In 1992, the SEC played the first conference championship game in college football history. It was a game created out of necessity when Arkansas joined from the Southwest Conference and South Carolina joined after 20 years as a football independent, putting 12 teams in a league that had previously played a seven-game conference schedule.
The Big 12, created from the Big 8 and half of the existing SWC, and the now football-dead WAC started conference title games four years later.
Since then, conference title games on the first Saturday of December have become an inescapable part of a college football season's drama. Now, of the 10 conferences that play FBS football, only the Big 12 and Sun Belt don't have a conference title game.
In the case of the Big 12, and especially after Saturday's games, I have to wonder if not having a conference title game might keep the league from fielding a playoff representative for the second straight year. Furthermore, I can't help but feel like the other, larger major conferences are doing their teams more of a favor by playing in 12- or 14-team leagues.
About a year ago, I wrote, "There's also been a lot of talk about how the Big 12 may have missed out on a playoff bid because it didn't have a conference championship game. I can't comprehend those complaints..."
Well, I understand it a little better now. But the situation also relates to scheduling under the league's round-robin format. And a point from the article linked to above still stands: there's not a good way to divide the 10 Big 12 teams into divisions as they stand now.
From a purists' point of view, there's something extremely satisfying about having a 10-team conference with each team playing every other team. It (in theory, as we saw last year) means that one team is a true conference champion playing a balanced schedule.
Guess what? There's no such thing as a balanced schedule, even in the Big 12. Let's begin with the basic fact that nine conference games means half the teams are going to have five road conference games each year.
Sure, there can be neutral site arrangements like Texas/Oklahoma and Texas Tech/Baylor have, but those aren't going to be feasible for every team, and they're going to be limited to the first few weeks of conference play, as no one particularly wants to give up November home games with the stakes potentially so high.
Then there's the issue of pure scheduling luck that this year has benefitted Oklahoma State to a downright laughable degree.
The Cowboys, who have five conference home games, got to play these four teams on the road: Texas, Texas Tech, West Virginia and Iowa State, all of whom currently have losing conference records. Oklahoma State was tied or trailing in the fourth quarter of all four games. They also had to get a last second field goal to defeat the worst Kansas State team since Bill Snyder took back over in 2009.
So, of course, they'll get Oklahoma and Baylor both at home in the final two games on their schedule. And frankly, having watched Oklahoma State play several times this season, I'd rather see Houston or North Carolina in the playoff.
The Big 12 has messed up colossally by backloading the conference schedule so that any huge game with playoff implications would be played in November. While it looked great on paper that the conference had three undefeated teams and four top 15 teams headed into November, since none of them had played each other yet, the playoff committee rightly punished the conference and had 7-0 Baylor at No. 6 upon the first release of the rankings.
Effectively, the Big 12's scheduling made it to where a team would have to go undefeated or come darn close after an early loss to make the playoff. It's nearly impossible to go undefeated even if your big games are buffered by easier ones. It's even more unlikely when those big games are packed into five weeks.
Let's peek up north and look at the situation in the Big Ten. Iowa, like Oklahoma State, has had some pretty favorable schedule luck, not having to face Ohio State, Michigan State or Michigan en route to a 10-0 record. If they beat a bad Purdue team and win at rebuilding Nebraska, they'll likely get their shot at undefeated Ohio State on Dec. 6.
The Big Ten, even though not everyone plays each other in a 14-team mega-league, is almost guaranteed at this stage of the season to have a playoff representative. Even if Michigan State somehow stuns Ohio State next week, a Michigan State/Iowa Big Ten championship probably produces a playoff team, especially if Michigan State can say they knocked off two undefeated teams in a three-week span.
Oklahoma State now doesn't have the luxury of saying that they'll play any undefeated teams after Oklahoma won at Baylor in one of the season's most impressive road wins.
We can get this out of the way now: If Oklahoma State does get by both Baylor and Oklahoma, they'll be in the playoff. I obviously don't see that happening because I think Oklahoma is way too much of a force on both sides of the ball for the Cowboys. Heck, Baylor's offense, even without Seth Russell, stands to do well against Oklahoma State, who has allowed 26 points or more in every conference game not named Kansas.
But the committee won't dare leave out a big-boy undefeated for a one-loss team. It just won't and can't happen under this format. The politics of any sort of potential championship "split" will be avoided at all costs.
The point, however, is that things could have been so much different for the Big 12, even under this 10-team, round-robin schedule with more weeks in between the anticipated biggest games. And if say, Houston and BYU were part of a 12-team league with the elite teams split up across North-South divisions, the conference would certainly be more likely to field a playoff team than they are now.
After Saturday's games, the Pac-12 looks like the most sure bet to have its champion outside of the playoff. Stanford and Utah each lost, giving those teams their critical second losses of the year. It would take a lot of chaos for a two-loss team, be it the Utes or the Cardinal, to get back into the mix.
With Notre Dame in contention, the playoff picture won't just be a straightforward selection with the remaining four major conferences sending their champions to national semifinals. For the Big 12, there's a decent chance it is the next man out, and that is something that could be prevented.
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