The Big Eight's goal was to form a 16-team conference, with all eight of the remaining schools from the Southwest Conference merging with the original Big Eight of Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, K-State, KU, Missouri, Iowa State, Colorado and Nebraska.
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Fifteen schools were present at the meeting, with Rice being the lone exception.
Southwest Conference commissioner Steve Hatchell and Big Eight commissioner Carl James were at the hotel, but stayed out in the hall during the meeting.
"We met for I'd say two hours and just had a discussion, a complete discussion on a merger," Wefald said. "There's 15 schools there and we're kind of sitting on chairs, and after about a half-hour of conversation, I just said, 'well, let's just see who might be interested in mergering.'
"We're going around the room and it's one after the other 'I, I, I, I,' and ironically the last school was the University of Texas."
Fitting that it would once again come down to Texas. There sat new president Bob Berdahl, pondering the decision.
"The 14 schools said let's do it and we got to the University of Texas and Berdahl said 'I've got to think about this, I've gotta take it to our board of regents.' I just said to myself in my mind, 'oh darn-it, it's not going to happen.' That's just how influential the University of Texas is."
Berdahl, regarded as a low-key person by those who knew him, then caught everyone's attention.
"He just said 'if I had my way we'd join the Pac-10," Wefald recalled. "He just said 'look, we're not doing well in the Southwest Conference and we play all our games in Texas except for a few.'"
Unlike today, Texas was struggling in the early 90s. From 1991-93, the Longhorns posted a 16-16-1 record in football while failing to make a bowl game during that time. In addition, their basketball attendance was waning significantly. In its 1988 men's basketball season, Texas averaged just 4,028 fans per game in an arena that seated 16,231.
So Texas was seeking change.
"So we had 14 out of 15 that were saying 'I,'" Wefald said. "So the Big Eight presidents decided we shouldn't let this draw out and let's try and get a conference call within two weeks because you can't just let that sit there.
"We knew Texas had to meet with its board of regents and I assume that they did that within the week. So we had a conference call that was set up within ten days and all of the Big Eight presidents were on the conference call, and quite frankly, we did not know who was on for the Southwest Conference."
Fifteen minutes into that call, Wefald spoke up.
"I just said 'what do you guys in the Southwest Conference want to do?" he asked.
The first person to chime in: Bob Berdahl, the president of Texas.
"He said 'we've decided you should invite four schools: Texas, Texas A&M, Baylor and Texas Tech," Wefald recalled.
Texas and A&M were considered key components to the expansion, while Baylor and Texas Tech had some advantages on its side.
Ann Richards, the governor of Texas at the time, was a Baylor graduate. Therefore, the Bears' move to the Big 12 would be supported.
Texas Tech also had leverage, as key members in both the House and the Senate of the Texas legislature had a strong affiliation with the Red Raiders.
Meanwhile, TCU, SMU, Rice and Houston would be left out of the mix
"After the conference call I made sure we got telegrams with invitations to those four schools to join," Wefald said. "So like magic, we had a Big 12 and it was ready to go by 94."
