On Monday, Kansas State head coach Chris Klieman spoke to members of the media following the team’s Week 2 win over the Tulane Green Wave.
While Klieman mentioned different topics like offensive rhythm, defensive schemes, and playcalling, he also provided an interesting take on the Big 12 football schedule.
“I’m telling you, this is the way it should be,” Klieman said. “And I’m not going to win this thing, but we need to play ten conference games or eight conference games, this nine, playing five on the road and four at home, it doesn’t make any sense to me. We need to be able to play 10, and everybody should play 10. Then we’d have a lot more parity.”
Klieman mentioned that he prefers the Big 12 Football schedule move to ten league games instead of the current model with nine. He also mentioned that he could live with the league moving to eight conference games, similar to the model laid out by the SEC. The idea behind the change would even up the amount of home and road games for each program.
In the current model, with more Big 12 teams in the conference than ever, specific rivalries are protected like the Sunflower Showdown, but historic rivalries like Farmageddon are not. Many have considered the idea of scheduling pods or divisions as the league pursues expansion candidates but for now, the current mode features ten league games and two bye weeks.
With the “Four Corner” schools, Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, and Utah, joining the league in 2024, things became a bit more complicated on the scheduling front for select teams. Teams like Kansas State, Arizona, Baylor, and Utah, square off against Big 12 opponents in the non-conference schedule, but the matchups do not count toward league totals.
Baylor and Utah were the first two programs to cross that threshold in Week 2, with the Utes taking down the Bears, and the pair of Wildcat rivals, Kansas State and Arizona, will follow suit in Week 3. The matchup is set for Friday, September 13th, at 7:00 p.m. CT in Manhattan, Kansas.
