The 1996 NCAA conference realignment was initiated by the dissolution of the Southwest Conference (SWC), the formation of the Big 12 Conference and Conference USA (C-USA), and the expansion of the Western Athletic Conference to 16 teams. This "new" WAC ultimately did not last long, as eight of its 16 members left the conference in 1999 and founded the Mountain West Conference.

The Southwest Conference was what would now be considered to be one of the Power conferences of college football. From 1992 to 1994, the conference was part of the Bowl Coalition including its agreement to send its champion to the Cotton Bowl Classic, and in the 1995 football season, it was part of the Bowl Alliance, the successor of the Bowl Coalition (though the Cotton Bowl was left out of the Bowl Alliance).

The Southwest Conference was founded in 1914 of mainly prominent schools from Texas and bordering states. From 1976 to 1991, its membership consisted of Baylor University, Rice University, Southern Methodist University, University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M University, Texas Christian University, Texas Tech University, University of Houston, and the University of Arkansas.

During the 1980s the SWC was plagued by 2/3 of its membership being on probation, at one time or another, for NCAA recruiting violations (only Arkansas, Baylor and Rice avoided NCAA sanctions). The most notable involved the "Pony Express" scandals at SMU resulting in the football team receiving the death penalty in 1987. At that time, the NCAA prohibited a program on probation from appearing on live television.

The Southwest Conference was one of six conferences that packaged its media rights with the College Football Association. When other conferences began breaking off from the CFA, The Southwest Conference was in a weak spot due to its scandals reducing its on-field performance and only having schools in one state after Arkansas departed for the Southeastern Conference after the 1991 football season.

As conferences realized the opportunity of selling media rights separate from other conferences was the way the sport was moving, the SWC and the Big Eight Conference began talks of a merger. Other conferences like the Southeastern Conference and the Pacific-10 Conference were interested in Texas and Texas A&M, but the Big Eight was open to a full merger of all sixteen schools. However, once the conferences believed that ESPN would be their most lucrative television partner, the network made it clear that it wanted a conference of twelve teams with all eight from the Big Eight, and four from the Southwest Conference, including Texas & Texas A&M. Big Eight officials assumed the eleventh and twelfth schools included would be the other public schools of Texas Tech and Houston, but when Texas government officials worked on granting permission for the large public schools to leave the Southwest Conference for a merger, Houston was excluded in favor of Baylor.

In 1994, Texas, Texas A&M, Baylor, and Texas Tech accepted invitations to join with the members of the Big Eight Conference to form the Big 12 Conference starting with the 1996 football season. The four schools left out of the Big 12 found new conference homes as well, but in less prominent conferences. Rice, SMU, and TCU accepted invitations to join the Western Athletic Conference, while Houston was a founding member of Conference USA.

The Big Eight Conference was formed in 1907. It informally adopted the name of Big Eight in 1957 when Oklahoma State joined, and legally took that name in 1964. Its member schools from 1957 to 1996 were the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Iowa State University, the University of Colorado at Boulder, the University of Kansas, Kansas State University, the University of Missouri, the University of Oklahoma, and Oklahoma State University. Like the Southwest Conference, the Big Eight was a major conference with membership in the Bowl Coalition and Bowl Alliance, and longstanding ties to the Orange Bowl.