Houston, Cincinnati, UCF Set to Join Big 12 Conference in 2023

It’s official: the Big 12’s addition of three American Athletic Conference teams — Houston, Cincinnati and UCF — will formally take place in 2023. The transition of the three schools will come in the summer of 2023, the AAC announced after agreeing to an exit agreement. They join BYU in an incoming four-program wave to help offset the SEC-bound losses of Oklahoma and Texas.

All three of Houston, Cincinnati and UCF were founding members of the AAC, but the agreement announced on Friday means this upcoming season will be their last — both in basketball and football. Unless things change, it also means the Big 12 will temporarily have 14 teams before OU and Texas leave for the SEC in 2025 (unless they negotiate their own exit agreement ahead of that deadline).

BYU, an independent program, is also slated to join the Big 12 in 2023, which will give the Big 12 four new programs beginning next summer. A previous member of the Mountain West (and the WAC for much of the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s), the Cougars have been independent since 2011. BYU will move every sport except men’s volleyball to the Big 12 beginning in 2023.