additional problems for itself because it will have to deal with enough problems trying to appease all those members. Remember conference scheduling for football is very limited compared to the other sports (including basketball). If a conference wants to expand beyond 16 football members, then it will only do so in even numbers because even numbers are much more schedule friendly in a conference that large. Whereas having odd number of members can still work for basketball and the other non-football sports. Remember at one point the Big East had 19 non-football members prior to the basketball-football divorce. It may help explain why the Big XII has resumed talks with Gonzaga, but we are not seeing any reports about the Big XII having any discussions with UConn because as you say the conference has not identified anyone to be UConn's partner even as a football-only member. If the Big XII does have any future discussions with UConn, then you should see the conference have similar discussions with at least 1 other football school (i.e. Temple, USF, Memphis, etc.) to maintain an even number of football schools. The exception should be if the conference starts to lose football members and UConn is added to fill 1 of those slots.