Twelve different views on the Big 12

These quotes were lifted from multiple sources. Thanks to all who first reported or wrote them.

1. “It goes without saying the quality of the conference athletically and academically is there. People should be able to sit down and try to cast aside whatever petty jealousies exist and take a mature approach.” -- Kansas State football coach Bill Snyder.

2. "The University of Oklahoma has no ambition to dominate any conference. We simply have the ambition of being a member, an equal member, of any conference, playing by the same rules, by having a level playing field for all the members of that conference and developing a high level of trust in each other. That's our goal. That's what we're after.” -- University of Oklahoma President

David Boren.

3. "It seems the decisions about realignment in the Big 12 are being driven by a few powerful individuals, without the benefit of any open discussion of the consequences of such actions on our great state." -- Baylor President

Ken Starr.

4. "I think we better go back and make sure we're taking care of the player. For the parents of these players to travel all the way across the country it will put more burden on them." -- Texas football coach

Mack Brown.

5. "Until there is some kind of finality of things, there is no need to have a discussion about it." -- Iowa State football coach

Paul Rhoads.

6.  "At the end of the day, as the landscape changes, you have to change with it." -- Oklahoma football coach Bob Stoops.

7. "I have no control over it," Missouri football coach Gary Pinkel. 

8. "There's something decidedly anti-fan about the way these things are going. Even professional sports teams don't have the audacity to assume they can switch leagues, discard longtime rivals and create disparate geographic amalgamations that barely resemble competitive organizations ... and expect fans to follow along forever. College sports presidents and commissioners seem to assume that you will. At the end of the day, they're probably right. And maybe that's the root problem." -- Eamonn Brennan, ESPN.com.

9. "I have spoken, literally, to every institution in the Big 12 that has the possibility of being displaced. I've spoken to a number of Big East institutions. I've had a lot of conversations with TCU; TCU hasn't left yet. They've announced they're leaving (the MW for the Big East), but who knows where all this ends up?" -- Mountain West Conference Commissioner Craig Thompson.

10.  "I believe that we should have a robust academic atmosphere among all schools in the league. What schools have cinch courses or gut courses? We don't have any and never will. The Pac-12 doesn't. Some Big 12 schools do." -- University of Colorado President Bruce Benson.

11. " (There is a theory) that this is about TV wars, that ESPN dropped this bomb on Texas (with the Longhorn Network) to try to create a tough situation for Fox Sports. You hate to think that is driving all this and we will never have a league in the heartland or the middle part of America because of that, but it is liable to be happening." -- former Oklahoma State football coach Pat Jones.

12. "If you can't get if fixed, might as well go west," Oklahoma State benefactor T. Boone Pickens.