Well hello, West Virginia.  It might finally be time to officially, officially welcome you to the Big 12.

According to the reports coming from the Charleston Daily Mail, it sounds like the Big East and West Virginia have finally reached an agreement that will allow the Mountaineers to join the Big 12 starting in 2012.  The official announcement could come on Friday.  It has also been reported that the 2012 Big 12 football schedule will be released on Friday and it's probably not a coincidence that the two events are happening on the same day.

The move won't be cheap, however, with West Virginia having to fork over $11 million to the Big East while the Big 12 will cover an additional $9 million, $1 million coming from each school.  The $20 million total is also enough to allow West Virginia to make the move without having to try and find a replacement school for the Big East which was one factor believed to be holding up the negotiations.

Finally.

It was back on October 28th, 2011 when the Big 12 officially announced West Virginia as a member and here were are on Thursday night, February 9th, 2012 talking about it possibly being official for next season.

So let's wait and see what Friday brings in the way of an official announcement and hopefully we can finally put this thing to bed for good.  At that point the Big 12's defensive coordinators can once again start having night sweats thinking about having to try and stop Dana Holgorsen's offense.

I'll do my best to try and bring West Virginia into the fold here from here on out, but if you missed it the first time around, I did a question and answer with Tom Perry from the Eye and Eer Blog in a getting to know West Virginia session back in November.  I don't think either of us thought at the time this would be drug out this long.

At any rate, it is off the chart great news to finally have the Mountaineers in the Big 12 officially (almost official, that is).