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MORGANTOWN -- I'm scared.
I don't mind telling you, I'm scared after listening to Brett Yormark, the Big 12 commissioner, address the annual Football Media Day.
See, he spoke for quite a while, gave an introductory address and did a Q and A, and you couldn't tell if were in AT&T Stadium or the AT&T board room.
Now I may be wrong, but I don't think in the entire time he had the microphone, I don't think I heard the word touchdown mentioned once and I'm not sure if how many times, if any, I heard a team's nickname mentioned.
No Mountaineers, no Horned Frogs, no Cyclones or Cougars.
There was a whole lot of talk of branding, which some may say is natural in a conference with schools in Texas and Oklahoma, where when you talk branding you're talking about putting your stamp on a cow, but to Yormark this the brand he was talking about was the product brand that the conference puts out to the public.
They could have been talking about upcoming football games as if they were made-for-TV movies.
Once upon a time at a football media day, you talked football. You talked about Heisman Trophy candidates and wishbone formations. You talked about rivalries. There was a little rivalry talk in his time with the microphone, but it was about losing the Red River Rivalry between Texas and Oklahoma, who are taking it after this year to the SEC.
He agreed it was a big time rivalry and that both the schools had written a lot of the conference's history, but in the end, this was how he looked at it.
"The conference is bigger than any two schools," Yormark said.
With the feeling in Morgantown about Pitt coming to town for the Backyard Brawl this year, I'm not sure he's right about that.
See, the vision that Power 5 football now has is a totally different vision that built the college game into what it was.
Today they talk about how what they do will play in Vegas, not in Keyser, W.Va.
Things are out of whack with the game, with the system, with the values.
The NCAA had a championship game that ended with Georgia scoring 65 points and the Big 12's TCU team 7.
Maybe someone should be worrying about competitive balance in the game.
About the only thing that was mentioned along those lines is a push by college football to get Congress involved in some NIL legislation.
"We would like federal legislation to get uniformity into NIL," he admitted.
But there's a problem in that. College football is so splintered that, as a group, it probably can't find a way to reign in the inequalities are inevitable in NIL payments that vary so widely from Alabama, Michigan and Georgia to Kansas State, Iowa State and, yes, West Virginia.
Yormark's approach is strictly business. His target isn't the traditional college football fan but he readily admits its "Gen X".
He's into marketing while football fans are worrying about targeting.
He lists his accomplishments as making a move into Mexico, in adding Spanish language broadcasts, in creating a big time halftime show for the Big 12 Championship game ala the Super Bowl halftime show.
Marching bands? As obsolete now as The New York Times sports section.
He's not selling football. He's selling entertainment.
And he says there have been strong movements toward creating a Big 12 that matches his vision of it since he took over as commissioner a year ago.
""And we're just getting started," he said. "There's a lot more to do."
That, of course, brings us to expansion. The league will be comprised of 14 teams this season with Texas and Oklahoma playing their final season and Houston, Cincinnati, BYU and Central Florida playing their first.
"This year is a celebration," he said, meaning a celebration of the history and legacy of the two exiting schools and of the inclusion of the four who have yearned to get Power 5 status.
He has previously mentioned that eventually he'd like to get to 14 teams as a complete conference.
"I did say 14, you're absolutely right. I do think there's strength in numbers. But I also said we're not chasing the number," Yormark said. "If and when the opportunity presents itself to stay at 14 we'll pursue it. But I did say that and I backpedaled a little bit, because I realized it's not about chasing a number. It's all about creating value for membership. And we'll see where that takes us."
"If we stay at 12 we're perfectly fine with that. If the opportunity presents itself, where there's something that creates value, and aligns well with our goals and objectives, starting with the board, then we're certainly going to pursue it."
And he's not chasing other conferences, either. He did an Ali shuffle when asked where the Big 12 ranks in the pecking order of Power 5 conferences.
"I want the Big 12 to be the best version of ourselves," he said. "If we can do that, we're in a great place. There has been no better time to be part of the Big 12 than right now."
Further expansion is almost sure to come and Yormark admitted that.
"We have a plan for expansion but I won't address it at this time," he said. "Hopefully, we can execute that plan sooner than later."
Most likely to be included? Colorado, coached by Deion Sanders and thinking bigger thoughts than a dying Pac 12.