Big 12 Statements Made

Conference play gets underway in Big 12 basketball tonight, and I promise you’ll see more hoops coverage in Open For Business soon. For now, bowl season, the portal, and Arizona State’s playoff run take priority. 

Hoops fans will get the entire Big 12 basketball anonymous player survey this week. 

I want to tackle two main stories today: BYU proving it absolutely belonged in the at-large playoff discussion and West Virginia poaching Oklahoma’s defensive coordinator. 

I can’t wait to dive into those after these headlines.

What You Need to Know

• Before Boise State and Arizona State have even played their College Football Playoff games, we already have confirmation that changes to the automatic byes are being discussed. The Action Network’s Brett McMurphy says there is momentum for awarding byes to the top four teams in the rankings, not conference champions, by next season. 

• UConn to the Big 12 isn’t dead yet, according to Heartland College Sports. Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark has maintained his interest in the Huskies, and his case for adding them looks a little better after they capped off a 9-4 season with a bowl win over North Carolina. I go in-depth on Yormark’s pursuit of the Huskies here. 

• Coach Prime had incredibly high praise for BYU head coach Kalani Sitake after the Cougars drilled the Buffaloes 36-14 in the Alamo Bowl on Saturday. It’s hard to find anybody who doesn’t like Sitake. 

• Iowa State capped off the first 11-win season in school history with a thrilling comeback win over Miami in the Pop-Tarts Bowl. ISU quarterback Rocco Becht was the MVP and decided that the cinnamon roll pop-tart would get toasted and feasted on by the victors. Here’s a full thread of pop-tart shenanigans you should check out. 

• K-State and TCU both took care of business in their bowl games. The Wildcats stormed back from 17 down to beat Rutgers in the Rate Bowl, and the Horned Frogs waxed Louisiana in the New Mexico Bowl behind four TD passes from Josh Hoover.

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BYU Makes Its Case

I expected BYU-Colorado in the Alamo Bowl to be the best Big 12 bowl game of the season. It didn’t come close to that, but it did give us, by far, the biggest statement of Big 12 bowl season. 

BYU 36 Colorado 14. And it could have been much worse. 

Cougars defensive coordinator Jay Hill deserves the Alamo Bowl MVP. His unit held Colorado to a season-low 210 yards, forced two turnovers, and didn’t allow a point until late in the third quarter. The high-powered Buffaloes offense only had 90 total yards into the fourth quarter. 

BYU’s advantage was most apparent in the trenches. They out-rushed the Buffs 180 to 2 and had Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders running for his life all night long. 

Kalani Sitake’s crew may have put 50 on Coach Prime if not for three sloppy Cougar turnovers. 

I made a passionate case for BYU to be in the College Football Playoff at-large discussion earlier this month. After watching the Cougars in San Antonio, I clearly didn’t push that narrative enough. 

Miami was considered one of the final teams out, and BYU had the same record, a better win, and a better strength of schedule. SMU, which has a home loss to the Cougars on its resume, made the field as an at-large selection. 

That BYU win over a full-strength Colorado is a second win that’s better than anything on Miami or SMU’s resume. 

I don’t think BYU’s case was a slam dunk to get in, but it certainly was a slam dunk to be mentioned in the same breath as SMU and Miami, yet you heard virtually nothing about the Cougars from the national media. 

It’s a sterling example of the danger of letting the “eye test” do all the talking like the SEC mafia would prefer. That’s the main reason BYU didn’t get much run as a two-loss playoff contender, but the Cougs proved on Saturday that there’s much more than meets the eye with their team. 

Playoff spots, and even consideration for playoff spots, need to be earned. It can’t become a recruiting class or eye test participation trophy, no matter how many times Lane Kiffin tweets. 

Hopefully, BYU’s prime-time (no pun intended…kind of) performance helps drive that point home. 

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West Virginia Making Moves

I just watched the Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown, on Christmas Day. 

As I watched the tweets roll in after West Virginia had officially poached Oklahoma defensive play-caller Zac Alley to run the Mountaineers’ defense, I couldn’t help but hear “The Times They Are A-Changin’” stuck in my head. 

There is a plausible case as to why this happened. 

Alley worked with news WVU head coach Rich Rodriguez at Jacksonville State and will get complete freedom to do whatever he wants with the defense now that he’s working with an offensive-minded head coach, unlike OU head coach Brent Venables. WVU is also stepping up to pay him a seven-figure salary, and he’ll get a fresh start in Morgantown while Venables deals with a seat that is getting hotter and hotter. 

But it’s still wild to see an SEC coordinator leave for essentially the same job in the Big 12. I mean, this is Oklahoma. Only three programs in the country have more playoff appearances. 

It certainly says something about West Virginia’s commitment to winning. They’re not messing around financially and will fully equip Rich Rod with the money he needs to succeed. That doesn’t guarantee success, but they’ve taken care of the table stakes for winning these days.  

I’m thrilled for diehard Mountaineer fans like my guy Mountaineer Paul at Locked On West Virginia. 

I’m also thrilled that the Big 12 gets a nice symbolic win over the SEC and the traitorous Sooners just a year after officially bailing on the league. 

If you’re into the schadenfreude thing, check out the replies to this tweet. Plenty of Sooner tears to be found. 

Ultimately, I think this move says more about Venables’ current situation in Norman. That staff is feeling the heat after another six-win season. I don’t need anybody to tell me that–Alley just did with his actions. 

That’s not a shot at West Virginia at all. It’s just the reality of the perception difference between a coordinator job in the SEC and the Big 12 these days. We saw how intense that perception difference is with the at-large playoff discussion this month. 

If you were on the “Oklahoma is SEC Nebraska” train, your take looks better and better by the day.