2012 Big 12 Football Schedule: Realignment Will Give Conference New Punch

When the Big XII football schedule is released on Friday, some games will look a little unfamiliar to old-school fans of the conference. This is a good thing. 

According to George Watson of the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, some tweaks are being made before Friday's final announcement.

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"Months of wrangling and adjusting to losing Texas A&M and Missouri, while gaining West Virginia and TCU, have kept the schedule from being finalized, and even as late as Thursday some final adjustments were being made."

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I am not even a fan of the Big XII and I can't wait to see some of the new matchups that will come out. I'm a traditionalist, but there's nothing we can do about old rivalries being broken up. What we have to do is find the positives from this, and there are a few.

With the additions of West Virginia and TCU, we're going to see games that are hardly ever seen, if ever. On balance, that will make up for the losses of Texas A&M and Missouri. It is unfortunate that old classic rivalries will be lost, but the positive is that new ones will be formed. 

We're going to see different styles of teams that we've grown used to seeing in the Big XIII over the years. 

The pass-happy teams that we often see at Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Texas will now be going against the run-heavy West Virginia teams that have dominated the Big East for the better part of a decade. More directly, they will have to go against a gritty TCU defense that has been BCS busters for the last several years. 

These teams could not be more different that what has dominated the Big XII for a long time. When a conference gets stale and starts giving too many teams that are built the same way, a little bit of a breath of fresh life will be a good thing. 

There is no way around it—it will be unfortunate to see Texas A&M and Missouri leave. Both schools have long standing rivals (Texas, Kansas), and not seeing those games anymore will be different. Just remember that different doesn't always mean bad. 

When the Big XII sees new schools and teams are forced to game plan against different kinds of opponents, the likelihood of winning on the national level will be far greater. 

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