While the Big 12 went through a will-it-or-won’t-it dance last summer over expanding beyond 10 teams (and ultimately didn’t), the conference discussed a “scheduling alliance” with the Pac-12, according to a report by CBS’ Dennis Dodd.
The Big 12 and Pac-12 reportedly discussed a conference challenge in football. All in favor?
There’s no evidence this partnership is going to happen, but let’s make the case that it’d be enjoyable.
“The discussions focused on a scheduling agreement between the two conferences to bolster each league’s non-conference schedules in the College Football Playoff era,” the report says, citing “multiple sources.” But the Big 12’s commissioner, Bob Bowlsby, pours some water on the idea in the same piece.
“We talked over probably three years about things we might work together on [with the Pac-12],” Bowlsby added. “I had the same conversation about the SEC and the ACC.”
But because these things seem fun, and because there’s no reason it couldn’t happen at some point later, we can have some fun imagining it. We’ve gotten to dream up inter-conference challenge series before.
This could look like other scheduling “challenges,” which are common in basketball.
Think of the ACC/Big Ten Challenge, which pits nearly every team from one league against a team from the other league. That works easily enough, because the Big Ten has 14 teams and the ACC has 15 (in basketball, because of Notre Dame).
The SEC and Big 12 are doing basically the same thing this hoops season. That doesn’t work as well as the ACC/Big Ten, because the Big 12 has 10 teams to the SEC’s 14, but it’s close enough. These arrangements do not need to have perfect symmetry. It’s not hard to make sure no team misses out on a conference challenge two years in a row.
The Pac-12 has 12 teams, and the Big 12 has 10. That means every six years, each Pac-12 team would take a turn sitting out a theoretical Pac-12/Big 12 Football Challenge. Two teams from the Pac-12 would miss out every year, and they could each fill out their schedule with someone else. Lots of games are out there for the scheduling.
Here’s a Big Ten-SEC model, off a fun idea Bret Bielema once had. A Big 12-Pac-12 shindig could be kind of like that one.
Some matchups would be great, and the challenge could bring teams together.
Power 5 non-conference games are generally good things. Lots of teams skip them altogether and only schedule FCS teams or non-competitive opponents from the lower reaches of the Group of 5. Anything that gets Baylor to play someone better than SMU or Rice on an annual basis should be copacetic with all of us.
These matchups would presumably rotate every year, but let’s just have some Year 1 fun. College football could use games such as:
- USC-Texas, in a rematch of the Vince Young Rose Bowl
- Stanford-Kansas State, with forward passing outlawed and a minimum of six blocking offensive linemen on the field for every down
- Washington State-Texas Tech, with defenses allowed to play 13 men
- Colorado-Nebraska, once Bill Snyder becomes the president of college football and the Huskers come home from the Big Ten
A note: the Horns and Trojans have games scheduled for 2017 and 2018 already. I say we make it a regular lynchpin of this event, but that’s just me.
There’d be plenty of boringness involved, too. Nobody’s breaking the remote because they pressed the button too many times to flip on Kansas-Oregon State. It’s impossible to pair up two conferences and have every game be compelling. But even a temporary union of the two leagues could give us some blockbusters. That’d be cool.
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