Two weeks after noting that Big 12 expansion "is not a sure thing," Oklahoma president David Boren said Tuesday that the Sooners have not yet reached an institutional opinion on expansion.
SI.com and The Dallas Morning News both reported Tuesday that Boren had "come full circle" and "is now opposed to Big 12 expansion."
"I do not know where the speculation came from," Boren said in a statement to ESPN, "but Oklahoma has not yet taken a position on expansion."
Oklahoma State mega-booster T. Boone Pickens said Tuesday on the Austin American-Statesman's On Second Thought podcast that expansion is "probably unlikely." Pickens also took aim at Boren, suggesting it's time for him to retire and addressing his oscillation on the issue of expansion.
"I've known David forever. He likes to talk. He gets a little bit confused sometimes," Pickens said, according to the Austin American-Statesman.
After a university regents meeting Sept. 14 at OU-Tulsa, Boren noted that expansion shouldn't be "automatically assumed."
"I would just caution you and say I would not take expansion as a given," he said.
Since last year, Boren had been one of the biggest drivers behind the Big 12 expansion movement. He said he believed the Big 12 to be "psychologically disadvantaged" because it was smaller than the other Power 5 conferences.
However, sources have told ESPN that one of Boren's biggest motivations to expand was to drive the creation of a conference network. With only 10 schools and limited markets, expansion was viewed as a prerequisite for getting a network off the ground.
"My hunch is that a Big 12 network might be very advantageous to the entire conference," Boren said in May.
But after the league met with TV officials in June, Boren acknowledged that the "boat had sailed" on the formation of a traditional conference network.
The Big 12 presidents and chancellors are scheduled to meet again Oct. 17 in Irving, Texas, where expansion is expected to be the primary topic.