Question of the day: Which conferences will Nebraska and Texas be playing in after a few years?

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Four reporters from around Tribune Co. weigh in on the topic. Check back throughout the day for more responses and feel free to leave a comment of your own.

Chris Dufresne, Los Angeles Times

The easy part is we know which conference Nebraska and Texas will be in next year: the Big 12. Nebraska will be in the North division and Texas will be in the South, but the next two or three weeks or months may determine if there is a Big 12 in three years.

Nebraska has reportedly been given an ultimatum by the Big 12 to declare its intentions: you’re either going to stay in the Big 12 or pursue other opportunities (the Big Ten).

If Nebraska decides to stay, I think the Big 12 remains in one piece and the Pac-10 expands by only two schools, if at all.. If Nebraska does sign a Big 12 loyalty oath, then the college football landscape may blow up, with the Pac-10 swooping in to invite six Big 12 schools, including Oklahoma and Texas, into a newly formed hybrid mega-conference.

Now that Nebraska has been publicly exposed as being on the clock, I think the odds are moving toward the Cornhuskers staying in the Big 12. There’s a 70% chance that Nebraska and Texas will still be members of the Big 12 in three years. But there’s a very real and intriguing 30% window that says Nebraska will be in the Big Ten, Texas will be in the Pac-16 and we end up with four or five (counting the Mountain West) 16-school super conferences, all playing championship games and dividing the money.

Remember, in the end, it’s all about the money. It’s always about the money.

Mark Wogenrich, The Morning Call

As it pretends to dance lightly and delicately, the Big Ten is presiding over the dismemberment of college athletics. The conference’s quest to get its eponymous network on basic cable in all 50 states has caused college presidents and chancellors elsewhere to run headfirst toward an oblivion they don’t yet understand.

Ultimately, though, senses will be resuscitated, and these academic men and women will realize that the games which pay a good bit of their salaries are not best served with power concentrated in four monolithic superconferences. And when that happens, thankfully, the Oct. 11, 2014, meeting between Texas and Nebraska will remain a Big 12 Conference football game. Either that or they’ll play in the newly created NFL Midwest Division.

[Updated at 1 p.m.:

Andrea Adelson, Orlando Sentinel

All signs point to Texas and Nebraska going separate ways to separate conferences, demolishing the Big 12 in the process. But will this happen?

I have no idea, and neither does anybody in college sports. There are so many options to consider, so many ramifications to weigh, it is hard to believe that the Pac-10 and Big Ten, along with other schools potentially involved, are going to cram this in and change the landscape in a week.

These commissioners, athletic directors and universities are only looking at the dollar signs. But expansion this colossal will change collegiate athletics forever. The gap between the haves and have-nots will become as deep as the Grand Canyon; travel costs will grow; the strain on the student-athlete will grow. Of course, many believe this is what the big schools have wanted all along: to keep the money for themselves while everybody else suffers.

If that is the ultimate goal, these collegiate leaders must end the charade and quit talking about the nobility of NCAA athletics. What’s so noble about the destruction of tradition, rivalries and conferences in a chase to hoard all the money for yourself?]

[Updated at 1:55 p.m.:

Teddy Greenstein, Chicago Tribune

The Big 12 apparently isn’t big enough for both Nebraska and Texas, so I’m forecasting a split among Rose Bowl lines -- Big Ten and Pac-whatever.

Nebraska appears to hold the cards, even though Texas is the equivalent of a royal flush, desired by all.

If the Huskers leave for the Big Ten, the Big 12 might come crashing down. The league can live with losing Missouri, but Texas may feel like a Huskers-free party is worth bolting.

So the key question is: Will Nebraska be invited to apply for Big Ten membership? If the Huskers don’t get the call, then something’s wrong.

Nebraska has the tradition, the obsessive fans, the football stadium and the Assn. of American Universities membership.

The Big Ten is big enough for two NUs -- Northwestern and Nebraska.