Turning the Page from Big 12 Basketball Season: Football Season and Changes are Coming
The Big 12 basketball season officially ended this week with the Big 12 failing to get a team to the Elite 8 for the first time since 2015. For a season that had such high expectations, it was a bust of a March. Yes, injuries happened, but that’s not an excuse. This hoops season ended before any of us would have imagined just a couple of weeks ago. But here we are.
As a Big 12 fan who has owned this site for nearly a decade (we celebrate 10 years this fall), the end of basketball season means I start getting excited and thinking about fall Saturdays. I just can’t help it.
But this year it’s different. We are also entering another big change in the Big 12 this year, for a second-straight year. After adding BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF in 2023, we are now set for a year of losing stalwarts Oklahoma and Texas, while adding Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah.
This year will feel different. Last year, it was two years in the making. We knew since 2021 that the four new schools were being added. But it has been barely six months since the Big 12 announced it was adding the “Four Corners” schools.
The Big 12 will be officially moving West when we flip the calendar to July. It will be a New World Order in the Big 12, and it will truly feel like a coast-to-coast conference in ways we really haven’t felt yet. We had some late-night games thanks to BYU, but now, we are going to get Big 12 action from the late morning to the early morning the following day, on most Saturdays. It will be different.
While I still think the epicenter of the league will reside in the Heartland (no, we’re not changing our name), I’m still interested in seeing how all the fan bases come together and how the Universities and their leadership groups fit.
BYU, Houston, Cincinnati and UCF fans have been a welcomed addition with little drama. Of the four new schools, Colorado is a known commodity, since they just left the Big 12 over a decade ago. Utah fans have been salty and leery about the Big 12, at least a vocal portion, while the Arizona schools haven’t showed their hand either way.
So now, we wait.
And then, there’s losing Oklahoma and Texas. We’ve known this day has been coming for years. But when it finally comes, it’ll be weird. As much as I’ve told them to pound sand since 2021, and well deserved, I will still be nostalgic for how those two were faces of this conference for so long.
I am not worried one bit about the future. Heck, Josh Pate is calling the Big 12 “America’s Conference”. And his case was very compelling.
“The spirit of college football, which at the core makes it attractive for fans, to me, is woven into the DNA of the Big 12 right now,” Pate said. I think when you look at the competitive balance, you look at the fact that no one is drastically outspending anyone else in the Big 12, and the talent on rosters is roughly comparable. So many teams are at the head table, and there are those who don’t have access to the head table. You don’t see a ton of negative NIL-type stories there. You don’t see a ton of roster poaching and mercenary-type movement of players. You don’t see coaches doing that as much. Culture is preached, but also practiced a whole lot more there, I think right now, than any other conference in college football. If you claim you love that, and a lot of you do, how can you turn a blind eye to the Big 12 right now?”
He nailed it. And it’s one of the many reasons I am excited for what the future holds in this league.
But change is always tough and weird, and for the Big 12, we’re watching that change over the next three months, just like we did at this time last year. But last year it was in preparations for additions, and no subtractions.
Now, the subtractions, and more additions, are on the horizon.
In the meantime, we have exciting Big 12 softball and baseball seasons still to be played, which we will be covering and following extensively in the weeks ahead.
And yes, getting you ready for the 2024 Big 12 football season.
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Thank you for joining us on this ride! Plenty to come.
