President Loftin is committed to doing what is best for Texas A&M not only now, but also in the future. We continue to have wide-ranging conversations regarding all aspects of the university, including both academics and athletics.

The Conference members are committed to working together to address issues in a manner that benefits all members. There are elements of our new television agreement, which take effect in 2012, that need clarification and the members will be working together to develop a process that will work to the benefit of the entire Conference. Until the members have a chance to consider all the issues and come to conclusion about how the Conference will manage the interplay between the Conference television package and institutional networks, no more than one live football game will be televised on any institutional network and no high school content will be televised on a branded member’s network.

"Don't blame structure," Delany says, "until you have a group of core presidents, athletic directors, commissioners and coaches who are willing to embrace real change" and are shot down.

"At that juncture," he says, "then I think it's fair to look at how else you get it."

"We didn't plan it, exactly, but what we've ended up with is probably better than we would have planned," Texas athletics director DeLoss Dodds said Wednesday during the Big 12 meetings ...

"Now I can say this: I was always a little bit jealous of the Pac-10," said [commissioner Dan] Beebe, referring to its previous ability to schedule round robins in football and double round-robins in basketball.

Big 12 schools for the first time will ... drop the title game that three times cost its loser a chance to play for the national championship.

"I think it hurt more than it helped; I like where we are not having the game," Dodds said.

Posted by Tom Fornelli

Although the Big 12 is no longer a conference with 12 teams, there is no plan to change the name of the conference at anytime in the future. Speaking with Big12sports.com's Wendell Barnhouse -- which is the most Big 12 name ever -- commissioner Dan Beebe said that there will be no change to the conference's name.

“Most people believe that the Big 12 is the name on the banner under which we have competed, under which we’ve won national championships,” Beebe said. “I think the name we have is the name we’re going to continue with.”

Which does not come as a surprise because had the Big 12 been planning on changing its name, it likely would have done so already. Plus, as we all know, the number in the name of a conference really doesn't have any relevance. It's the brand that counts, which is why the Big Ten has always been known as the Big Ten even after Penn State became it's eleventh member in 1990, and will continue to be known as the Big Ten now that Nebraska is it's twelfth member.

Sure, the Pac-10 is changing to the Pac-12, but we all know how image conscious the west coast is.

Now, I suppose that if they really wanted to, the Big Ten and Big 12 could just trade names with each other, but why would the Big Ten do that? Isn't already clear that anytime the Big Ten wants something from the Big 12 it's just going to take it? 

The deal would have FSN double the number of football games it is allowed to carry, from 20 to more than 40. Fox also is keeping all digital and mobile rights to those games, and it would retain cable exclusivity for all Big 12 contests. That means that ESPN will be able to show Big 12 games only if it buys them in syndication from Fox. It also gives Fox flexibility to carry games on its other cable channels.