Eh, I'm not so sure that works all that well even for Notre Dame and I think less so for anyone else, even Texas. Some reasons:
- I think it is really tough to make the CFP as an independent. Notre Dame did it this year by going undefeated but I feel that if they had lost even one game they'd have been out.
- The conference is a financial safety-net. When Ohio State has a bad year in football and nobody watches the Buckeyes and they don't get bowl revenue Ohio State still gets their share of the B1G money.
- I think it is getting harder to be an independent because there are less of them. That makes scheduling difficult not just in football but in all the other sports as well.
- No conference means no conference titles, ever, in any sport.
In the long-run, I think they'll be in a conference I just can't guess which one.
Agree with all your points, and especially the final two. There's a reason schools are moving FROM independence, to conference affiliation. Notre Dame is a rare exception, and Texas ain't Notre Dame.
Scheduling for football
only would be tough enough, just imagine how complex it would be for the non-revenue sports that play much longer schedules. Notre Dame has "parked" its non-revenue sports in the ACC, but the analogous conference for Texas to park its non-revenue sports would be... the Big XII. Which probably wouldn't exist without Texas, so then the next best is some G5? If you think Texas is arrogant, can you imagine the howling from the billionaire boosters if UT baseball, volleyball, and basketball aren't competing on the P5 level? Red McCombs donates millions annually to the UT
softball team, there's no way he wants to see them in the AAC or similar. And Red McCombs is one of the very biggest of the big cigars at Texas.
If football ever decoupled from the other sports at a national level with respect to conference affiliation, then it might be possible for Texas (and others) to make more moves. Without that, the entirely of the rest of the sports are always going to be a factor. And a regional conference makes the most sense for those sports.
Texas is in the B12 because it makes the most sense. I don't anticipate this changing even with the next round of conference broadcast rights negotiation. If OU decided to bail then I think Texas would have to consider a change, if not then I expect both schools to sit tight, right where they are.