Poll Season Continues

If you need more proof that the season is about to start, we have another preseason poll to discuss! 

The AP poll dropped this morning, and ten Big 12 teams are now ranked or receiving votes in the AP and Coaches polls. It’s going to be a wild season.

Don’t blame me for bringing up realignment this week; blame Utah coach Kyle Whittingham. Don’t worry, though. I managed to turn his comments into a take on why the Big 12 should steal the slogan “It Just Means More” from the SEC. That takes true skill, people. 

And today for the first time, I cede the floor to you guys! You’ll get my reaction to your hottest takes for the upcoming Big 12 season.

What You Need to Know

• The AP poll is out, and the Big 12 landed five teams in the top 25. Utah (#12), Oklahoma State (#17), K-State (#18), Arizona (#21), and Kansas (#22) are all within two spots of where they were in the Coaches Poll. Iowa State, West Virginia, and Colorado also received votes.  

• Utah coach Kyle Whittingham expects a college football super league to form within the next 2-4 years, with 40-60 teams making the cut. Some in the sport think it’s much further out than that, like CBS Sports’ Dennis Dodd, who says it won’t happen until 2031. 

• Things are never dull in Boulder. At his press conference last week, Coach Prime had a contentious back-and-forth with Denver Post columnist Sean Keeler, but that wasn’t the only tense moment. Prime also refused to answer a question from a reporter with CBS Sports Colorado because of his beef with national CBS, something this reporter had nothing to do with. Oh, and Prime found time to quibble with a reporter who stated that the Buffs “bolstered” their offensive line (Prime would prefer “improved”). 

• Keeler responded in kind by writing that the outburst was a “4-8 coach giving a 3-9 news conference.” He also said Coach Prime was showing fear with his actions. I want to see Prime succeed, but it’s hard to disagree with Keeler here. 

• There’s no longer any question as to whether or not Baylor is fully embracing NIL these days. Their coaches have been rocking “WE PAY PLAYERS” shirts on the practice field. Bears coach Dave Aranda explained why they’re leaning into the idea of paying players so heavily. 

• Former Houston and West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen was introduced as a consultant at TCU last week. When asked about his time at West Virginia, he said he doesn’t regret leaving Morgantown.

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The Hottest Big 12 Takes

Here’s your chance to weigh in! Respond to this email with your hottest take for the 2024 Big 12 season, and I may react to it in the next newsletter. 

This first batch of takes comes from the Twitter responses I got early this week. 

Let’s start with West Virginia. I’m having trouble figuring out the consensus on the Mountaineers because the WVU takes were all over the board.

So, are the Mountaineers winning the league or missing a bowl game? It’s easy to see why there is this disparity in opinion. 

Many outside of Morgantown won’t dig deeper than looking at the Mountaineers’ schedule last year. They missed four of the top six teams in the league, including league champ Texas, and their only win against a team that finished in the top half of the league standings was Texas Tech. 

The schedule is much tougher on paper this year, with WVU drawing five of the top six teams in the Big 12 preseason poll. 

But there is plenty of meat on the bone for WVU fans to get excited about. They return a quarterback who flashed star potential last year and virtually every meaningful skill position player from a nine-win team. Given those same circumstances, every Big 12 fan base would have high expectations. 

Ultimately, I see West Virginia as an 8-4 team in the hunt for a spot in Arlington. In fact…

If Chris is right, West Virginia is the team to do it. Because of a tough non-con schedule that includes Penn State and a rivalry road trip to Pitt, it’s possible that WVU could go 1-2 to start the season before winning a two-loss conference tiebreaker to earn their spot in the title game.

This is a spicy one! It could be a massive game for the conference because of where it sits on the schedule – November 23rd. Utah is 30-2 at home the last five years, so it’s a really tough ask for the Cyclones if Cam Rising is healthy.

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The Bottom Line

A lot can change in eight years. 

In September 2016, the SEC launched a new marketing campaign to a chorus of eye-rolls from the rest of the college football world. “It Just Means More” became an instant (often mocked) rallying cry for the league, but in many ways, it was appropriate. 

Without much pro football in the South, the environment is ripe for states to care more about college football than anywhere else. 

And, yes, much as we hate it, the SEC has more titles, five-star recruits, draft picks–okay, I’ll stop.  

As annoying as it may have been to most of us, it’s hard to deny that the moniker was fitting – until now.

It’s time for the Big 12 to stand up and claim what is now rightfully theirs because winning and losing in the Big 12 means more right now than virtually anywhere else in college football, SEC included. 

Utah coach Kyle Whittingham brought this point front and center this week during his interview with John Canzano when he predicted a 40-60-team Super League forming within the next four years. 

Most would argue that a Super League won’t arrive for another seven years, but in either scenario, Big 12 programs are fighting for their long-term future. 

If we use CBS Sports’ Dennis Dodd’s projection that a Super League will form in 2031 after the current round of TV deals expires, Big 12 schools have a seven-year window to build their profile enough to get to the right side of the cutoff line. 

The good news is that the expanded playoff provides a much better brand-building opportunity for schools in the league. There’s a guaranteed path to the playoff every year if you win the conference title, which was never the case in the four-team era. 

There’s no denying that it’s easier to win a conference title and make a 12-team or 14-team playoff than it was to get an at-large bid into the four-team playoff. There’s even an outside shot to make the expanded field with an at-large birth. 

Consistently appearing in the playoff is the most surefire way to build your brand nationally among casual college football fans and fans of other conferences. 

Make the playoff four times in the next seven years, and you may play your way onto the right side of the bubble – especially if you can make some noise. 

Then there’s the flip side.

What happens if you make a bad hire? 

Most coaches will get three years even if things aren’t going well. If you throw away three of the seven years in that window with a bust of a coach, it might be game over. 

Even if the next hire is great, it may take a year or two to get genuinely rolling, and by that time, you’ve burned 70% of the brand-building window. 

Imagine the stress that puts on athletic directors. Make the wrong hire, and you could literally change the course of history for the entire university. The message boards won’t soon forget that.

Coaches and players probably won’t think of winning and losing games in these terms. They can’t. They have to focus on what’s right in front of them, and most coaches and players haven’t been invested in the school for their entire lives like the fans have. 

Fans will fully absorb the added layer of existential stress when the game is on the line in the fourth quarter. 

Dodd’s super league article from CBS in the spring didn’t mention a single Big 12 team when discussing the potential makeup. 

“In reality, only a handful of schools would need to be added (to the SEC and Big Ten) for an elite league's formation,” Dodd said. “Think of Florida State, Clemson, North Carolina, Notre Dame, Miami. That's about it.”

That makes it tough for anyone in the Big 12 to feel comfortable about their long-term place at the big boy table. 

The same goes for a good chunk of the ACC, too. But with Florida State, Clemson, Miami, and North Carolina still in the league, “It Just Means More” doesn’t hit quite the same way. That group will be fine no matter what the next consolidation is.

I don’t mean to stress you out. I don’t mean to add to the intensity of the Twitter vitriol when teams lose games. I’m simply pointing out the existential reality facing teams outside of the Big Ten and SEC. 

I fully trust that Brett Yormark will give all 16 Big 12 schools (and counting?) the absolute best opportunity to maximize what they have, but the Pac-12 learned the hard way that there are no guarantees in the cut-throat world of college athletics. 

It Just Means More, indeed.