Despite incoming Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark saying he would be willing to seek out a «win-win scenario» for Texas and Oklahoma to depart the conference early, the two schools' athletic directors said on Monday that nothing has changed on a potential exit date.
The SEC has said Texas and Oklahoma will join the league on July 1, 2025, but there has been speculation that they could or would prefer to join earlier. Yormark said at Big 12 media days last week that he was open to an amicable breakup.
«That being said, it's important that whatever happens is in the best interest of this conference,» he said, «but I look forward to the right time to have those conversations.»
After speaking at a session together on navigating change in athletic departments at the Texas High School Coaches' Association conference in San Antonio, the ADs said they had yet to have any of those discussions.
«Look, I know people are asking a lot of those questions and it's fair,» Oklahoma AD Joe Castiglione said. «There's a lot changing around us. If that facilitates a conversation that needs to take place about an earlier departure then it does. But I have said very consistently — I know my counterpart [at Texas] Chris Del Conte said the same thing, as have our presidents — that we informed the conference that we would lead after '25 and we plan on fulfilling our obligations and do the honorable thing.»
Del Conte said he has yet to meet Yormark or have a conversation with him other than league-wide zoom meetings.
«We're in the Big 12,» Del Conte said. «We're going to honor our commitments. Those things are all premature.»
Both Castiglione and Del Conte, who are close friends and talk nearly daily, they said, mentioned they were not surprised
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