I don't disagree with you, but I don't see any reason to believe it won't happen. The Pac-12 has tried, at least twice, to get Texas. And when this thing eventually goes to 4 "super" conferences of 16 teams in a couple of years, I have to believe that they'll ask again. Some at Texas have designs on being independant, but I don't think that is viable for them.
Let's assume that the Pac-12 wants to add UT at some future date.
Let's also assume that UT wants to be a Pac-12 member at that future date.
I still think that it will be impossible to make the deal happen unless one side moves off of a core position. The Pac-12 is firmly married to the idea of equal sharing of conference revenue and equal power in decision making among the member institutions. UT is firmly married to the idea that it brings more value to a conference than any of the other members and should have more money and power commiserate with that. Further, there's the issue of the Longhorn Network. If it succeeds, UT would not give it up. But the Pac-12 does not allow for its members to have independent deals for this tier of media rights.
I simply don't see UT joining the Pac-12 on our terms and I don't see the conference members accepting UT on its terms. And I don't see a middle ground.
If there's ever a Pac-16, my ideal scenario would be to add Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and either Oklahoma State or Texas Tech.
We'd have 4 Pods and 2 Divisions.
The Eastern Division would be:
Midwest Pod: Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, OSU/TTU (could also end up with MU going to Big 10 expansion and the Pac-12 taking both OSU and TTU)
Mountain Pod: Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, Utah
The Western Division would be:
California Pod: Cal, Stanford, UCLA, USC
Northwest Pod: Oregon, Oregon State, Washington, Washington State
Conference football schedule would be 9 games:
3 games against teams in your own pod.
2 games each against teams in the other 3 pods.
Playoffs would be 2 rounds (would require NCAA rules change):
Eastern Division Pod Semi-Final at home site of higher seeded team
Western Division Pod Semi-Final at home site of higher seeded team
Championship Game:
Home site of higher seeded team