The Big 12 has always been an uneasy alliance, forged out of necessity than desire.  When Arkansas left the old Southwest Conference in 1991, the remaining 8 teams knew their days were numbered.  All the schools were from Texas, which was great for Texas, but not so attractive for the television viewing audience for the rest of the USA.   

It didn’t take long for some teams to settle on their futures:  Texas, Texas A&M, and Texas Tech were set to join the Big 8.  Influential law-makers added Baylor to the mix (then Governor Ann Richards was a Baylor Alum).  Those 4 teams were to join the Big 8 Conference to form the Big 12. 

Since the Beginning, Nebraska held firm in their very staunch opposition to the formation of the Conference.  It had nothing to do with ceding influence to Texas as the Conference’s power broker, but everything to do with a competitive advantage that they saw slipping away.  In the Big 8, programs were allowed to field an unlimited number of “partial qualifiers”, in other words, players who either qualified with their grades or with college entrance exams to be eligible for a scholarship, but not both.  In order for a player to qualify academically, they needed grades and a minimum score on their exams everywhere else in the country, but not the Big 8.  Nebraska used this policy to build a juggernaut in the mid-90s, winning two consecutive national championships, and a share of another.