this is my take on it as well.
This was around the time KSU was peaking, OSU could points on anyone, Baylor was starting to rise, and an ever present OU . Big 12 teams were much better designed to defend Johnny as multiple offenses looked similar at the time
Everything I heard when we hired him was that he didn't want to be a HC.
I do think Gideon ans Joseph will be eencouraged to make some moves this year as the performance and recruiting in their units just isn't cutting it
This is actually on page 54 of my BOMC Manifesto I'm working on.
The first goal is to turn everyone against Vanderbilt , and the bottom of the bottom feeders on ratings as way to make room for FSU and VTech to the SEC.
From there the natural question becomes 'lets do performance ratings based league payouts' , thus making sure A&M gets knocked down a few pegs
It makes 0 financial sense to add FSU , Clemson, or whoever to any conference if its dilutive.
What AD in their right mind is going to sign off on 'lets pay to add this team to the conference' . Just go play that team OOC if you want to play them so bad.
Now maybe Conferences move back towards uneven distribution which could solve some of the Vanderbilt and Illinois type situations, and take some schools that way but otherwise no one is taking schools out of the good of their hearts.