Big 12 Looks To Survive

After weeks of speculation it turns out that the Big 12 Conference isn’t going to dissolve the way many of thought it would. There was a great deal of controversy this NCAA football offseason as the Pac 10 and Big 10 both extended significant offers to a number of Big 12 schools to come and join them. Both the Pac 10 and Big 10 are able to provide much more lucrative television contracts and revenue streams that simply weren’t available in the Big 12 despite the conference’s storied success on the gridiron. The Pac 10 and Big 10 have performed poorly in recent years as major programs like Michigan and UCLA have seemingly fallen off the map allowing the SEC to become the most dominant force in college football. With the inevitable downward spiral that will be the USC Trojans over the next few years the situation for the Pac 10 became even more dire. Last week Nebraska made the decision to leave the Big 12 and join the Pac 10, everyone assumed Big 12 powerhouses Texas, Oklahoma and Texas A&M would follow suit during the next few days. I think many people were surprised by the breaking news on ESPN’s bottom line when it was announced that Texas had informed the Pac 10 that they would be sticking to together with Oklahoma and A&M and that all 3 teams would remain in a now 10-team Big 12.

I’m relieved that the Big 12 will not be disintegrated because it would entail a sort of paradigm shift in NCAA football with such a large scale re-alignment. While it would have been sad to see the tarnishing of the traditions of Big 12 football I think the biggest victim in this whole process would have been the University of Kansas. The Jayhawks have always been a perennial basketball powerhouse but have never fielded much of a football team. Considering there is so much more money in college football compared to basketball it is likely that Kansas would not have been offered an invitation to join either the Big 10 or Pac 10. Kansas basketball would have most likely wound up playing in the Mountain West Conference for the foreseeable future which I believe would be a major blow to their program. As it is Nebraska will be the only major school to leave the Big 12 and really that isn’t that big of a loss, despite being ranked at the end of last season the Cornhuskers haven’t been a factor since 2001 when they played for the National Championship under the leadership of Heisman Trophy winner Eric Crouch (see below). The Big 12 will certainly have a new look next year but all in all I think a major miscalculation was avoided.