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The Big 12 should look out west for possible expansion.
Conference expansion is a hot topic in today’s college football climate. Continue reading “Schools the Big 12 Conference should target in expansion”
With the Oklahoma Sooners and Texas Longhorns going to the SEC, could an early exit create a scheduling quandary for 2023?
The SEC move for the Oklahoma Sooners and the Texas Longhorns is on the horizon. Just how far off in the distance, though, remains unclear. Reports have the two universities making the switch for the 2024 football season, but Brett Yormark has indicated Oklahoma and Texas are in the Big 12 for the long haul (or at least the length of the current league contract).
Still, there’s some uncertainty.
It seemed like a schedule was on its way last week when Terry Mohajir, the athletic director for UCF, replied to a direct question on Twitter about the 2023 slate.
Tuesday! @ChargeOnFund 😉!
— Terry Mohajir (@TerryMohajirAD) January 13, 2023
He’d later go back and retract that, citing “new information.”
Ok! Not so fast! Schedule release date coming soon! Still finalizing some moving parts!
— Terry Mohajir (@TerryMohajirAD) January 13, 2023
According to Jenni Carlson of The Oklahoman, the conference is required by its broadcast partners to release the schedule by mid-February.
So, why the delay? Well, Carlson wrote a fantastic piece over at The Oklahoman exploring the why and positing that it’s a bad look for the Big 12 to appear this disjointed with its schedule release.
Could it simply be a miscommunication or a crossing of wires? UCF’s athletic director believed we were going to get a schedule last Tuesday. At the same time, Shehan Jeyarajah of CBS Sports reported after Mohajir’s snafu that the release likely wouldn’t come until the end of the month.
One interesting facet of this is how Oklahoma and Texas’ departure to the SEC could be playing a factor in the delay.
I understand this schedule release is a first go around for Yormark and Co., and clearly, it isn’t like most years. There are, as Mohajir wrote, lots of moving parts. According to the Big 12 school source, there is no haggling over the structure of the schedule, who plays where and when and that sort of thing. Instead, the delay is based on concerns within the league that the schedule release could provide leverage for the Sooners and Horns in their buyout plans. What that leverage would be is unclear. – Carlson, The Oklahoman
While Carlson doesn’t assume what the leverage is that Oklahoma and Texas hold over the Big 12, the most likely scenario revolves around who gets to host the Sooners and Longhorns in their final year in the conference. If indeed 2024 is the final year in the Big 12.
We attempted to outline what a 2023 and 2024 football schedule could look like giving each school in the new Big 12 an opportunity to host either Oklahoma or Texas once. But that’s null and void if the Sooners and Longhorns depart earlier. How to have profit equity from hosting the departing schools becomes an important part of the discussion if 2023 is their final year in the conference.
Every team in the conference wants to host one or both of those schools. Their presence creates a national and local buzz the other schools can’t match. Splitting what would be 10 opportunities to host either Texas or Oklahoma amongst the remaining 12 schools could certainly create some interesting discussion at the negotiating table.
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Pete Thamel of ESPN reports #Gonzaga’s athletic director met with #Big12 Commissioner Brett Yormark. This is an urgent matter for the #Pac12.
The Pac-12 and Big 12 continue to fight for leverage, money, memberships, and seemingly everything else under the sun in college sports. A new plot twist: They might be fighting over Gonzaga, though the extent of that particular battle is unclear.
On Wednesday afternoon, ESPN’s Pete Thamel reported that Gonzaga Athletic Director Chris Standiford talked to Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark while the GU basketball team was in Texas to play Tennessee in a preseason scrimmage.
ESPN college basketball reporter and columnist Dana O’Neil subsequently tweeted confirmation of Thamel’s report from a second source, noting that talks between Gonzaga and the Big 12 are only in the “exploratory” stage. So, it’s not as though a deal is about to be reached. Yet, it’s clearly another statement by the Big 12 about its intentions, which clash with the Pac-12’s best interests. Let’s break down this situation and provide some other notes you need to be aware of:
The Big 12 could potentially poach a few Pac-12 schools.
Conference realignment has been one of the major talking points in the college football world for quite some time now. Texas and Oklahoma are heading to the SEC and USC and UCLA are moving to the Big Ten.
The Big 12 responded to losing Texas and Oklahoma by announcing the addition of BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF. League commissioner Brett Yormark is looking toward the West Coast for potential expansion.
“Obviously going out West is where I would like to go. Entering that fourth time zone. A program that has national recognition. One that competes at the highest level in basketball and football, stands for the right things, is a good cultural fit.”
Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah are obvious candidates to join the Big 12. The conference could even look northward to Oregon and Washington if it wants to expand its national footprint.
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Conference realignment is a story that never ends, and with the Big 12 considering expansion, here are seven teams they should consider.
While NIL and the transfer portal have had huge impacts on the landscape of college football, nothing has changed the sport more than conference realignment.
A decade ago, when Nebraska, Texas A&M, Colorado, and Missouri left the Big 12 it upset the apple cart of college football. Texas and Oklahoma followed by USC and UCLA, leaving their Power Five conferences for greener pastures has turned over the tables.
The moves over the last year have put the SEC and Big Ten at the forefront of college football, leaving the ACC and Big 12 behind in college football’s version of the Monday Night Wars. The ACC and the Big 12 have solid foundations even if they don’t have the same media rights bargaining position as the SEC and Big Ten. The Pac-12 looks like the conference that is on the flimsiest foundation with the Big Ten and Big 12 lurking.
New Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark has been open about the conference’s desire to expand. Not long after the USC-UCLA announcement, it was reported that the Big 12 was looking to add Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, and Utah. Things have slowed down since as the Pac-12 entered a 30 day window to open negotiations on their media right deal, but the interest from the Big 12 is still there.
And if they were able to, they’d be interested in adding Oregon and Washington, though the Big 12 will have to contend with the Big Ten for those northwestern powers.
As conference realignment continues to reshape the future of college football, let’s take a look at seven schools the Big 12 should target in conference expansion.
College Conference Expansion, Realignment Scenarios. What Each League Should Do, What Will Happen?
Really? You want to make sense of all the expansion and realignment in college sports?
Good luck with that.
Even the most connected of college football insiders are trying to put together the shredded papers to create a clear picture as all the rumors, reports, and tidbits fly around. So read this at your own risk – there’s a solid chance this all blows up five minutes from now.
I’m prepared for everything below to soon look totally ridiculous because nothing appears to be off the table.
The Big 12 getting Cincinnati, Houston, and UCF was obvious, but seriously, Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC? Last summer that seemed insane, and then it hit like a ton of bricks. That was nothing compared to the failure of imagination – and the shock – of USC and UCLA to the Big Ten.
And how about the Sun Belt being the most proactive league of the bunch with Marshall, Old Dominion, and Southern Miss being snagged from Conference USA?
So be warned, while everything below is rooted in reality to some extent … nah. It’s all changing by the moment.
With all that said, what’s going on in realignment? What are the best and worst case scenarios for all the conference expansion options, what’s a crazy idea that might work for each one, and what’s about to happen – maybe?
Let’s do this.
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What’s Going On? Nothing at the moment, but the rumors are flying. The SEC is supposedly interested, and the Big Ten isn’t saying anything – but would LOVE North Carolina. Even so, everything appears to be fine … for now.
Best Case Scenario: The ACC vastly improves its long-term media deal, ends its friends with benefits relationship with Notre Dame and puts a ring on it, and gives some thought to West Virginia joining the fun.
Worst Case Scenario: ESPN – or some crafty lawyer – figures out how to blow up the horrible grant of rights deal that locks the schools into their football media deal until 2036, and the SEC and Big Ten have have an epic battle to see who can get North Carolina, and Clemson, Florida State, and Miami.
– 10 Most Attractive Group of Five School for Expansion
Crazy Idea That Won’t Work, But … READ … THE … ROOM. What did the Big Ten just do? It raided the Pac-12 to go coast-to-coast with its footprint. Who might be out there right now for the taking? Cal and Stanford.
Again, it’s crazy, but academically those two are rock stars, they make it very, very attractive for Notre Dame to join the fun, and even though college football interest is, well, fickle in the Bay Area, it’s still a monster market to totally own.
What Will Probably Happen: The ACC will stay in place as is, but that won’t keep everyone from trying to figure out how to steal the star schools.
It’ll be in discussions with the Big 12 and Pac-12 to try forming an alliance to combat the Big Ten and SEC menaces. In the meantime, it’ll look to improve the current media deal and won’t just sit by and wait for the inevitable defections from schools desperate to leave for more revenue.
Conference Expansion: What’s Going On?
ACC | AAC | Big Ten | Big 12 | C-USA | Ind
MAC | Mountain West | Pac-12 | SEC | Sun Belt
Conference expansion could be best for college football.
College football is quickly changing. With UCLA and USC reportedly moving to the Big Ten conference in 2024, the sport will never be the same. Continue reading “Examining how conference realignment could improve college football”
How Texas has fared against the new members of the Big 12.
Big 12 expansion is coming sooner rather than later.
The conference announced on Friday the new members would be officially joining the Big 12 for the 2023-24 athletic season. Meaning BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF will likely face off against Texas and Oklahoma at least once before they make the move to the SEC.
This puts the league at 14 teams until the Longhorns and Sooners leave which will force a change in the normal round-robin schedule the Big 12 has traditionally used.
Texas will get an opportunity to square off against Houston, an old in-state rival, along with playing a BYU team who historically has Texas’ number. The Longhorns have never played Cincinnati and have only seen the UCF Knights twice all time.
Here is a look at Texas’ all-time record and last meeting against each of the four new programs joining the Big 12. The Longhorns are 19-11 combined against the fresh faces of the new Big 12.
Texas and Oklahoma will likely remain in the Big 12 for at least one season with these new members.
The lengthy discussions regarding Houston, Cincinnati, UCF and BYU joining the Big 12 conference is finally official. Continue reading “Four new members officially set to join the Big 12 conference in 2023”
This upcoming season will be the Big 12’s last 10-team conference as we knew it.
Unless you’re living under a rock, you’ve heard by now that the Big 12 conference is slated to welcome Cincinnati, Houston, BYU and UCF in the coming years. Continue reading “Report: Big 12 conference set to welcome four new teams for the 2023-24 academic year”
