That wacky Big 12 is at it again.
The Big 12’s conference championship game will be played in Dallas because of course
They’re gonna play a round robin, then have a conference title game anyway, which will probably make rich people some money.
Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
The conference decided on a division structure after all: one division.
Hypothetically, on the last weekend of the regular season, Team X could play Team Y atop the division standings in essentially a meaningless game (which isn’t a stretch, because of the back-loaded nature of the conference’s typical slate) then turn around and play an actual conference championship game the next week with actual stakes.
But beyond strict geography, an obvious divisional structure was never really there, so they didn’t do it.
The Big 12 would love for you to think this is about the Playoff, even though that wouldn’t be an entirely good reason.
The league wants you to believe that this is happening to strengthen its position in terms of potential Playoff selection and something something math:
With input from the league’s head football coaches, the athletics directors have moved forward with a 1 vs. 2 format. Beginning in 2017, the Big 12 football champion is assured to be on par with other league champions by having 13 data points for CFP selection committee evaluation.
But the Big 12 is bragging about taking input from its head coaches and then doing the opposite of what they suggested.
Also, miss me with the data points stuff, which is a reference to Playoff committee chairman Jeff Long’s comments after Baylor and TCU missed the 2014 field. Oklahoma waltzed into a semifinal last season after a loss in early October and without a conference title game.
There’s evidence that a conference championship did much more harm than good back in the day when they used to have one:
Let’s put that in percentages: 27 percent of the Big 12’s title games cost the conference in the national title race, and another 20 percent nearly did the same.
Not a single Big 12 title game in 15 years would have been a winner-take-all, champion-makes-the-Playoff situation. None featured two teams ranked seventh or higher in the AP poll, and while there would have been some interesting discussions about teams like 1998 Texas A&M and 2001 Colorado, there was never a situation like 2014’s, when Baylor and TCU each entered in the top five.
So why potentially hurt your Playoff chances and annoy your coaches just to add a title game?
You’re smart enough to know the answer to that question.
Our Steven Godfrey told you last week that the conference could get more cash without annexing more teams, and that’s exactly what they did.
Where are we gonna have this big dumb shindig?
Houston hosts the SWAC title game then, so it’s out, but there is a perfectly massive and opulent stadium right in another major metropolitan area within the Big 12’s footprint.
It’s technically not a new home either because the last two Big 12 title games were played there in 2009 and 2010.
I’m not even mad anymore; it’s actually funny.
Just do what you want, good sense be damned. In 2014, the league overreacted to something that ended up being not that big a deal, and that’s what got this whole ball rolling. They passed on expansion because nothing really stood out as the obvious choice, and now they’re having a guaranteed rematch in a conference title game that could knock their best team out of the Playoff.
This is all very on brand.
Here we are nearly three years later and at the end of the day we have a diet version of what we already had. Cool.
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