TCU to the Big 12: How Quickly Can the Horned Frogs Compete for a Championship?

Just a few weeks ago it sounded like the Big 12 was about to close up shop and become the first major casualty of the new wave of college football realignment.

But now, all that has changed, and it appears the remaining schools have banded together for the time being for the greater good of making boatloads of cash from a Fox television deal.

As it turns out, losing Texas A&M to the SEC wasn’t the death blow some thought it would be; well, that is if your name isn’t Dan Beebe.

The departure of the Aggies left the Big 12 with just nine member schools, and once conference officials got wind that Missouri could be joining their old Big 12 brothers in the SEC, they knew they had to proactively start sending out invitations to come join the party.

The first of those offers was sent to TCU last week, and from everything we’ve been hearing, it sounds like the school is ready to make the official announcement tonight that it will indeed accept the invitation to join.

The move would certainly be beneficial to both parties involved, seeing as the Big 12 is basically just searching for depth at this point, while the Horned Frogs could use the revenue boost that comes from joining a major BCS conference.

The Horned Frogs are a much better fit for the Big 12 than they were for the Big East, the conference they were expected to join before the start of the 2012 season.

The move will allow TCU, a former Southwest Conference member, to renew old rivalries with other Texas schools such as Baylor, Texas and Texas Tech.

Coach Gary Patterson has already taken his team as far as they can go at the lower levels of FBS college football, guiding them to back-to-back BCS bowl games and leading them to 36 victories over the last three years.

Now it’s time to see what TCU can do against the big boys of the BCS.

Dominating the Mountain West Conference is great and all, but we saw BYU and Utah do the same thing, and as we’ve witnessed so far this season, it’s taken both of them some time to find their footing on new ground.

Besides Kansas, a school who probably should think about self-inflicting their own death penalty, every team in the Big 12 seems to be in fairly decent shape at this point.

And the conference already has two teams flourishing on the national scene right now in Oklahoma and Oklahoma State.

That’s not to mention teams like Texas, Baylor, Kansas State and Texas Tech.

There are certainly no Wyomings or New Mexicos to beat up on in the Big 12.

Even though it’s taken a few hits recently, this is still one of college football’s most powerful conferences.

The Horned Frogs may have elevated their recruiting, and they may be improving their facilities, but can this team honestly expect to walk in and compete right away with Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Texas?

I’m not so sure about that.

I know Patterson is one of the best coaches in the country—there’s do doubt about that—but at the very least, I think it’s going to take a two or three year transition phase before this team can expect to be competing for a Big 12 conference championship.

It’s great that they can get the two and three star guys out of Texas and mold them into studs, but when you’re going up against teams that are consistently stocking up on elite players, the disparity will eventually show.

I’m definitely excited to see what Patterson can do with the Horned Frogs in a big BCS conference, but it’s a cautious excitement.

It’s going to take some time for TCU to rise through the Big 12 ranks, even if those ranks have been depleted a bit by recent defections.