ISU Athletic Director Jamie Pollard released a statement Tuesday afternoon addressing the survival and future of the Big 12 Conference in light of recent conference realignment talk.

“We are very pleased with the developments today related to the future of the Big 12 Conference,” Pollard said. “As [ISU President] Dr. Geoffroy and I stated last week, we believe the Big 12 Conference is a perfect fit for Iowa State University, and we were optimistic that the conference would continue to exist going forward. Today’s announcement certainly confirmed those beliefs and has positioned our institution in a much better situation than we had prior to all of the realignment talk.”

The University of Texas quelled realignment talks on Monday with its announcement it would remain in the Big 12 instead of accepting an invitation to join the Pac-10.

Nebraska and Colorado announced last week they would be leaving the conference and accepted invitations to join the Big Ten and Pac-10, respectively. The two schools’ departures left the Big 12 in limbo, particularly with the potential departure of Texas and four other Big 12 schools — Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State.

Pollard and Geoffroy will hold a news conference at 5:30 Tuesday to further address the future of the now 10-team Big 12 Conference.

The news conference can be seen live on cyclones.com.