Dennis Dodd of CBS reported that Big 12 athletic directors discussed splitting the league into two seven-team divisions for 20, with the addition of BYU. Just remember, if BYU gets a Big XII invitation, the one rule we all have to follow is we cannot put Big XII stickers on the back of our cars. With the Big 12 Conference potentially featuring 14 teams for the 20 seasons, it’s time to look at how the league will split its teams into two seven-team divisions.
With conference opponents such as blueblood Kansas and Baylor (the defending national champions) to replace a conference juggernaut in Gonzaga, along with Iowa State, Cincinnati, Kansas, and Texas Tech, each week would be full of awesome home games. Currently, the teams constituting the Big XII are: Kansas, Kansas State, Baylor, Iowa State, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas Christian, Texas Tech. It would also be an amazing basketball conference. This would be a great football conference, while giving BYU a chance at a conference championship year in and year out, starting with year one. The Big 12 is now the smallest conference in the Power 5 and could lose a few more in the future: West Virginia to the ACC and Kansas to the Big Ten The entire college football landscape has been. In the west division we would have BYU, Boise and TCU, while leaving the other half of the beef in the east with Oklahoma State, Cincinnati and UCF. In my mind, this breaks up the strength of the conference pretty evenly. So what would the Big XII conference look with BYU included? Let’s take a look.įor the sake of the hypothetical, let’s assume BYU is added, as well as Cincinnati, UCF, and Boise State (I know their academics and other sports are subpar, but football brings money, and money trumps all).įor football, the divisions could look like this: However, all available evidence seems to point that this could finally be BYU’s moment to join a P5 conference, which has been athletic director Tom Holmoe’s main goal since BYU went independent in 2011. However, it’s been unclear when the Big 12 expansion. This could end up being, as so many BYU fans have called it before, a nothingburger, just as it was in 2016 when the Big XII decided not to expand after vetting a number of interested suitors. The two programs are contractually bind to the conference through 2025, leaving the door open for a potential 14-team model for a few years. As reported last week by Max Olsen and Andy Staples of The Athletic, the one school the Big XII is already seriously discussing is BYU. This go around has been a bit different, however. Prior to joining, Oklahoma was a member of the Big Six, which began in 1928 and added Colorado in 1948. A drama that has at different times injected hope, joy, fear, and anger into the hearts of BYU fans around the world. Texas and Oklahoma had been members of the Big 12 since the conference’s formation in 1996. The BYU to the Big XII saga continues onward. Big 12 Conference, originally Big 6 Conference, American collegiate athletic organization, composed of the Universities of Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas.