Outsider's view: NU made the right decision. The Big 12 was falling apart at the seams, and was nothing but ADs/Presidents saying one thing in a conference room, and then something else to the press. Like the moron President at OU who, right after the conference members all gave assurance that they were sticking around, went right to the press with the "OU will not be a wallflower" comment. Or that arrogant jackass DeLoss Dodds stating "Texas didn't start this, but we'll finish it." Some other things to consider:
- Dan Beebe was allowing Texas, and to some degree OU to run the conference
- The other 10 schools would never band together and outvote UT/OU on anything that would benefit the conference as a whole. Baylor & Texas Tech were especially cowardly, and bowed to whatever their masters in Austin told them to.
- Big 12 could never get a network off the ground.
- Big 12 tv deal sucked. (still does, there are conference games on an ESPN streaming platform, and not on regular tv. Pathetic!)
- TV money was distributed by appearances...which were determined by the networks. Non-blue blood schools never stood a chance.
- Bowl tie ins were very weak, and the selection process was terrible.
Now, NU is in a conference with an excellent conference network and all games are televised. All teams in the conference row in the same direction. Decisions at the conference level are made with the greater conference in mind, not to just the benefit of two power teams. The Big 12 continues to flop and flounder around like a bunch of idiots. At the end of the day, Texas and OU still run the show, they still don't have a conference network and Texas still has it's own tv network and shares NONE of the revenue.
Regardless of on-field success, CU, NU, MU & aTm are all in better, more stable places today.