Should the Big 12 Try Divisions Again?
This Big 12 season has been chaotic, and it might be time to return to a simpler format.
Entering the final week of the 2024 regular season, there are still nine teams in contention for the conference championship. While a two-loss contention of BYU, Colorado, Arizona State and Iowa State remain the favorites, five teams with three conference losses are still in the mix.
Somehow, as every team enters the 12th game of the season, more than half of the Big 12 is still in the conference title race. That is, of course, partially due to the absurd tiebreakers that will take place to determine who makes it in.
Last season was the first year of this complicated tiebreaker era. Oklahoma State and Oklahoma were the only two-loss teams, and OSU had the head-to-head advantage, making that an easy tiebreaker to determine which team would face one-loss Texas.
After more than a decade of a round-robin schedule with 10 teams in the conference, the Big 12 sits at 16 teams with no possible way for everyone to play each other. However, there is a solution that the Big 12 should consider: divisions.
The Big 12 is no stranger to divisions, having a North and South division prior to the league’s decrease to 10 teams in 2011. While 16 teams is a lot, divisions could still work perfectly.
The format would be simple. The Big 12 could have two eight-team divisions and a conference schedule comprised of seven divisional games and two interdivisional games each year.
Splitting up the teams could also be an interesting process, given the diverse geography of the conference. However, it might make more sense to abandon location altogether in divisional alignment.
The divisions could be as simple as the old Big 12 and new Big 12. With eight new additions over the past two seasons and eight teams remaining from the 10-team conference, the split is natural and keeps the Pac-12 and American teams competing against each other each season.
There is no easy solution to these complex tiebreakers in the world of conference realignment, but divisions have made things easier in the past and could do so again.
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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.