Big 12 Football: 3 programs most appealing to the PAC-12

TCU

There’s no doubt that the Horned Frogs should be one of the first calls for the PAC-12 in the conversation of conference expansion among those schools out of the Big 12. If the PAC-12 has an idea to just pull between two and four schools out of the Big 12 to move the total membership of the conference to 16, TCU makes a lot of sense.

TCU already had a strong presence as one of the more dominant Group of Five football program when it was a member of the Mountain West Conference. The ability for TCU to succeed as a football program under the direction of longtime head coach Gary Patterson should be something that the PAC-12 holds at a high level of confidence.

Under Patterson’s coaching regime, TCU has posted a record in football of 178-74 (.706) over the course of 22 years. A winning percentage over .700 is nothing to scoff at, and that’s a type of long-term sustainability that should really appeal to the PAC-12.

And there’s already a school of thought out there that holds that the Horned Frogs should go to the PAC-12 if it does leave the Big 12 in this round of conference realignment. If the Big 12 does start to fragment soon, then watch out for the discussions of the Horned Frogs to the PAC-12 to become much more common.

TCU is a respected academic institution that could bring at least part of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex TV market and recruiting grounds to the PAC-12. Given that and an emergent football and men’s basketball program under Patterson and Jamie Dixon, and you get a solid PAC-12 expansion candidate out of the Horned Frogs.