*** If Texas ultimately comes aboard with Texas Tech — and that’s the only way TTU is getting in, by the way — then the league will split into the two eight-team divisions sketched out in the spring of 2010 (with Utah filling Texas A&M’s slot). My sense is that those divisions would be somewhat akin to the American and National leagues: There would be inter-division play, but to a certain extent they would exist independently — intense focus on your own group of eight, paths occasionally crossing with the other … and then the championship game collision, of course. I’d also imagine the the conference office would open a eastern branch, probably in Dallas.