Getting Creative

It’s well-established that the Big 12 is exploring new ways to generate more revenue for league schools, but Colorado and Oklahoma State are taking the creativity to another level. Some will laugh at the OSU idea, but I love it.  

Never let anybody tell you that the playoff is the best thing about college football. I loathe that attitude about the sport, but I must admit that seeing College Football Playoff Bracketology is pretty fun. 

Speaking of the playoff, will a Big 12 team ever host a College Football Playoff game? It’s actually a legitimate question that I’ll explore later on.

What You Need to Know

• On3’s Andy Staples released his first College Football Playoff “Bracketology” update, and he currently has just one Big 12 team in the field, while one is in the “first four out.” Seven other Big 12 teams are labeled “on the bubble.” 

• Sports Illustrated reports that a former Colorado assistant coach claims he traveled to Saudi Arabia to lobby the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) for NIL money to help the Buffaloes. 

• Kansas coach Lance Leipold erased any doubt that QB Jalon Daniels would be fully healthy and ready to play in week one when he announced Daniels as the starter for next Friday’s season opener against Lindenwood. 

• Arizona State coach Kenny Dillingham named Michigan State transfer Sam Leavitt the Sun Devils’ starter for their season opener against Wyoming. Leavitt was already pushing to start before highly-touted QB Jaden Rashada transferred to Georgia. 

• Oklahoma State is adding QR codes to the back of their helmets that link to the general team NIL fund. While they won’t be clearly visible from the stands, the hope is that fans will use them to donate during close-up shots on TV. 

• CBS surveyed college basketball coaches across the country and asked them which schools have the most NIL money. Five of the top 11 schools mentioned by coaches are from the Big 12, including Kansas and BYU in the top three.

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Will a Big 12 Team Ever Host a Playoff Game?

Many college football fans may not remember that the conference champions who get top-four seeds in the playoff won’t get to host a game. Instead, after a bye, they’re shipped off to one of the New Year’s Six “bowls” where a “neutral” atmosphere awaits for the quarterfinals. 

Four of the six are located in the deep south, Texas, or Florida, creating a likely travel advantage for a certain three-letter conference. More on that in a moment. 

The 9 through 12 seeds aren’t going to be hosting anything, so to actually host a playoff game, you need to thread the needle of being a 5, 6, 7, or 8 seed – prime Big Ten and SEC at-large territory. 

The Big 12 champion won’t host unless there is a higher-ranked group of five team that bumps the Big 12 title winner to a 5 seed. 

I do think it’s possible for the league to sneak a second team in. Just two years ago, we saw TCU make the four-team at-large playoff after failing to win the league title.

I’m hopeful it won’t always take an undefeated regular season and an overtime Big 12 championship game loss to get an at-large team in, but it might. 

CBS Sports’ Shehan Jayarajah thinks it could happen this year with a two-loss non-Big 12 champ. 

Even if it does happen, I have a hard time seeing a Big 12 at-large team not being a 9, 10, 11, or 12 seed. The 5 through 8 seeds that host are overwhelmingly likely to be SEC and Big Ten at-large selections. These will be teams that lost 2 or 3 games during the regular season and/or conference championship game losers. 

We already know it’s going to be an uphill climb to get a team in, so why would I think the committee will reward the Big 12 instead of teams playing an SEC or Big Ten schedule?

It’s a real bummer, too. Can you imagine Milan Puskar, Boone Pickens, Rice-Eccles, or Bill Snyder Family Stadium hosting a playoff game in December? The atmosphere would be INSANE. 

It’s one of the conference's biggest selling points. Large, passionate fan bases everywhere that make the league an absolute blast to follow. 

It shouldn’t just be the first-round games that are on campus. The quarterfinals and semifinals should be, too. The atmospheres, traditions, and environments are the fabric of the sport that makes it the greatest American pastime (sorry, baseball). Why cut all of that out of the rest of the postseason??

Well, if we didn’t, 5-seed Alabama might have to travel to frigid Boone Pickens Stadium with their season on the line in the quarterfinals. Penn State might get stuck with a long road trip to play in the altitude at Rice Eccles, where Utah has lost two games in five years. 

Split Zone Duo host Steven Godrey laid it out succinctly. 

Yes, I realize keeping the bowls happy is a part of this, but if you start digging around any recent change to college football, you will almost always find hidden competitive advantages for the SEC and Big Ten. 

The format is going to change in two years. We’re likely heading toward a 14-team playoff with only two byes handed out, where the top six seeds will host first-round games. 

Will conference champions be guaranteed a top-six seed? If not, will Big 12 teams ever be ranked highly enough to host?

We’ll see – but I’m sure you can sense the cynicism. 

Hosting a playoff game would be a breathtakingly awesome showcase for the league, and I desperately want to see it. 

Let’s hope the Big 12 can beat the odds and thread the needle.

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Your Hottest Big 12 Hot Takes

Reply to this email to send me your hottest Big 12 take for the upcoming season. You just might see it in the next newsletter! 

This take is pretty hot, and I say that as somebody who has legitimate questions about Sonny Dykes. 

The drop-off last year after a national championship game appearance was staggering, but I still think there’s too much talent on this team to miss a bowl game two years in a row. 

TCU is the highest-ranked Big 12 team in the 247 Sports Talent Composite, which ranks teams based on how their players were rated in high school. 

Their Big 12 schedule isn’t exactly easy, and the non-con has tricky road trips to SMU and Stanford, but I think the talent wins out enough in the end. I’m expecting 7 or 8 wins for the Frogs. 

Mike understood the assignment. This is a great one. Not because I think it’s likely but because it’s creative and fun. 

No offense to Arizona State, but this quickly becomes a discussion of Utah, Arizona, and (maybe) Colorado. 

You know this if you’ve been a subscriber for a while, but I think Colorado is a bowl team with an eight-win ceiling. That won’t keep them in this Big 12 title discussion.

Arizona has as much high-end talent as anyone in the conference, and most of those players are at premium positions. I just have a hard time seeing them being consistent enough throughout the year to get to Arlington with a coach who is new to Power Four football. 

I do think Utah will make the Big 12 title game. They have everything it takes to manage the transition well: an elite and seasoned head coach, a veteran quarterback, and a manageable schedule. 

Let’s go ahead and give the Sun Devils some love. I like Kenny Dillingham as a head coach, and his team showed some real fight last year. 

They had USC, Cal, Colorado, and even Washington on the ropes before dropping heartbreakers to all four. 

I definitely expect improvement in year two, but the schedule isn’t going to help them much. They have to play the top five teams in the Big 12 preseason poll, and three of those games will be on the road. 

Plus, I’d argue that all three non-con games are losable. 

This is a warm take. Not hot, but warm.