The Big 12's Great Blunder

So far, Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby has managed to blame the College Football Playoff selection committee, the Big 12 athletic directors and Baylor coach Art Briles. That poses a problem for Bowlsby, as he has just 10 fingers but 23 people he's trying to point them at.     

Meanwhile, Briles has blamed the committee for not having any members born in Texas and few in the South (seriously), and Bowlsby.

Of course, the two people pointing fingers are the ones responsible for the Big 12 being left out of the playoff on Sunday. As a result, the conference has suddenly fallen into a shambles. Critics are pointing to the fact that the Big 12 is the only major conference without its own championship game. But that's a blameless point, as rules prohibit a conference with only 10 members from splitting into two and holding a title game. 

The failure was Bowlsby's big gamble. And Briles? Well, it's hard to take his whining seriously as long as he has Incarnate Word on an upcoming schedule.

Tony Gutierrez/Associated Press

Incarnate Word. Really.

The truth is, for all the gripes about the committee—about bias and Condoleezza Rice and decisions coming from people who haven't had their hand in the dirt—it ended up getting the playoff exactly right, picking Alabama (SEC), Florida State (ACC), Oregon (Pac-12) and Ohio State (Big Ten). An eight-team field would be better, but if it's going to be four, then those were the right four.

You could have made the case for Baylor over Ohio State. Baylor hired a public relations firm to help. But the Big 12's top cheerleader, Bowlsby, wasn't making that case. He wasn't even saying Baylor was the best team in the conference.

Baylor was the first one left out of the playoff, and the Big 12 is already acting with the fatal feelings of a political party the morning after losing the White House. When was the last time a championship presentation ended with the winning coach yelling at the commissioner?

That was actually the Big 12's second championship presentation Saturday. Earlier, Bowlsby gave another trophy to TCU. And that is where Bowlsby blew it.

He needs to learn a little something about brand confusion. Bowlsby was trying to push both Baylor and TCU on the committee, and the problem is that you can barely tell those teams apart. Two Texas Big 12 teams playing big-scoring, hurry-up offense and no defense. Just a guess, but they likely split the committee's vote.

Baylor was the one brand Bowlsby should have pushed. They finished tied for first place, but Baylor beat TCU head-to-head, and that's how everyone breaks ties.

Still, Bowlsby's play wasn't as baffling as it looks. He was just going for broke.

Look, in July at the Big 12 media days, Bowlsby said there wouldn't be an issue with ties because, "You're not going to have two teams with the same record that didn't play each other. So that part is self-resolvable." 

Makes perfect sense. Meanwhile, the league paid PR people to come up with the slogan "One True Champion." Presumably, that was an effort to block the SEC, which has two divisions, from doing what it was trying to do: sell its division champs as separate champions that should be in the playoff.

One True Champion. So that was part strategy, part philosophy. Bowlsby gambled it away. Just last week, with TCU and Baylor both in the running for the playoff, Bowlsby said the conference wouldn't name one champ if they finished tied. They would be co-champs.

The Big 12 tried to muscle two teams into the playoff. Ohio State was down to its third quarterback thanks to injuries, and what if the Buckeyes had lost to Wisconsin in the Big Ten Championship Game? And then, what if Georgia Tech had beaten Florida State in the ACC title game? Or what if Arizona beat Oregon again in the Pac-12?

That could have left two spots for the Big 12's two champions. The selection committee had said all along that it would strongly value conference champions. By not declaring Baylor the champ, the Big 12 could say it had two.

But Alabama, Florida State and Oregon won their conference title games. They were obvious picks for the playoff. The last spot was for Ohio State or two Big 12 co-champion clones.

"If you're gonna slogan around and say there's 'one true champion,' and then all of the sudden you're gonna go out the back door instead of going out the front?" Briles told reporters. "I mean, don't say one thing and do another. That's my whole deal."

Feel sorry for Briles? Don't. He didn't need to play Buffalo, Northwestern State and SMU in nonconference games. There's a reason teams do that, and they learned it from Kansas State coach Bill Snyder. By playing nobodies, a team can all but ensure at least six overall wins, which makes it eligible for a bowl game.

So you can schedule for a low-level bowl or for the mountaintop. But don't schedule low and cry about lack of respect.

Meanwhile, Bowlsby said he warned the Big 12 coaches to toughen up their schedules. He said the ADs voted on the co-champ move. He said he wished he'd have known the committee valued a championship game so much.

It's called passing the buck.

And while the country looks ahead to its first football final four, the Big 12 ADs will meet in New York this week at the Football Foundation meetings, where they will try to pick up the pieces. Bowlsby's job security and finger-pointing might come up, too.

After all, he was the one sloganning around.

Greg Couch covers college football for Bleacher Report. He also writes for The New York Times and was formerly a scribe for FoxSports.com and the Chicago Sun-Times. Follow him on Twitter @gregcouch.