IS TCU HEADED to the BIG 12?

As strange as it may seem, women's athletics depend almost entirely upon revenue generated by football. That's true for most of the men's sports too. Thus TV money from football will be driving conference realignment.

The Big 10 Conference has the most lucrative TV contract which would make an offer to a non-Big 10 team hard to resist. In this scenario let's say that Iowa State chooses to leave the Big 12 for greener pastures in the Big 10.

That move would give the Big 10 Conference 12 teams and allow a lucrative conference championship football game. And the Big 10's TV contract would become even richer.

That would leave the Big 12 with 11 members. Here are some teams the Big 12 might target to get back to 12 teams.

TCU - The Big 12 is licking its chops at the prospect of replacing Iowa State with a TCU team that has strong fan support in the giant Dallas/Fort Worth TV market. Amazingly, there is no Big 12 team in DFW. One has to think that TCU is the number one target. From TCU's viewpoint, their travel schedule becomes less arduous and their chances of getting to the BCS bowl championship game are improved. This looks like a win-win situation.

UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON - Houston is a possibility for many of the reasons mentioned above. The negatives with Houston are that they do not have a large fan base, they are regarded as a commuter college and they have an image, unfair as it is, that they are Cougar High.

UNIVERSITY OF TULSA - This one has merit because the non-Texas teams may be resistant to adding yet another Texas team. The negatives here are that Tulsa will not bring a lot of TVs to the party and their fan base is not avid.

SMU - This is not likely. The SMU program is not ready for prime time yet and they have the stigma that comes with being the only program to have had the NCAA so-called death penalty.

ARKANSAS - Even though this name keeps popping up, there is little or no chance they will leave the SEC. Plus their fans are - I'm being polite here - rude to visitors. This one is a non-starter.

LSU - Another name that pops up occasionally. The Big 12 would be very pleased to add them but would they leave the SEC? Not likely. Why would they? They trade Florida and Alabama for Texas and Oklahoma. Come to think of it, that might appeal to them, especially since OU seems unable to put it all together nowadays. But would LSU put up with OUs ongoing NCAA violations?

It appears that the Big 10 is set to pick off a Big 12 team setting in motion a series of events that will realign most conferences and quite possibly result in the addition of TCU to the Big 12. Go Frogs!