With the looming vote on January 15th on the deregulation of conference championship games, a lot will be known on what will actually occur with the future of the Big XII by the end of the week.

Will the conference be forced to expand should they want a championship game? Or, will the remaining FBS football playing conferences (other than Big Ten) vote with them to enable a conference championship game with just ten teams in one division?

“A couple of weeks ago it seemed like the vote would go through and it wouldn’t really be a big deal,” Swaim said this morning over the phone. “[Now], it’s looking more and more like, with the power five schools getting two votes each and the others getting one, that it’s going to make the Big XII have two divisions. To do that, they would need to add at least two teams.”

Who those teams would be depends on who you talk to, however in every instance, UConn has certainly picked up steam. Be it locally here in Connecticut, among Big XII media outlets and even nationally, the Huskies are gaining momentum at the most opportune time. The others under consideration seems to be a consensus of BYU, Cincinnati and Houston.

“The media out here [in Oklahoma] really feels like BYU is a lock,” Swaim said. “To be honest with you, Cincinnati has always been talked about. Connecticut is kind of a Johnny-come-lately as far as the media out here is concerned, but it makes a lot of sense.”

Why?

“What’s going to increase the bottom line or certainly hurt it the least and also bring them more prestige?” Swaim asked. “Connecticut because of what their [men’s] basketball team has done. Obviously with Connecticut women’s basketball, nobody has done what Geno [Auriemma] has done. And football, Connecticut was in the Fiesta Bowl a couple of years ago, they got beat pretty good by Oklahoma, but I think Connecticut is a sleeping giant.”

“You’ve got that entire northeastern area,” he continued. “If they are in a major conference they will recruit very well. It’s going to be so much fun to watch, but once again, everything is kind of contingent on that Friday vote. Going the way we hear it’s going to go and a lot of other media, it’s not just me, are starting to jump aboard this thing, it’s a big story if it happens Friday because then the Big XII likely does add. Who the two teams they would add would be a lot of fun to watch and this thing will really blow up on Friday.”

According to Swaim, there was a lot of talk on the subject in Glendale, as the media has begun to assemble for Monday’s National Championship game between Clemson and Alabama.

“There’s a lot of east coast media out there,” Swaim confirmed. “I’m sure some of them have a bias towards one school or another, but a lot of the east coast media this week and it kind of came to fruition yesterday, they are hearing Connecticut very, very strongly.”

Of course, nothing is set in stone, but the way things are trending, it seems UConn’s stock is on it’s way up.

Listen below for this morning’s full interview with Greg Swaim: