Daily Stampede Big XII Expansion Links: 8/12

Everyone’s favorite never-ending topic has returned today with actual news! Polish up your Skype accounts because we’ve apparently reached the interview rounds of the process...

• ESPN’s Brett McMurphy broke the news this morning that Big XII commissioner Bob Bowlsby will conduct seventeen video conferences with schools that have shown interest in joining the conference. Among those on the the list are nearly everyone in the AAC (including USF), BYU, Colorado State, Northern Illinois, and two mystery schools who will hopefully revealed in some dramatic fashion. And yes, even New Mexico is getting a call. Doesn’t hurt to ask.
• Also notable from this is the word that the conference expanding to fourteen teams is becoming “less and less likely” with the expansion of only two teams or zero teams altogether the likely outcome of all of this. For timing sake when it comes to USF, let’s hope they punt on this until much later.
• In other news, Oklahoma State head coach Mike Gundy (who is indeed a man and 49 as of today) is adamantly against Houston joining the conference and making recruiting in Texas even tougher for the Pokes.
• As with the domino effect that expansion brings, the AAC getting raided by the Big XII opens the door for schools in Conference USA to move up. Middle Tennessee State has now made their AAC aspirations known.

If there's any other interesting articles that we missed, feel free to share with us.