Once Texas A&M moves to the SEC, expect Oklahoma to try and dart for the Pac-12, taking Oklahoma State with them. That would just about kill the Big 12, especially with Missouri looking elsewhere, the Big East eying Kansas and Texas being Texas (and probably ending up in the Pac-12).
There are nuances and complexities here, but that's where we stand.
So what to do about reports that the Longhorns are also looking to the ACC?
Chip Brown of Orangebloods.com has been reporting that possibility for a while now, joined Tuesday by the Austin-American Statesman. A Carolina paper reporting on interest and discussion from the other side of the arrangement would be nice to see at some point.
As Brown eventually notes there, it all comes back to the Longhorn Network. Texas will consider any of the remaining four power conferences that will let it keep its vanity network. The Pac-12 won't, the ACC might, and the Big Ten already has the Big Ten Network. Nothing would rule out the SEC as far as I know, as Florida and other schools have sold their third-tier media rights on their own, though not to the same scale as Texas has.
The Texas-to-ACC noise has been just a little too public to be believable. We know Texas and the Pac-12 have been in one or another discussion for well over a year now and the Big Ten tried to land Texas even before that. For now, think of these ACC reports as media gamesmanship by Texas in an effort to put some pressure on the Pac-12 and maybe the Big Ten.
But the ACC is a great baseball conference, as Brown points out. Good for ACC baseball!