There's material in here that was new to me. I've underlined parts that may be of particular interest.
In August 2014, the NCAA Division I Board of Directors voted to allow the 65 schools in the five wealthiest conferences the autonomy to write many of their own rules.
The following January, at the annual NCAA Convention, the members of the SEC, ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and Pac-12 were able to establish ways of doing business specific to them. The smaller NCAA member schools, more than 300, could opt in, but could no longer use their strength in number to stop the big boys from charting a new course.
Power-five conference members opted to give their athletes stipends that cover full cost of attendance above and beyond the athletic scholarship and offer those scholarships for the duration of their college careers. Previously, scholarships were one-year agreements renewable annually. There are other components, but that's a key one.
Texas Tech and Houston opened the 2021 season facing each other as non-conference opponents. In the near future, the two teams will be together as Big 12 members with UH accepting an invitation on Friday to join the conference.
That's important to keep in mind in the wake of the major changes to the college sports landscape this summer.
Power-five status is not merely a perception; it was legislated. The "autonomy five" do business, in some ways, as they see fit.
Texas and Oklahoma are leaving the Big 12 for the SEC, by July 2025 and perhaps sooner, and the Big 12 moved quickly to replace those two schools, extending membership invitations that were formally accepted Friday by Brigham Young, Central Florida, Cincinnati and Houston.
The departures of the two most high-profile schools can't be glossed over. No one expects the media-rights partners to pay as much for a reconstituted Big 12 as one with the national brands the Sooners and Longhorns represent. The moves shook the Big 12 and prompted many who support the eight left behind to wonder: Is the Big 12 still a power-five conference? To not be, however, that status would need to be revoked or relinquished voluntarily.
Again, power-five stature was legislated, giving members of those schools more say in how they do business.
In addition to making some of their own rules to give their athletes extra benefits, members of those five conferences also are guaranteed representation on the College Football Playoff selection committee. Tech athletics director Kirby Hocutt has chaired that committee in the past, and Kansas State AD Gene Taylor is a current member.
Once accorded that status, there's no way a conference is going to give that up.
Texas Tech has no plans to opt out of giving its athletes the extra benefits permitted since the landmark 2015 NCAA Convention.
We asked Hocutt whether Tech, potentially facing some difficult budget questions with the uncertain value of the annual Big 12 revenue distribution post-2025, would consider dropping the full cost-of-attendance stipend.
"No way, no," Hocutt said. "No way. Never even crossed our mind."
For scholarships that cover full cost of attendance, Tech athletics pays about $750,000 a year more than what it did in the past.
Tech plans to keep doing that, and there appears a good chance the Big 12' financial shortfall from a lower-media-rights payout on the front end can be be somewhat mitigated on the back end by an expanded College Football Playoff.
USA Today's Steve Berkowitz reported in June that the proposed expansion of the College Football Playoff to 12 teams could triple the CFP's value, from about $600 million a year under the current four-team model to more than $2 billion annually. That's based on projections supplied to USA Today from Navigate, a firm specializing in college and professional sports rights valuations.
CFP revenue funnels down to the schools, with members of the autonomy-five conferences receiving more.
There's no reason to think Tech won't be part of the power-five, or its equivalent, once the Big 12 is reformed. "Our position within the NCAA governance structure," Hocutt said, "is not going to change."
So are there reasons to think the Big 12 looks less appealing and marketable minus UT and OU? For sure.
But the Big 12 losing its status among college football's top tier of conferences isn't likely to be one.
Don Williams is a sports reporter for the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal.