You can't be serious!
Are you really saying that TO left because he was afraid of the competition coming into the conference???
Going into the inaugural 1996 season of the Big 12, Nebraska was, far and away, the most dominant program in the entire country!
Over the preceding 10 years {1986-1995}:
Texas Tech had won just 55% of their games
Texas won at a clip of only 57%
Baylor snagged a win 58% of the time
and
Texas A&M, with a winning rate of 78% had been, admittedly, far more successful than I had remembered, but, even still, it remains ridiculous to suggest that the arrival of these 4 programs scared Osborne into retirement!
Equally implausible would be an assertion that any or all of our Big 8 foes were improving to a point where Osborne felt compelled to tuck tail and run.