Postscripts: Big 12 Willing Cedes Ground to SEC, Plus the NCAA Wises Up and Texas Volleyball Tries to Repeat

Posted on December 17, 2023

What’s going on in the Big 12 and beyond? I expand and explain every Sunday in Postscripts at Heartland College Sports, your home for independent Big 12 coverage.

This week, the Big 12 fumbles its football media day, why this not a precursor for the immediate move of championship events and there’s a national championship game with a Big 12 team in it on Sunday.

The Big 12 is Fumbling Media Day

In the world of venue selection, your football media day is, if we’re being honest, small potatoes. It’s made for TV. We in the media are there to work. Those in the football or basketball professions are there to talk. Everyone gets what they need.

For the past several seasons the Big 12’s Football Media Days have been at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, the home of their conference championship game. Aside from irrationally worrying about the gigantic scoreboard falling on my head, it’s a great space.

Well, earlier this week we learned that the AT&T apparently has a conflict for 2024 and 2025, as reported by Action Network’s Brett McMurphy. First of all, AT&T Stadium’s own web site doesn’t list an event from July 5-25 of next year. So explain the conflict, please?

Second, McMurphy reported that the league is locked in on taking its next two media days to … Las Vegas. The Big 12 has not officially announced a move.

I hope they’re re-thinking it. Here’s why.

First, AT&T Stadium is not the only place the Big 12 could have this event. Before it moved to Jerry World, it was at The Star in Frisco, Texas, which is the Cowboys’ training facility and features an indoor stadium (the Big 12 Combine will be there in March by the way). Before that, it was at the Omni Hotel in Dallas.

There is the Gaylord Texan in Grapevine, another Omni Hotel in Fort Worth and no shortage of conventions centers in this area. If AT&T has a conflict, fine. You don’t have to pull up stakes and leave the area entirely.

And here’s why the Big 12 shouldn’t. It’s likely the issue isn’t so much a conflict with AT&T but that the Big 12’s Media Day usually coincides with the MLB All-Star Game, which is next door at Globe Life Field next year. I’ll have to cover that for Inside the Rangers. It’s gonna be nuts.

That same week the SEC is having its Media Days at the Omni In Dallas. And this is the real reason I have a problem with this.

So the SEC is invading your space and your answer is to … leave? You’re basically giving the SEC four days of free media in one of your top markets and you’re just walking away? As someone who has lived in Dallas-Fort Worth for most of my life, let me explain how this is going to work:

Reporters are going to cover the SEC by day and baseball by night. And the local TV you would normally get by having the event here won’t be traveling with you to Las Vegas.

This is a terrible strategic move for the Big 12. It doesn’t make you a national conference, it won’t attract the attention you’re hoping for and you’re letting one of your chief competitors get what you usually get in your backyard.

But, hey, no one asked me.

Big 12 Football and Basketball Title Events Staying Put

I appeared on Miller and Condon on KXNO Radio earlier this week and we talked about not just media days but whether it was a precursor toward the Big 12 moving other events to Las Vegas. I don’t think so and here’s why.

First, the football game is contractually obligated to AT&T Stadium through 2031. Commissioner Brett Yormark said the league is not only committed to that contract but committed to continuing to play the game, even as the College Football Playoff expands and some conferences are thinking about transitioning away from the game as most do away with divisions.

Second, the Big 12 men’s and women’s basketball tournaments are contracted to Kansas City through 2027. Yormark said last March that he thoroughly enjoyed the tournament and liked being the only show in town (something you’re not going to get in Las Vegas). At the time, he said that he needed Kansas City and T-Mobile Center to make some improvements for the tournament’s long-term future.

In October at Big 12 media days, he told us about negotiations for an extension with KC and the Big 12 which would keep the event there through at least 2030. After he made that announcement, I got the chance to ask him in the gaggle if the league’s desire for an extension is tied to commitments to improvements to T-Mobile. He said yes.

Yormark also said he hoped to have that deal done by March. Assuming that happens, I wouldn’t worry. But, if there’s no hint of an extension by then, well then I’ll have to ask if something has changed.

Release the Transfers

The NCAA finally saw the light. Or, more to the point, a federal judge shined a light in their eye like the NCAA was trying to run a sobriety checkpoint.

A West Virginia judge ruled in Ohio vs. NCAA, which was the case that was attempting to make second-time transfers that has been denied eligibility by the NCAA the right to play now. The judge ruled in the athletes’ favor. At first, it was a 14-day temporary restraining order. That would allow players like WVU’s Raequan Battle and Cincinnati’s Jamille Reynolds to play now, but they could still be ruled ineligible at a future hearing set for Dec. 27.

There was a ton of confusion after that. No one was certain if the athletes would lose a year of eligibility if they played and the Judge later ruled against them. Not even the NCAA was sure. Finally, on Friday, both sides agreed that any of those athletes could play in the spring without losing eligibility. The judge then converted the TRO into a preliminary injunction.

So, Battle, Reynolds and all of the other two-time transfers that couldn’t play can now play without penalty the rest of this season.

This was always the right decision for players that had been in college sports for several years. It never should have taken this long for the NCAA to get there.

Now, let’s fix this in a reasonable way for everyone.

Texas Volleyball Aims for Repeat

The Texas volleyball team will be on the floor at 2 p.m. Sunday in Tampa to try and repeat as Division I volleyball champions when they face Nebraska. The match is on ABC.

Texas is aiming for its fourth title all-time and is in the championship match for the sixth time since 2009. Nebraska is shooting for its sixth title all-time and its first since 2017. This is as big-time as it gets in this sport.

This is one sport where the Big 12 will miss Texas. The ranks of Big 12 teams that have reached the title game since the Big 12 was formed have thinned to the point where the most recent finalist aside from Texas will be BYU, which reached the title game in 2014 — and joined the Big 12 in July.

Big 12 Legend Jimmer Fredette

Remember — that’s how this works. And gotta be honest, I didn’t realize the BYU great was still in the game.

The sharpest shooter in all of 3×3 🎯

🇺🇸 @jimmerfredette is the 2023 USA Basketball 3×3 Male Athlete of the Year!

🏆 #USABAwards pic.twitter.com/vWEz248UQy
— USA Basketball 3×3 (@usab3x3) December 15, 2023