So I put the Big 12’s new commissioner, Bob Bowlsby, on the spot Sunday evening. Seeing as if the occasion was intended to celebrate West Virginia’s arrival in the conference, and knowing Bowlsby was possibly in a position to let a fastball sneak by after partying into the wee hours at the Fort Worth Stockyards for TCU’s welcome rodeo, I asked if it would be good or bad for the Big 12 if the Horned Frogs and/or Mountaineers won a few trophies in 2012-13.

Really, would the Big 12 be seen as smart or as soft if the two new teams were very good from the start? Would quick success anger or inspire the old guard? See where I’m going? He did.

Reply: “It’s a great question.”

I like this guy!

I mostly anticipated the rest of his response, though it was more of a rally cry than I I expected. Without saying it directly, he seemed to intimate that the Big 12 would be better served by championship caliber teams.

“In the best of all circumstances, you bring in members who are highly competitive and I think TCU and West Virginia will both be highly competitive in football,” Bowlsby said as diplomatically as his position demands. “Right out of the chute, both the new institutions can clearly go on the football field and compete with teams in the Big 12.

“That’s what makes a conference great – great competition every week. It isn’t a good thing when there’s a big separation between the top of the league and the bottom of the league and when the same teams dominate all the time.”

That’s where things get interesting. Rewind 10 months, stand out the outside with no attachment to the Big 12 and look inside. You probably think of it as the league owned and operated by Texas and Oklahoma. Well, of the past 14 Big 12 football championships, nine belong to Oklahoma (seven) and Texas (two). No one else has more than one in the BCS era and three — Texas A&M, Colorado and Nebraska — are parts of other leagues.

In those same 14 years, TCU and WVU had 13 league titles. That, it would seem, means the Big 12 is getting a boost. The recent history of major moves in college sports suggests otherwise. Only Virginia Tech (2004) won a conference football title in its first season in a new league. The Hokies (four), Cincinnati (two) and Louisville (one) are the only teams to win a title in a new league.

“I’m guessing that the remaining Big 12 teams will try to defend their turf, but our turf is West Virginia’s turf and TCU’s turf now and they’re going to jump in and compete right away at the highest level possible,” Bowlsby said.

In one very big way, though, immediate success and titles for WVU and TCU helps the Big 12 and that turf. Good stories from the Horned Frogs and the Mountaineers means a good decision by the Big 12 to add another Texas school, after losing the Aggies, and add the first school from the Eastern Time Zone. Success leads to popularity and popularity leads to validation.

“Largely in this day and age it isn’t as much about the geographical footprint as it is the electronic footprint,” Bowlsby said. “Clearly the two are related in some significant ways, but having an eastern school allows us to get some more media coverage and get clearances in some markets where we probably wouldn’t have gotten clearances in the past.

“It isn’t as much about trying to find members in contiguous states as it used to be. Travel is easier and the electronic footprint is more important.”