The B12 (XII) Forum, home of the 'Front Porch, y'all' at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

UH, SMU no. They’re football program has mostly been in shambles for decades. They don’t need another small private Christian school with no fan base. 

North Texas may have better potential but I don’t see it. Best they can do is convince a few AAC teams and go on name recognition. But in reality they’ll probably simply fold up and cease to exist just like the SWC and Big East. 

No, it won’t be power 5 but it will still be a quasi power 5 group. I’m fairly certain that no team has ever been demoted from power 5 to g5 unless you count the old big East teams. 

So you’re going to have some teams that are major state university’s that have much more to offer than your typical G5 teams. We’ve already seen that there are lots of G5 teams that can compete on a very high level.  oSu for instance would compare very well to the lower tier P5 schools like MSU and Vanderbilt. Perhaps IU from the B10 and Northwestern. 

I think if the B12 is smart they will try to pickup 4 of the best remaining G5 teams and schedule smartly. 

all negotiations will be uncomfortable because the remaining Big 12 teams will have no more leverage than SMU or Houston, and not just scheduling

it's sad, but reality of small markets and the power of money 

No, it won’t be power 5 but it will still be a quasi power 5 group. I’m fairly certain that no team has ever been demoted from power 5 to g5 unless you count the old big East teams.

So you’re going to have some teams that are major state university’s that have much more to offer than your typical G5 teams. We’ve already seen that there are lots of G5 teams that can compete on a very high level.  oSu for instance would compare very well to the lower tier P5 schools like MSU and Vanderbilt. Perhaps IU from the B10 and Northwestern.

I think if the B12 is smart they will try to pickup 4 of the best remaining G5 teams and schedule smartly.

I think that's what it should do.  But "smart" and "Big 12" haven't gone together like soup and sandwich.
If the Big 12 had been smart, it would still consist of the original 12 teams.  But it wasn't, so it doesn't.

if the original Big 12 teams would have just resigned themselves to the fact they had TV markets that couldn't compete with the Big and the SEC, they could have taken a few fewer millions annually and preserved a solid athletically competitive conference

but, greed wouldn't allow this

I'll probably go to my grave believing that unequal revenue-sharing was a big part of the cancer that killed the original Big 12.  And, yes, Texas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, and Nebraska all supported it and benefitted from it.

The difference between how the Big 12 handled revenue-sharing and how the SEC handles it are part of why nobody wants to leave the SEC and why teams did want to leave the Big 12 when they got the chance.  It wasn't just the money.  It was the screw-your-neighbor mentality that the money represented.
The SEC wasn't the monster that it is now in the early '00s.  There were several very good conferences and the Big 12 was one of them, maybe the best, with national championships in '97, '00, and '05, and appearances in the NC game in '01, '03, '04, and '09.  But the Big 12 wasn't built for the long haul.
I'll bet that if the Big 12 gets new members and survives as an almost-P4 conference it will maintain unequal revenue sharing, setting the stage for further breakups down the road.
As for the complaints from oSu and Tech about the probable OU/UT departure, they have no grounds for complaint.  Both of those schools were ready to go to the Pac back in 2010-ish, leaving the other Big 12 schools in the lurch.

Cincinnati might not be interested

I don't see them surviving as a conference.  The current TV contract allows ESPN/Fox to lower the payout if members depart.  Looking at the AAC as the best G5 contact, it pays less than $7mil per school compared to about $20mil for the Big 12.  $7 mil per year won't pay for the coaching staffs at most, if not all, Big 12 programs.  So it looks grim for filling the Big 12 ranks with G5 schools. 

It might come down to who can raid whom--the rump Big 12 or the AAC.