Realignment...

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Weiberg was quick to thank former Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby, who announced the addition of BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF to the league just two months after losing the Red River schools. That gave the rest of the conference reassurance that the league would survive. It also showed Weiberg that the Big 12 was becoming forward-thinking, which set up the conference for the revelations of the last week.

“I think we wouldn’t be where we are able to make this move if we hadn’t made that move and those moves,” Weiberg said. “So, I think that was the beginning of the stabilization, and then this is just kinda the next round of positioning our conference to move forward.”

The next round of positioning happened abruptly. The Pac 12’s 108 years of history and tradition came crashing down within nine days. With Oregon and Washington heading to the Big Ten in the shakeup, only Cal, Oregon State, Stanford and Washington State remain. The Big 12 went from 12 to 16 teams because of it. Between all the movement was TV contract talk and negotiations, board of regents meetings, conference meetings, conversations between presidents and universities. Even for an athletic director in the know, it was a whirlwind scenario.

“I’m seeing a lot of the same things everybody else is seeing, right?” Weiberg said. “So, you know that there’s things happening in real time.”

But Weiberg was happy with how it shook out, and the result, he said, was that progressive Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark accomplished his goal of being a national conference. From the outskirts of the Everglades to Great Salt Lake, and from the Sonoran Desert to the Appalachians – Big 12 territory. That creates some issues logistically, but that’s a small price to pay for peace of mind. Gundy brought up travel and distance as issues, which he said could result in more localization down the road, and the loss of tradition is off-putting, but he said he’s thrilled with where OSU is at.

“All of this is somewhat unsettling. There’s a lot of history and tradition that’s being crumbled, but it is what it is,” Gundy said. “Now you just move forward and try to make the best out of it.”

The problems OSU faces now aren’t handwringers like two years ago. Same for the Big 12. There’s solid ground on which to build now. But realignment never goes completely silent today. The Pac 12 has four schools unsure of their future, and the ACC still must re-up its TV contracts.

Gundy set the over/under for more major realignment at 3 1/2 years on Saturday. And Yormark famously said the Big 12 is open for business. After all this, is it still open on the expansion front?

“We felt like 16 was probably the right number,” Weiberg said. “So again, we’ll see. Now this is changing all the time. So, I’m not going to sit here and say never, but I think we feel good about the position we’re in right now.” sports.ed@ocolly.com