"That's never been in play, that's not in play," Texas athletic director DeLoss Dodds said.
So with that line drawn in the sand, the Big 12 leadership has scheduled a key meeting for Thursday, Oklahoma president David Boren said.
"The most important goal for the University of Oklahoma is conference stability," he said. "We intend to support actions that will strengthen and stabilize the conference at the very important meeting of the conference board."
The Pac-12 late Tuesday quashed any hope of Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, and Texas Tech heading west in what surely would have been a death blow to the Big 12.
But the conference realignment wheels continue to turn, especially with the Aggies planning to join the Southeastern Conference as soon as legal threats are out of the way.
"Certainly the position of Oklahoma State and, I think, most of the schools, if not all, is that we want to add a 10th team," said Oklahoma State president Burns Hargis, a member of the league's expansion committee. He listed Texas Christian, Houston, Southern Methodist, Brigham Young, Utah, and Air Force among the potential expansion targets before saying, "We've talked about a lot of ideas."
The Big East, left with only six football members after Pittsburgh and Syracuse announced plans to join the Atlantic Coast Conference, also must find a new way forward, while the Mountain West and Conference USA are in discussions about a partnership.
The talk of saving the Big 12 centers on equally sharing television revenue - a core principle of the Big Ten and Pac-12. The Big 12 splits the revenue from its $1.2 billion Fox Sports contract evenly, but only half of the money from its top-tier deal with ABC goes into equal shares. The rest is weighted toward the programs that play on the network more frequently, such as Texas and Oklahoma.
Dodds said Big 12 athletic directors more than a month ago approved Texas' suggestion to equally share the network revenue around the league. He said the plan has not been voted on by league presidents.
Texas Tech president Guy Bailey said he doesn't anticipate much opposition to that idea. "I would be surprised if there weren't a change in that, in some way," he said. Now, how exactly it plays out, I don't know."
Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe has not commented on the turmoil surrounding the conference, and there is speculation about his future. Beebe's contract was extended in November through June 2015, a decision made after Nebraska and Colorado announced they were leaving the Big 12 and before the 13-year deal with Fox Sports was reached in April.
Dodds declined to comment, and Bailey and Hargis called Beebe's status a private "personnel" matter.
ESPN distanced itself from the conference affiliation uproar, saying the "driving force on realignment lies with the conferences and universities."
Still, the Longhorn Network created uncertainty in the Big 12, and Texas A&M said it was a big reason the Aggies will leave the Big 12 by July - a decision that stands, the school said Wednesday.
Nebraska athletic director Tom Osborne said earlier this month that the Big 12's revenue-sharing plan lends itself to instability. Nebraska is in its first season as a member of the Big Ten, in which each school received $22.6 million this year - about twice as much as Nebraska could have expected had it stayed in the Big 12.
Texas' Powers said revenue sharing will be subject to discussion in the coming days.
There still was activity around the Big 12 on Wednesday. Oklahoma State's regents gave Hargis the power to have the school depart the Big 12 if necessary, while regents in Kansas reiterated their support for staying in the Big 12. Regents in Missouri are scheduled to meet Thursday.
