I can't stress how important it was for UT and OU to announce a year before USC/UCLA.
Interesting to consider the alternative.
If they had announced the same summer, the Big 12 and Pac-12 would have merged. That’s 18 schools (if Oregon and Washington stick around). 16 schools if they leave. And if Stanford left too, you probably add Cincinnati. So you trade BYU, UCF, and Houston for Washington State, Oregon State, and Cal.
If USC/UCLA had announced last summer when we still had OU/UT, the Big 12 likely would have poached the same six Pac-12 programs that we are talking about right now. Wash St, Ore St, Cal, and Stanford are demoted if they can’t latch on elsewhere, and we sit at 16. When OU and UT announced later, we could have stayed at 14 or been in a position to grab BYU and Cincy.
The big losers by this stroke of timing appear to be WSU and OSU, since the conferences would have merged if it all went down at the same time.