In another sign of a precarious era of realignment in college sports, the Big 12 Conference announced invitations Friday to Brigham Young University, Cincinnati, Houston and the University of Central Florida, with the schools able to join as soon as 2023.
The Big 12 had been moving quickly to compensate for the departure of Texas and Oklahoma to the stacked Southeastern Conference, which houses three of the top five football teams (with No. 1 Alabama, No. 2 Georgia and No. 5 Texas A&M). In July, Texas and Oklahoma, two of the Big 12’s founding member schools, announced in a joint statement that they would not renew their existing TV deals beyond 2025, leaving the conference with little choice but to start searching for other candidates to fill the impending hole.