Oct. 17 is here, but who knows how big of a day it will be for the Big 12

3:11 p.m. Update:

The verdict is in: Big 12 not expanding

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Original Post 11:31 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 16:

Unless you’re one of the members of the Big 12 board of directors that will gather Monday in Dallas for a meeting that has been circled on the calendar like Christmas Day for some schools and tax day for others, it’s impossible to know exactly where the Big 12 stands on expansion.

The most recent reports from some of the best reporters covering the conference, men and women with strong source lists and an even stronger desire to get to the bottom of this mess, seem to indicate that expansion is all but dead.

And that very well may be the case.

Whether it’s because the powers that be in the Big 12, as hard as they tried, just could not convince themselves that adding Houston, BYU, Cincinnati or any other school in that realm was in the best interest of the conference or because the Big 12’s television partners paid them not to, expansion today appears to be somewhat of a long shot.

But this is the Big 12 we’re talking about and if the conference has proven nothing else during the past few months — and, really, few years — it’s that nothing is impossible and nearly everything, good and bad, is in play.

That includes one of the most recent possibilities to see the light of day — adding schools in a football-only capacity.

Ugh.

Multiple sources in the conference have told me in the past few weeks that the reason the conference has been so quiet and avoided making any absolute comments about the Big 12’s feelings toward expansion is because very few people, outside of the board, have full knowledge or even a solid gauge of the thinking and planning and it tends to change quickly.

Even still, the fact that the conference was not quiet about its dogged pursuit of the most intriguing schools for expansion and conducted a very public, Survivor-style interview process that featured universities falling all over themselves to get a meeting with Big 12 officials to state their case is going to make for some awfully dysfunctional commentary if the conference reveals Monday that it plans to do nothing.

Keep in mind that even if that’s what comes out of Monday’s meeting, it does not necessarily mean things are dead for good. Remember that whole tends to change quickly thing? Who’s to say it couldn’t change again?

With all that in mind, it’s at least of some interest that BYU plans to live stream the post-meeting press conference on its official web site and members of the Cincinnati media also are planning to be in Dallas.

I’m sure all of the outlets involved are just covering their butts and do not necessarily know anything about what is or is not going to happen. After all, even if all of the local media members believe that expansion is dead, they’d look foolish not being there to cover it if the Big 12 shocked, well, nobody, by announcing plans to expand.

We’ll know soon enough where this latest chapter ends. Monday’s meeting is expected to take the bulk of the day and the Big 12 Conference itself will be live streaming the post-meeting press conference on its web site for those of you interested in tuning in.