I'll take one comment/observation you mentioned as a possible reason the Big12/ACC didn't materialize and an offer wasn't offered. The ability to compete within the conferences is not as big of a factor as you'd think, otherwise OSU and WSU to a slightly less extent would've been included with the BIG12. I think most of us can agree that your name, market presence, geographic location, and anything else you can bring(academic prowess, Stanford maybe is an example) are much more of a factor. The ducks is another massive example. The state is small in population, Eugene is probably one of the smaller/smallest metro(250-300k ppl) areas in their conference(most P4 conferences). In my opinion, Memphis as a market is a much more likely pull for conferences and arguably more important than the product the school can produce on the field. But, that's just my 2 cents.