BIG Mistake

Every power conference in college football has a conference championship game to end the season that crowns a definite champion, besides one. That one conference has two teams that would've liked to see themselves scheduled against Alabama on January 1st at 8:30 PM, but instead they are both forced to settle for games that promise to be much less exciting. Mostly for one reason...they don't have a conference championship game.

TCU and Baylor get to share both the conference championship and a spot in front of the TV on New Year's Day. Unfortunately, this conundrum isn't either of their faults. It is a product of the conference structure that they are in, and fortunately for them it hasn't mattered much until this year. But, unfortunately for them, this happens to be the biggest year in the history of college football because this year is the first-ever college football playoff.

There are only benefits to adjusting the BIG 12 conference structure and here they are:

1. Clear Champion:

First and foremost, the BIG 12 needs to add a conference championship game regardless on if they plan on splitting the conference up into two divisions. If you have the two teams with the best records in the conference play against one another in the last week of the season like all other power conferences there is no conflict. It certainly would've helped to straighten out the debacle that took place at the end of the year with TCU and Baylor.

If Baylor and TCU played in a BIG 12 championship last week, there is no doubt in my mind that the winner of that game is in the fourth playoff spot. That game, based on ranking and rivalry alone, would've been much more meaningful than the Ohio State vs. Wisconsin game regardless of the outcome.

2. Important Ending:

The biggest thing that killed TCU's chances even though they destroyed their opponent in the final week of the season, was that the game was extremely unimportant. When you're ranked 3rd in the nation and playing a team who is 2-9, everyone is expecting you to beat them by that many (52) points.

Exactly what the BIG 12 needs to do...

The perfect solution to TCU's problem this year and to prevent it from happening to another BIG 12 team in the future, since we know the college football playoffs are here to stay, would be to create a championship game. This would ensure that if ever a team in your division needs to state their case at the end of the season, they will have a big game to play in that will allow them to prove their worthiness. Which sometimes backfires if said team loses, but that is a risk you take because the reward is so much greater, and we all know the BIG 12 commissioner is kicking himself that he hadn't done it sooner after what happened this season.

3. Schedule Flexibility:

Right now with the conference structured the way that it is, the teams in it are completely subjected to the level of competition that is in the conference. With ten teams in the conference and no further divisional breakdown, each team in the BIG 12 knows each year who nine of their games are against. This greatly effects their strength of schedule and leaves them with not much flexibility to take on more challenging competition.

If the BIG 12 were to split the conference into two divisions that would leave only four definite games a year for each team, and give them the flexibility that they need to schedule some more formidable out-of-conference opponents. Having a win against a leading team in any of the power conferences this year could have proved the difference maker for either of the BIG 12's co-champions this year. 

4. Greater Rivalry:

Having a conference championship and divisions would certainly help create a better sense of rivalry between the teams in the BIG 12 because they would have a select few teams that they would play each year instead of knowing that they would have to play every team in their conference.

5. Increased Revenue:

Last, but certainly not least, in the mind's of the schools and big-wigs involved in this inevitable restructuring process, is the money that they missed out on by not having a conference championship game between TCU and Baylor, and the money as well as exposure they would've received by being in the inaugural playoff.

The College Football Playoff Trump Card

There is one reason, and one reason only the Ohio State (OSU) Buckeyes secured the fourth spot in the inaugural college football playoff... they won a conference championship.

Not only did they win a conference championship, but they did it in convincing fashion, shutting out the Wisconsin Badgers 59-0. The last time the Badgers were shut out was in August of 1997. Beating the 17th ranked team in the nation, coming into last week, should have been a tough enough task for the Buckeyes, who were starting their third-string quarterback, but they one-upped themselves. If the playoff committee needed something to convince them that Ohio State deserved the final spot over the likes of TCU and Baylor, that was enough. This very reason is why that conference championship win was OSU's "trump card".

So yeah, basically what I'm saying is TCU and Baylor didn't hold their destiny in their own hands when it came into the last week of the season. The reason that I say this is because if either team did, then I don't see why neither one of their wins would've been convincing enough to earn them the final spot in the playoff. Baylor topped Kansas State, by 11 points, in a showdown of top 10 teams, and TCU beat Iowa State, a conference rival, by 52 points. Which led to this tweet from TCU's WR Kolby Listenbee:

Yall want us to score 100 next time?
— Kolby J. ™️ (@List10bee_Swagg) December 7, 2014

In response to Kolby's tweet, that most likely wouldn't have been enough either. When you are virtually neck-and-neck with a team like Ohio State, with what they just accomplished, and you're riding on a 52 point win over a team that was 2-9, that's just not enough.


If either one of the first two teams out deserved to take that illusive final spot from OSU, it was Baylor. One, because they handed TCU their only loss of the season, and two, because they defeated a top ten team in K-State during the final week of the season. The only difference is that Ohio State's game meant more because it was a conference championship.

The problem here though, is that it's not TCU or Baylor's fault that they didn't play in a conference championship game to end the year, the fault lies on the BIG 12. When your conference doesn't hold a championship game, like many other conferences, you are left to fill that week with another game that most likely won't be as important. So, when you need to make a statement at the end of the year to a committee, like the one that decided both team's fates, you don't have much of an argument over a situation like the one OSU forced at the end of their season.

I hope that this post brought a little bit of clarity to anyone who is utterly baffled as to why a team like Ohio State, who lost to Virginia Tech with a record of 6-6, took the final spot. If the BIG 12 would change their conference format it would make it a lot easier for a team within their conference that needs to make a statement in the last week of the season, to do so.

In the mean time, I will be working on a blog post about how a change like the one I mentioned would benefit the teams in the BIG 12, and I will post it here once finished.