OSU Football: Does the Big 12 Need Divisions Again?
The Big 12 has expanded rapidly over the past couple of years, and football might need some tweaks.
The conference is losing Oklahoma State’s biggest rivals, Oklahoma and Texas, to the SEC. However, the Big 12 has grown from 10 teams to 16 in only two years.
Since the summer of 2023, the Big 12 has added BYU, Cincinnati, Houston, UCF, Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah. With new teams making up more than a third of the conference, the Big 12 looks unrecognizable from its 2022 version.
Yet, the Big 12’s football standings and championship procedure have not changed from its 10-team version. Last season, standings and tiebreakers were the source of headaches and confusion in the final weeks. Texas and OSU eventually met in the Big 12 title game, but not before the Big 12 had to clarify and alter its tiebreakers.
With more teams next season, those tiebreakers will not get any simpler. There are scenarios where a 12-0 team could be entirely left out of the Big 12 title game.
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The simplest fix for the Big 12 would be to introduce divisions. Before the conference went to 10 teams in 2011, it had North and South divisions from 1996-2010. With eight conference games, teams played the five other teams in their division and three from the opposite.
With nine conference games and 16 teams in 2024, the conference could schedule teams to play the other seven teams in their division and play two teams from the opposite, ensuring every interdivisional matchup happens every four years. With conference matchups set through 2027, that seems unlikely unless the conference is willing to change its plans.
As for divisions, there are a few different ways the conference could divide the teams. One option would be to divide the teams geographically. However, with a much more diverse and spread-out conference than in the 2000s, any East-West or North-South split would be somewhat illogical.
In the spirit of keeping some familiarity in the age of college realignment, the best option might be to split the teams into groups of new and old. The eight new members could form a division, while the eight remaining members of the 2010s era could continue to match up every season and build on the budding rivalries.
Although it is unlikely to happen with the Big 12 eying further expansion, divisions could be the only way to avoid mass confusion in the standings when November rolls around.
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Ivan is a sports media student at Oklahoma State University. He has covered OSU athletics since 2022 and also covers the OKC Thunder for Inside The Thunder and Thunderous Intentions.