Is it time for the Big 12 to expand again?

The Big 12 has a potential opportunity to strike a deal with some P5 teams after the announcement that UCLA and USC are leaving for the Big 10.

College Football is in complete limbo right now. We thought that things were crazy after Texas and Oklahoma left for the SEC, the Big 12 added four G5 teams and then all the G5 conferences realigned themselves.

Then June 30th, 2022 happened.

Out of the blue UCLA and USC announced that they plan on dashing to the Big 10 in 2024. This does two things, first it throws out the idea of conferences being geographic, and it puts the Pac 12 on total life support.

After all, the Pac 12 has only won one CFP game ever and their biggest name just announced they are leaving. Another issue is that the Big 12 already got the four most attractive candidates out of the G5.

For the Big 12 to cut their losses, they had to go get BYU, Cincinnati, UCF and Houston. And even those four teams didn’t cover losing Texas and Oklahoma.

USC is the equivalent of Texas and UCLA isn’t too far behind Oklahoma, at least in value. But who can the Pac 12 get? They need at least four teams and the list ends pretty quick after SDSU and Boise State. Every other team west of Texas would only hurt the conference, with an exception perhaps to UNLV for the market. Either way, if the Big 12 was able to cover 50% of their losses, the Pac 12 would be lucky to get up to 25%.

And the Big 10 may not even be done.

There is no reason to believe that the Big 10 wants just two schools three time zones away from the rest of the conference. In all likelihood, the next schools would be Oregon and Washington. While both may fight to have their rivals join (OSU and WSU), when push comes to shove, both would leave.

So that leaves eight Pac 12 teams without a home and absolutely no hope getting back to a P5 status. Naturally, these schools would look for a new home, and the Big 12 makes the most sense.

Time to Strike, NOW

Brett Yormark was probably hoping to sit back and enjoy a few weeks of summer while learning the ropes of how to be a P5 commissioner. That ended however less than 24 hours after he accepted the job.

The reality is, the Big 10 and SEC appear to be making a move to essentially create an AFC and NFC of college football and leave everyone else in the dust. Don’t believe me?

If the Big 10 added Oregon, Washington and Notre Dame and the SEC added Florida State, Miami, and Clemson which huge market teams are left? Sure the west coast would be pretty thin, but as far as teams with a huge market and following, the two conferences would monopolize essentially everyone.

Because of that reason, the Big 12 needs to expand to at least 16 and probably 18 or 20 teams. Yes that sounds crazy, but if the Big 12 can get most of the rest of the Pac 12, there would still be enough of a following to keep the Big 12 relevant, at least for the short term future, which is all that the conference can ask for.

But which teams should the Big 12 target? Do you go for markets, history, recent success or a combination of the three? Or of course, the Big 12 could throw a Hail Mary and see if anything sticks. Let’s take a look at all four.

Market Focus

In the world of NIL and the transfer portal, having big NIL deals is a big deal. Suddenly a market like Pullman, WA loses all of it’s appeal.

If the Big 12 went this route, the top choices would be:

North/South Dakota State –

There are no big teams in either of the Dakotas. While there isn’t a huge population, being the only one within 500 miles any direction could add up to some NIL deals.

History

Perhaps the Big 12 should target schools that have the most history and would carry some prestige with the addition. If they went this route, they wouldn’t care so much the market size or even recent success. What would matter would be adding National Championships and Hall of Famers. As of right now, the Big 12 only has two national champions, BYU and TCU.

1. Washington – The Huskies have one national championship in 1991, however they have been a solid program for much of their history. They are a well known program which is a reason many suspect the Big 10 will target them next.
2. California – It has been a very long time (about 100 years), but Cal actually has three national championships to its name. The Bears certainly don’t have much recent success, but having those championships does carry weight.
3. Oregon – The Ducks are a solid program, and have been a solid program for a long time. While they don’t have the national championships to back them up, their postseason success and ten win seasons makes them very attractive for any conference.
4. Boise State – The Broncos have three BCS wins and quite honestly probably could have one a national championship one of those years if they were given the opportunity.
5. Utah – The Utes have been to some big bowl games and even beat Alabama in the 2008 Sugar Bowl. Historically Utah doesn’t carry the most weight, but amongst the other options, they are towards the top.
6. Arizona State – The Sun Devils rarely live up to their hype, but they’ve had some Rose Bowl appearances and quite a few 10 win seasons. They were the dominate program in the WAC in the 1960’s.
7. Arizona – In the 1980’s and 1990’s the Wildcats finished ranked five times and finished ranked as high as No. 4 in 1998.

That is about it. No other school adds any history that would really make the conference look strong from a historical standpoint.

Recent Success

Lately, expansion candidates have been selected based off of recent success (TCU to Big 12, four new Big teams), although one could argue that USC and UCLA to the Big 10 are not following that pattern.

If the Big 12 went off of recent success, their order would likely be the following.

1. Oregon – The Ducks have been to seven BCS/NY6 bowl games the past thirteen seasons. While they failed to win a National Championship twice, the fact that Oregon was that far puts them at the top of the list.
2. Washington – The Huskies have played in three NY6 games and had multiple 11 win seasons over the past decade.
3. Utah – The Utes have been a really good program the last few years, and topped it off with a visit to the Rose Bowl this past season. The previous two seasons the Utes played for a spot in the Rose Bowl by playing in the Pac 12 Championship Game.
4. Boise State – The Broncos have been a solid program since their 2009 Fiesta Bowl shocker. They played in the 2014 Fiesta Bowl and have won 10+ games 12 of the past 17 years.
5. Arizona State – While they haven’t lived up to they hype, the Sun Devils have been .500 or better eight of the past ten seasons.
6. North Dakota State – NDSU is a really tough one to rank since they play in the FCS, however winning eight of the last ten FCS National Championships says a lot and puts them on this list.
7. Memphis – Memphis has had a few nice seasons finishing ranked three times the last ten years as well as three ten win seasons.

That concludes the list of recent success that would carry any weight to helping the conference look good if they expanded.

Hail Mary Options

While it is unlikely that any of the following candidates would consider joining the Big 12, it would be unwise for Yormark to not at least see where the interest is of the following teams.

Notre Dame –

Notre Dame is Independent in large part because they have a contract with the ACC. If the ACC starts to crumble, Notre Dame likely would be able to keep much of their freedom in the Big 12, or at least a lot more than in the Big 10 who likes to restrict things more.

Prediction

Of all the possible scenarios or angles that the Big 12 can take, the most likely outcome is that there will be a mix of three areas that were mentioned above. Of course, one of the Hail Mary scenarios would take a top spot over any of these, but since those odds are so small, for this article they will be left out.

In order of phone calls, I believe these will be the additions to the Big 12.

1. Arizona State and Arizona – These will be called together. They are already sort of in the Big 12 footprint and would come as a package deal. The two don’t want to be separated and aren’t big enough to likely be picked up by themselves. They would probably be the first to be willing to jump from their league.
2. Utah – The Utes have had some recent success. If the Arizona schools were to leave, Utah would be the next obvious team to leave. They know they are good enough to bring value to the Big 12, but also not big enough to be invited by the Big 10 or SEC.
   • After calling and securing Utah, the call should be made to Oregon and Washington. This would perhaps give the Big 12 leverage to get these two to join, while at the same time not risking losing Utah or the Arizona Schools to a newly made Pac 12 conference.
3. UNLV and SDSU – These would be two quick additions that would join without asking any questions. This would get the Big 12 into two huge markets and would create a nice footprint into the west coast. If the Big 12 is going for only 16 teams, SDSU probably would get the first call since they are the better team and would tap into the SoCal market.
4. Stanford – What? Stanford didn’t even make the lists?! Yes, but the Cardinal have more NCAA Championships in other sports than almost any other team in the nation. Having Stanford would also open up Northern California and add academics and a huge endowment to the conference. Think of them as Vanderbilt in the SEC. This would put the Big 12 at 18 teams.
5. Colorado and Memphis – These two schools would be the 19th and 20th picks by the conference mainly due to their markets. The Memphis market would strengthen the conference eastward, and Denver would be a strong market right in the middle of the US.

Next in line: If any of the schools above chose not to join the league the order that the Big 12 should take should be as follows.

• Boise State
• California
• Oregon State
• Washington State
• North Dakota State
• Air Force

What do you think? Should the Big 12 expand or play the waiting game? Let us know in the comments.