Being among those programs doesn’t guarantee groups are a lock to win the conference every year — it doesn’t even guarantee they will be good. And it doesn’t imply other groups won’t raise to win a conference title or vie for that throne of relevance, whether it’s Penn State, LSU, Washington or whoever. But for good or for ill, those a couple of flagship programs in each conference are the names on the marquee, the groups that regularly drive tv viewership, media dollars and online discourse. College football periodically can look like a meritocracy on the field, however in regards to basic appeal and discussion, it’s typically more of a high school lunchroom ambiance.
In the Big 12, Oklahoma and Texas have actually been at the popular table, however with the news on Thursday night that Texas and Oklahoma will sign up with the SEC in 2024, that’s about to alter for the very first time in almost 3 years.
The fallout will be considerable. Oklahoma has actually been dominant throughout that stretch, winning 14 conference titles in the Big 12’s 27 seasons, consisting of a shared champion with Kansas State in 2012. The Sooners won 6 in a row from 2015 to 2020 and 7 out of 11 from 2000 to 2010, including a championship game in 2000.
Texas, on the other hand, is a prime example of why being a conference headliner doesn’t always equivalent continual success. Despite the truth it hasn’t declared a Big 12 champion given that 2009 and has just one season with double-digit wins ever since, all it takes is a huge success, a first-class quarterback or perhaps a vibrant spring video game to fire up the “Texas is back!” engine every year.
Regardless, with the Longhorns and Sooners apparently buying a set of one-way express tickets to the greener, more treacherous pastures of the SEC beginning in 2024, the Big 12 requires a brand-new alpha dog. The Texas and Oklahoma departures have actually remained in the works for 18 months now, however doing so a year previously than initially prepared modifications the general tenor of the conference. Two seasons is an eternity in college football, however with the method scheduling and recruiting cycles work, just cutting that timeline in half has actually brought it closer to the remainder of the conference’s doorstep. And with the 4 brand-new members — BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF — set to formally join this summer season and a modified 12-team College Football Playoff on the docket for 2024, the Big 12’s video game of thrones will begin in earnest.
The most amazing element of this race is how absolutely broad open it seems. Kansas long has actually been the conference’s proverbial powerhouse in males’s basketball, and Baylor controlled the ladies’s side of that sport for the previous years under Kim Mulkey. Football is a various story. No present Power 5 conference has actually been overthrown more by the sport’s history of adjustment than the Big 12, which is why just 4 future members can declare an overall of 8 conference titles given that the Big 12 started play in 1996: Baylor and Kansas State have 3 each, and TCU and Oklahoma State both have one.
So which a couple of prospects are more than likely to emerge from the shadow cast by Texas and Oklahoma? Outside of the Sooners, Oklahoma State perhaps has actually been the Big 12’s most constant program, balancing 9.2 wins per season throughout the previous 15. Baylor and Kansas State have actually won the previous 2 championship game, and TCU and Cincinnati each crashed the four-team Playoff the previous 2 seasons, although the Bearcats will need to browse a training modification as they enter their brand-new conference. Iowa State ended up in the leading 10 in 2020. The conference was as competitive from leading to bottom in 2022 as it has actually remained in years. There is no clear front-runner. Perhaps that periodic college-football meritocracy in fact will get to crown the homecoming king for as soon as.
It likely will take a couple of years to tally those votes, however the winner (or winners) will be vital for the conference’s identity. The Big 12’s brand name is taking an enormous hit — economically and otherwise — with Oklahoma and Texas proceeding, yet undoubtedly, a couple of programs will presume that function as the basic bearers, the groups to beat and the groups the fans from the remainder of the conference love to dislike. A brand-new program will handle its variation of the “Horns Down” mantle. Even the valuable Hypnotoad might turn heel.
GO DEEPER
OU, Texas reach offer to exit Big 12 in 2024
Ideally, that effect will broaden beyond the Big 12. Clemson’s increase to prominence under Dabo Swinney not just significantly slanted the ACC landscape however likewise transformed college football as a whole. Could we be stating the very same thing a years from now about an upstart Big 12 program? Granted, that will be a significantly harder job as the SEC and Big Ten continue to separate from the remainder of the power-conference pack and drift towards whatever Super League fate waits for. But as those 2 conferences stock yearly top-10, NIL-laced recruiting classes and silos of broadcast money in the race for international supremacy, the on-field conference fights ought to get more difficult too.
An emergent Big 12 juggernaut, however, reasonably could carve out an yearly course to a prime ranking in the 12-team Playoff. With the Big 12’s rights handle location — in addition to a wise, enthusiastic business magnate at the helm, commissioner Brett Yormark — and the continuous unpredictability surrounding the television agreements for the ACC and Pac-12, there’s at least a possibility for the Big 12 to develop itself as a (far-off) 3rd in the Power 5 chain of command. College football fans like to discuss the next sleeping giant. The brand-new Big 12 appears as prime a breeding place as any.
It’s a brand-new dawn for the conference. None of this might take place rapidly or immediately, however history informs us that every conference has and requires an alpha dog. The Big 12’s area quickly will be ripe for the taking.
(Top picture: William Purnell / Icon Sportswire by means of Getty Images)
