The Roundtable: Biggest must-have for Big 12 expansion

RELATED: How many teams should the Big 12 add?

Chris Level: My line of thinking is pretty simple. What I want is for the Big 12 to pursue a course of action that allows the league to extend its Grant of Rights agreement past 2025, ensuring the conference is around for years and years to come.

The Big 12 is an ugly baby. It's flaws are well known and frequently discussed. But its our ugly baby, and I love it and all the flaws that come with it.

So add whatever teams please Texas, Oklahoma and the league's television partners enough that the Big 12 can exist as an entity way past 2025. Is that two teams? Four? Houston? I don't care what it looks like. I just want longevity for the Big 12.

Aaron Dickens: For me, the most important thing for Texas Tech to get out of Big 12 expansion is actually something is already has: an annual game against Texas.

The Red Raiders' series against the Longhorns is significant. Yes, its shortcomings are obvious: other rivalries have more history, the on-field results have been very lopsided toward UT and the rivalry clearly means more to fans in Red and Black than Burnt Orange. Still, it is by far Texas Tech's most meaningful annual series.

Imagine not playing the Longhorns every season. Where's the sizzle? For all that TCU and Baylor have been over the past three or four seasons - highly-ranked, conference and playoff contenders - those games don't have the same impact as tilts against Texas.

Texas Tech's football program is the youngest in the Big 12 by far. It doesn't have a lot of history when compared to its conference peers. What history it does have should be protected at all costs, and its annual series against Texas is a vital part of that.

I don't care how many or what teams the Big 12 adds. I don't care how the league divides itself into divisions. I don't really care all that much about the additional revenue the university stands to gain from expansion. I'll be good with whatever direction the Big 12 takes as long as the the Red Raiders and Longhorns still square off every season.

Will McKay: I think things are pretty simple for Texas Tech in expansion, both in the immediate and foreseeable future: security. I want security. It's about making sure you have a seat at the table when the end game arrives, whether that be in the next few months or a decade from now. No matter what, when the rubber meets the road, the Red Raiders better have all hands and feet inside the vehicle with their seatbelt secured.

So, what does that mean for now? Well, it means that it's time to start putting ducks in a row for the impending collision course that still, to me anyway, seems to be some sort of four super conference arrangement separate from the current FBS structure and quite possibly separate from the NCAA. That's a real, legitimate possibility, not something of fantasy. But, whether that scenario becomes a reality sooner or later depends on what the Big 12 does in the here and now. The question of how many teams the Big 12 adds is a bit irrelevant. It's really about the Grant of Rights. Does the conference extend them further or keep them the same? That's the tell-tale sign of where this truly headed.

So, for now, for Texas Tech to have the security I want, I want the league to go to 14, without Houston, and extend the Grant of Rights to at least 2030.

That's security for the immediate future that will give the Red Raiders time to continue to build their resume for the long-term future.

Matt Clare: For me, the single-most important thing for Texas Tech is getting back to at least a 12-team league. Call it stubborn pride or delusion, but most Big 12 fans and followers have convinced themselves the current 10-team round-robin format should be a perceived strength of the conference.

Wrong.

Getting back to a 12-team league will get the conference back to two true divisions and provide a schedule that isn't 'do-or-die' on an annual basis. Texas Tech experienced some of the programs best seasons under this format. I'm not certain what teams the conference will add, or how they will divide the eventual divisions, but getting back to 12 teams at this point is the single-most important thing for Texas Tech.

Drew Kohnle: I think the most important thing for Texas Tech to get out of conference expansion is more competitive matchups. More money is definitely important, but with the way the Big 12's television deal is set up, the Red Raiders will get more money no matter what teams the league adds.

It is important that the Big 12 adds teams with competitive value. People always mention that the Big 12 is on the verge of becoming the “laughing stock” of the Power Five conferences, and adding a school like Colorado State would definitely move the needle in that direction. Even with the not-so-great options on the table, fans deserve the best teams they can see.

In this scenario, I think BYU is a no-brainer from a football and basketball standpoint and then I would add a team like Memphis who is on the rise in football (19-7 over the past two seasons) and has a very competitive, nationally-recognized brand in basketball, too.

Memphis also sits in a pretty fertile recruiting area and has been pulling recruits from the states of Florida, Texas, Mississippi and Oklahoma pretty consistently over the past few years. Give them Power Five status, and I think they could become a respectable football program as well as maintain their success on the basketball court.

Also considered: Connecticut. But travel would be a nightmare.