No one knows what private conversations have been happening, but any time you ask any coach or athletic administrator, they say the same thing. Things like "we need to take care of ourselves" "we need to right the ship" "we need to get back to winning". At the minimum, I imagine we need to get back to averaging >45k in the stands, and getting to and winning bowl games.
Other things that will help include continuing to win academically, winning in non-football sports, and demonstrating some upgrade in terms of donations/facilities/etc.
Winning multiple conference championships in the major sports will be the best way to get the Big 12 or any other conferences attention