For 2023, UCF Joins Big XII

There are many important questions about UCF’s move to the Big XII in 2023.

Brian Smith | Jun 10, 2022

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UCF Knights

ORLANDO – One more season in the American Athletic Conference for the UCF Knights. Beginning in 2023, the UCF athletic programs will be living the Big XII life, and that brings up many questions.

First off, the complexities of having teams from so many different areas of the country means there are fewer natural rivals. It’s not like West Virginia or BYU are close to any of the other Big XII schools, geographically speaking. That leads into the situation of how the conference is divided up.

Specifically about football from the point forward, will there be pods, split divisions, or just one big conference with teams shifting which teams they play each season?

This prime question is why the point about rivals was mentioned above. Rivals make it easier to divy up the divisions, if that’s the way the Big XII goes. There are several more questions as well.

Big Picture

Currently, the Big XII plays 10 conference games. Will that remain the same once UCF, Cincinnati, BYU and Houston join? Here are the other conference members they will be joining:

Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, Iowa State, Texas Tech, Baylor, TCU, West Virginia, Texas and Oklahoma. The last two will be leaving the Big XII in 2025, maybe sooner. That’s dependent upon buyout clauses. Both teams will be heading to the SEC. Now back to questions about scheduling. A few to ponder:

Pods (for groupings is likely in this scenario), two divisions, or one big division?

Regardless of how the conference is divided (if at all), will there be a Big XII Conference Championship Game?

With scheduling, which teams get to play Oklahoma and Texas before they leave the conference?

UCF-Specific questions

Which team(s) will the Knights play every football season? One could argue that Cincinnati and Houston should be two of them, but there are some other interesting possibilities as well. This is one of the toughest questions to be answered.

Will UCF have any say about specific teams that it gets to play year after year?

After all of those questions, there are still other sub points as well. Here is more information about UCF’s move into the Big XII via a podcast: