Bob Bowlsby read the same news that everyone else read. He heard the same gossip in collegiate athletic circles that everyone else heard. The Big 12 is a dysfunctional family. The rest of the league serves at the pleasure of Texas and Oklahoma. Bowlsby knew that Texas A&M and Missouri fled to the Southeastern Conference for, what was the word? Security.

"I, like many people, had a vision of this conference as unstable," Bowlsby said Friday in Irving, Texas, where the Big 12 introduced the Stanford athletic director as its new commissioner. "... I was very quickly put at ease relative to the stability of the group and the ongoing commitment to one another."

The presidents of the Big 12 schools made a believer out of Bowlsby. So now we see if he can make a league out of the Big 12.

Click here for the rest of Ivan Maisel's story.