College Football: What Does the Future Hold for the Big 12?

Big 12 fans are fully aware of the changes that have taken place in their favorite conference. 

No longer will there be a Nebraska or Colorado to deal with in the Big 12, essentially leaving it as a 10-team conference.  There hasn't been any talk of realigning the two divisions, so it looks as though things are going to stay the same, at least for now.

So in the Big 12 North, we now have the Iowa State Cyclones, the Kansas Jayhawks, the Kansas State Wildcats and the Missouri Tigers.  

In the Big 12 South, there are the Baylor Bears, the Texas Longhorns, the Oklahoma State Cowboys, the Oklahoma Sooners, the Texas A&M Aggies and the Texas Tech Red Raiders.  Obviously, the North is not balanced when you compare it to the South due to the loss of Colorado and Nebraska, both North teams, to other conferences.  The question now is, will there be some kind of realignment to help make these conferences even, or is it going to stay like it is?

An even bigger question is, with all of the movement of teams to other conferences, is it possible the Big 12 could dissolve and turn into another kind of division?  

Here are a couple scenarios that could take place for the Big 12 in the not-so-distant future to not only make them a much better and perhaps, a much "tighter" conference, but to also help make it more attractive and much more competitive.

There was one scenario that was floated before that might end up making sense at some point in the future. 

In this scenario, the Big 12 North would dissolve, and those teams would end up going into other conferences such as the Big Ten or perhaps the Pac-10, while all the South teams would end up forming a conference of their own.  In addition to that, there was talk that centered on taking in other teams from that part of the country, possibly from Arkansas, additional teams from Texas (if there were to be any available) and quite possibly keep the Jayhawks and the Wildcats.

So taking in all the teams in the Big 12 South and the two Kansas teams from the Big 12 North alone would leave the Big 12 with eight teams.  Perhaps that would be enough teams to have a conference and would make the Big 12 (to be called the Big Eight) an attractive conference for fans.  

A smaller conference could be attractive to fans who like to see closely-contested rivalry games that have been a part of what the Big 12 has always offered with games such as the Red River Rivalry, Texas/Texas A&M, etc.  Still, would it be able to stand up to the marketability and size of larger conferences?

Originally, thoughts began with having an all-Texas league by adding a few more teams from Texas.  One such team was TCU, but TCU has since gone and joined the Big East. It never turned out that way, and it doesn’t appear like it's a realistic option.

Another option was to have the teams in Texas join the Pac-10, making the Pac-10 a much bigger conference.  The conference then could have divided itself into a Western and Eastern division.  This scenario was appealing to some because it would help add some interesting rivalries to the Pac-10 and quite possibly make it one of the best conferences in college football.   

The real hinge to this was Texas.  If Texas has moved to the Pac-10, the other teams may have ended up following them.  Texas never moved though, so the Big 12 remains as it is right now.

So what does the future hold for the Big 12?  With the departure of both Nebraska and Colorado, there are now 10 teams left.  It’s possible we could see the conferences realigned a little bit to accommodate these new changes.

We will have much more on how to realign the teams in the current Big 12 conference divisions later on.

What are your thoughts?  How should the Big 12 move forward?