for the record, I hate to break up the Ann Richards lovefest on every message board and lazy media report... But she had zero to do with getting Baylor in the big12. Even though, she graduated from Baylor, she wore UT colors everywhere she went and worked hard to disown herself from Baylor. Bullock, Sibley and lobbyists were influential in getting Baylor invited to the Big12 but it was not at the expense of TCU, SMU, Houston and Rice. It was at the expense of BYU and another school- can't remember who it was versus TT/Baylor.
Baylor at the time was coming off a decent run in football: 10-11 versus Texas; solid winning records against all those other Texas private schools and about 10,000 more fans per game than any of those schools.
Baylor is likely to be tethered to the Texas teams this go around. People may not like it, but it is likely the reality. Baylor churns out a lot of lawyers, judges, lobbyists and politicians. These folks have political power in Texas. For example, a few Baylor alumni are in key positions of power with the public university fund (PUF) that controls so much of the money supply to the state universities. There are some skeletons out there- like big state schools borrowing tens of millions of dollars to meet budget shortfalls and then funneling the money to athletics. Some stuff that would be very embarrassing to explain if media spotlight was focused on it...
So I think you are going to witness lots of solidarity in Texas once things were fully explained about how the system works. People might not like it. And I am fairly apathetic about football. If Baylor landed with Kansas, Kansas State, Louisville, Missouri, etc... in a conference, I would be happy. But there are so many people making ignorant statements on the internet like, it is "all about television money and football." Of course, that is the driver. But it is also largely about politics. This is why OU can't go without OSU. Kansas can't go without KSU. And likely, the four big 12 South Texas schools are also married.
