NFL News NFL News, Reports and Updates 
Aug. 2—He sees UConn’s presence as a muscle flex in doubling down on basketball, even as a catalyst for future expansion.
He sees a conference with a national footprint, with strongholds not only in concentric rings around Texas but in the Northeast and Southeast, and believes adding the Huskies to recent addition Colorado would give the Big 12 what it needs, geographically and otherwise, in a college athletics world certain to keep evolving.
Yormark has been all-in on UConn for months, sources say, after the Huskies showed a football pulse last season under Jim Mora and before they won their latest men’s basketball national championship under Dan Hurley.
But as the national realignment circus rumbles on and jockeying continues, Yormark still has convincing to do with the Big 12 board, with university presidents and chancellors, in an effort to get all major players to share and appreciate his vision.
Clarity on the future of two conferences is expected soon, probably later this week or early next week. The Pac-12, which is down to nine teams in the wake of Colorado’s departure, will announce a TV/media contract and its remaining institutions will either be more inclined to remain on board or embrace an opportunity elsewhere.
Everyone involved or affected is sitting on pins and needles, waiting for resolution. There isn’t necessarily an anti-UConn sentiment across the Big 12, sources say. But there is a preference for patience, something Yormark is short on, in order to consider the option of adding established Power Five programs from any Pac-12 fallout.
The Big 12 got the first chip it wanted in Colorado and the first wave of thought in the conference was to continue West, further into Pac-12 territory. The questions to consider for campus leaders who may be largely unfamiliar with the Northeast market and, fairly or…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/analysis-thebig-12-conference-commissioner-200200778.html?src=rss
Author : Journal Inquirer, Manchester, Conn.
Publish date : 2023-08-02 20:02:00
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.
