Two Big 12 sources say all the athletic directors in the Big 12 South, including Texas A&M's Bill Byrne and Texas' DeLoss Dodds, favor holding the remaining 10 schools together.

But that A&M System Chancellor Mike McKinney and Powers may not be able to be talked back to the table.

"If there's evidence we can be more valuable as a 10-member league than as a 12-member league, and you're going to get to have your own TV network, why would you subject your school to all the travel required in the Pac-10?" said one top official at another Big 12 school.

"We just lost our two worst basketball programs (Nebraska and Colorado). We could play nine conference games in football and choose to have the championship game or not, depending on what Texas wants. The two coaches who always hated the conference title game the most were Mack Brown and Bob Stoops. I think the rest of us would be willing to go with that they wanted."