.”
So what’s OU’s future?
“They’re all kind of possible except the ACC really,” Boren said.
