Sources: UT to Pac-12 (2:20 update)
The Pac-12 appears to be working out the final details of a deal that would bring Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Texas Tech to the conference, sources close to the situation told Hookem.com and the Austin American-Statesman on Sunday morning.
The Board of Regents will vote Monday to authorize Longhorn president Bill Powers to make a decision regarding realignment.
Nothing has been accepted or approved. The deal still needs to be approved by the Pac-12 presidents.
The deal would allow the Longhorns to keep the Longhorn Network. Texas would have to add Pac-12 (soon to be 16) content to the LHN programming. The network would be a combination of Texas and Texas Tech programming.
A high ranking school administrator at one of the four Big 12 schools said, "It's heating up. We're trying to move in that direction (of joining the Pac-12)."
When asked about the terms of the agreement, the administrator said, "We can live with it."
The Longhorns would be able to keep all of their revenue from the network if that amount is greater than one-sixteenth of what the entire Pac-12 receives for its third-tier rights. However, if one-sixteenth of the money the Pac-12 receives from third-tier rights ends up being a larger amount, the schools would divide the revenue evenly and everybody would receive the same amount, the source said.
"Nothing has been definitively confirmed. But that's in the zip code. This is not yet a done deal," a source very familiar with the realignment discussions said Sunday. "It appears that (Pac-12 commissioner) Larry Scott is going to be able to work some magic and help Texas keep the Longhorn Network and their revenue stream."
For football, the conference will be aligned in four four-team pods with Texas being joined by Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State.
Texas will play those schools every year.
How will the overall playing schedule work out for football?
As of right now, the conference is discussing an alignment where teams would play nine conference games. Teams would play every other team in their pod along with two teams from each of the other three pods.
If the Longhorns were in Pod A, they would play the other Pod A teams (Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Texas Tech) every year. They would also play two teams from Pod B, Pod C and Pod D, bringing the total to nine conference games every year.
It is believed the championship game would be decided by overall conference record, meaning any two teams could play in the championship game on a given year.
According to a high ranking school administrator at one of the four Big 12 schools, the Pac-12 has said it will limit the extra-long trips to one per year for every team.
Texas president Bill Powers and athletic directors DeLoss Dodds and Chris Plonsky flew back to Austin from Los Angeles late Saturday night after watching Texas beat UCLA 49-20 in Pasadena on Saturday.
The Longhorn administrators did not meet face to face with Scott while in California this weekend, a source very familiar with the realignment discussions said, but, "It feels like the discussions among the parties are entering a more productive phase."
Another well-placed source close to the situation said they expect that the Texas Board of Regents will vote Monday to authorize Longhorn president Bill Powers to make a decision regarding realignment.
