We know why Arizona, Arizona State and Utah decided to move to the Big 12.

The Pac-12 house was on fire.

Late last week, the safety and security once provided by their conference became completely engulfed in flames. Oregon and Washington announced they were bound for the Big Ten, joining USC and UCLA there. Colorado was already on its way out, rejoining the Big 12. Arizona, Arizona State and Utah saw a Pac-12 future with only seven schools and no broadcast deal.

The Four Corners Three jumped to the Big 12 to escape the heat and flames.

But why did the Big 12 decide it wanted to provide refuge to them?

No doubt further solidifying itself with three more Power Five schools was part of the league’s calculus. There’s strength in numbers, and moving forward, the Big 12 will have 16 schools. There’s also power in a league spanning every time zone in the lower 48 states, and during more than half of the vital TV viewing windows during football season, the Big 12 will have schools in all four.

(The state of Arizona doesn’t do daylight saving time, so until the first Sunday of November, the Wildcats and the Sun Devils play home games an hour later than everyone else in the Mountain Time Zone.)

More: Tramel's ScissorTales: Pac-12 Conference's demise is a sad day in collegiate athletics

But Oklahoma State athletic director Chad Weiberg shed some more light on why the Big 12 went with Arizona, Arizona State and Utah. He didn’t say this, but there were other options, including UConn and Gonzaga.

Weiberg, however, said the inclusion of Arizona, Arizona State and Utah is about more than adding teams and time zones. He believes alignment between the existing Big 12 schools and their newest brethren is an important aspect of all this, too.

“Commissioner (Brett) Yormark has been pretty consistent saying that we want people that are going to fit, to align with our board of directors, with the athletic directors,” Weiberg said the other day before OSU football media day. “So I think that there was a comfort level with those schools and their fit with our conference.”

Fit?

I’m not sure many think of Arizona, Arizona State and Utah being a fit with the likes of West Virginia, Kansas State and Baylor.

And after Arizona State athletic director Ray Anderson popped off last week – “I promise I’m not going to Morgantown,” he said – it’s easy to find even less common ground. West Virginia might be a long way from Arizona State and might have much colder weather than Tempe during football season, but the same could be said for Washington and Washington State. Anderson wasn’t going around saying anything bad about Seattle or Pullman.

Also, is OSU alum and West Virginia athletic director Wren Baker now the biggest hero in the Mountaineer State?

His classy rebuttal tweeted in reference Anderson: “There are two kinds of people in the world. People who love West Virginia and people who haven’t been here.”

Maybe we can just chalk up Anderson’s comment to him having a tough few weeks. He also said he would gladly go to Texas, and if he meant the school not the state, I hate to break it to you, Ray, but the Longhorns won’t be in the Big 12 by the time the Sun Devils are.

But I digress.

More: Two years after being left for dead, the Big 12 surges back, plundering Colorado from Pac-12

Weiberg said he senses a camaraderie with Arizona, Arizona State and Utah because they see intercollegiate athletics the same way OSU and other Big 12 schools do. Sports aren’t the most important thing – universities still have to be about the business of educating students, first and foremost – but sports are vital.

Their importance is born out in lots of ways, but one good metric is the Learfield Directors Cup standings. Every sport in which a school participates earns points based on how they finish the season. Win a national title, and the team earns a hundred points for the school. Make the postseason tournament, and you earn 25 or more points depending on how far you advance.

OU and OSU finished 23rd and 25th in the Directors Cup standings for 2022-23.

Utah was 28th, Arizona State 35th and Arizona 43rd.

A few more Big 12 schools for comparison: TCU finished 34th, BYU 37th, Baylor 46th and Texas Tech 47th.

Think of it this way: at these universities, sports are a vibrant part of the fabric of the campus. Without them being successful, that tapestry would definitely be duller, and it might even fray and unravel a bit.

That’s one of the main areas where Weiberg sees the Four Corners Three fitting in the Big 12.

“It’s just the role that intercollegiate athletics plays on the campus, the importance that the institution places on that and the belief in what college athletics is about,” he said.

He also pointed to the fans at Arizona, Arizona State and Utah. People who love the Wildcats, Sun Devils and Utes are a lot like people who love the Bears and Horned Frogs, Cowboys and Red Raiders.

More: Tramel's ScissorTales: Pac-12 commissioner didn't follow Bob Bowlsby's Big 12 blueprint

“We’ve got really, really passionate fan bases,” Weiberg said. “Our stadiums are full. Our arenas are full. The support is high for all of our student-athletes, all of our sports.”

Now, every stadium and arena isn’t full all the time. OSU struggles to fill the seats for basketball, for example. Arizona and Arizona State have had similar issues with football over the past few years.

But if you take a long and wide view, you’ll see that Arizona, Arizona State and Utah do have loyal fan bases.

And it’s not just in football. Basketball, both men’s and women’s, at Arizona draws sizable crowds. Ditto for softball at Arizona and Arizona State. Women’s gymnastics at Utah is a huge draw.

I have to admit, I was skeptical when Weiberg started talking about how Arizona, Arizona State and Utah were a fit in the Big 12. Seemed like the kind of thing you say after the Big 12 caught them as they jumped out of the Pac-12’s burning building.

Oh, yeah, those three we just saved? Pretty sure we’re going to become best friends.

It felt silly.

But look at it closer, and you can see what Weiberg meant. Because of geography or history or even recent snide comments, we might not think of the Four Corners Three as being a fit with the Big 12, but their support of and passion for athletics look mighty familiar.

Jenni Carlson: Jenni can be reached at 405-475-4125 or jcarlson@oklahoman.com. Like her at facebook.com/JenniCarlsonOK, follow her at twitter.com/jennicarlson_ok or on Threads at jennicarlson_ok, and support her work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Big 12 expansion: Recent additions about more than football time zones