There’s one realignment scenario in which the Big 12 prospers
College sports fans everywhere are wondering if the Big 12 can survive after losing Texas and Oklahoma.
There seem to be two likely scenarios for the eight teams left behind: 1) They stick together, add some group of five teams and settle for being the clear fifth-best football conference in the country. 2) They split up, all looking for their own landing spots in other conferences. Maybe a couple get lucky and join the Pac-12. The rest probably end up in the AAC or Mountain West.
But there’s one turn of events that could actually put the Big 12 in a position of power, and that’s if the Big Ten gets aggressive.
Let me throw out this wild scenario:
- The Big Ten guts the Pac-12, adding USC, UCLA, Cal, Stanford, Washington and Oregon to become a football and academic behemoth that stretches from coast to coast.
- The SEC, trying to stay ahead of the Big Ten, picks off the top brands in the ACC, adding Clemson, Florida State, Virginia Tech and Miami.
Now the Big 12, with it’s eight schools still united, suddenly finds itself in position to pick up the pieces of the Pac-12 and ACC and form a 20-school super-conference of it’s own.
It nabs Duke, UNC, NC State, Virginia, Pitt, Louisville and Georgia Tech from the ACC, leaving Boston College, Syracuse and Wake Forest behind.
It snags Arizona, Arizona State, Utah and Colorado from the Pac-12, leaving Oregon State and Washington State behind.
It also adds BYU, a national brand on par with most schools in this league.
Suddenly the Big 12 survives and becomes the clear-cut No. 3 football conference behind the Big Ten and SEC. And it becomes the No. 1 men’s basketball conference with blue bloods Kansas, Duke, UNC and Louisville, plus a myriad of consistently-strong programs like Virginia, Baylor, Oklahoma State and BYU.
Playing out conference realignment scenarios is always fun. This one sounds crazy — because it is — but the way things are headed, it might not be nearly as absurd as it sounds.
The 20-team Big 12
Arizona
Arizona State
Baylor
BYU
Colorado
Duke
Georgia Tech
Iowa State
Kansas
Kansas State
Louisville
North Carolina
North Carolina State
Oklahoma State
Pittsburgh
TCU
Texas Tech
Utah
Virginia
West Virginia
