The Big 12 expansion groundswell

[Blueintheface]

May be the last window for years. I'll pray if God promises to listen ( I know She's very busy).

[SeattleUte]

What an opportunity! Don't blow it, BYU. First thing, BYU needs immediately to say it will play on Sunday. That will be a good start, more important than saying it will waive two years of payout.

[Jeff Lebowski]

What an opportunity! Don't blow it, BYU. First thing, BYU needs immediately to say it will play on Sunday. That will be a good start, more important than saying it will waive two years of payout.

What about the Mark E. Peterson talk? Should we formally renounce it?

[New Mexican Disaster]

What about the Mark E. Peterson talk? Should we formally renounce it?

MarK E. who?

[SeattleUte]

What about the Mark E. Peterson talk? Should we formally renounce it?

I think renoucning the no Sunday play position would send the right message to Texas that you are prepared to go in that direction.

[jay santos]

This is a perfect situation to give us another shot at this. But I am greatly annoyed at the apparent short sightedness in people making these decisions.

1. This year was somewhat unique in that the Big XII randomly had its champion right around that #4 level.
2. You had four championship games. The only way the TCU was going to drop was that out of those four championship games, the following happened: the three close or above them all won. The one that was significantly below them won in very impressing manner. That all happened. What's the probability? I'm guessing somewhere less than 10%.
3. It could just as easily happened that a championship game screwed one of these conferences. Had any of Oregon, Alabama, FSU lost, it's very possible their conference is kept out. And also possible the Big XII gets two teams in. Something more unlikely in a championship game setting.
4. Conference realignments are long term outcomes. We could have an 8 team playoff really soon.

[Mormon Red Death]

What an opportunity! Don't blow it, BYU. First thing, BYU needs immediately to say it will play on Sunday. That will be a good start, more important than saying it will waive two years of payout.

Don't forget paying the conference exit fees of their partner that comes in with them.

[CardiacCoug]

This is a perfect situation to give us another shot at this. But I am greatly annoyed at the apparent short sightedness in people making these decisions.

1. This year was somewhat unique in that the Big XII randomly had its champion right around that #4 level.
2. You had four championship games. The only way the TCU was going to drop was that out of those four championship games, the following happened: the three close or above them all won. The one that was significantly below them won in very impressing manner. That all happened. What's the probability? I'm guessing somewhere less than 10%.
3. It could just as easily happened that a championship game screwed one of these conferences. Had any of Oregon, Alabama, FSU lost, it's very possible their conference is kept out. And also possible the Big XII gets two teams in. Something more unlikely in a championship game setting.
4. Conference realignments are long term outcomes. We could have an 8 team playoff really soon.

I totally agree that if the Big 12 expands it will be because they are overreacting to an unusual season where all the top teams kept winning. Their current 10-team format with no CCG probably on average will help them more than it will hurt them. Hope they are dumb enough to expand and add BYU anyway though.

[YOhio]

I think renoucning the no Sunday play position would send the right message to Texas that you are prepared to go in that direction.

lol. Yeah, right. We take seriously the Lord's commandment regarding the Sabbath Day and aren't about to compromise our standards just to join an athletic conference. Sure there will be some who don't respect that choice, but they're about to spend an eternity in TK loserville so we don't give a shit what they think.

[Bo Diddley]

This is a perfect situation to give us another shot at this. But I am greatly annoyed at the apparent short sightedness in people making these decisions.

1. This year was somewhat unique in that the Big XII randomly had its champion right around that #4 level.
2. You had four championship games. The only way the TCU was going to drop was that out of those four championship games, the following happened: the three close or above them all won. The one that was significantly below them won in very impressing manner. That all happened. What's the probability? I'm guessing somewhere less than 10%.
3. It could just as easily happened that a championship game screwed one of these conferences. Had any of Oregon, Alabama, FSU lost, it's very possible their conference is kept out. And also possible the Big XII gets two teams in. Something more unlikely in a championship game setting.
4. Conference realignments are long term outcomes. We could have an 8 team playoff really soon.

I've been thinking along these lines as well. Of course had #3 come to pass, I wonder how much the other Power 5 conferences would have been complaining about the Big XII's unfair advantage. The other 4 conferences might try to force the BIG XII into expanding to level the playing field.

[ERCougar]

I totally agree that if the Big 12 expands it will be because they are overreacting to an unusual season where all the top teams kept winning. Their current 10-team format with no CCG probably on average will help them more than it will hurt them. Hope they are dumb enough to expand and add BYU anyway though.

I disagree. The committee just sent a clear message that any year there is a decent case for a team on the outside (every year), the B12 spot is in jeopardy because of the absence of a CCG. TCU was not even on the cusp. It was a solid 3 by both committee and computer rankings prior to yesterday and still is on most computer rankings.

[Surfah]

I disagree. The committee just sent a clear message that any year there is a decent case for a team on the outside (every year), the B12 spot is in jeopardy because of the absence of a CCG. TCU was not even on the cusp. It was a solid 3 by both committee and computer rankings prior to yesterday and still is on most computer rankings.

Agreed. I don't understand people arguing the CCG doesn't matter when Jeff Long explicitly said that it was a determining factor for the CFP committee.

The Big 12 only has a handful of options:

They stand pat and run the risk of getting shutout again. Also, the non conference games are locked in and scheduled for a few years out already. TCU and Baylor play essentially the same terrible teams they did this year for the next several years: Rice, Northwestern State, Stephen F Austin, SMU. Guess how many of those are away from home. This leaves them vulnerable to the same scenario this year. And I don't think it would be that uncommon using BCS ranking from previous years. The Big 12 hasn't had a team ranked in the top 4 before the bowl games since 2011. And then going back a few more years, never had anyone ranked higher than the precarious 3rd or 4th spot.

The Big 12 doesn't want to expand and would prefer to not have to change the way they schedule. So they're applying for the waiver to hold a CCG with just 10 teams. I just cannot imagine the Pac 12 or any other conference who expanded to have a CCG not fighting the Big 12 on this. You don't think the Pac 12 would have rather stayed at 10 teams instead of diluting their product with the additions of shitty Utah and Colorado? I just can't envision any reason the NCAA and other P5 conferences allow this.

The only other option the Big 12 has at standing pat is forcing the discussion of an expanded playoff ASAP. If the Big 12 can get the playoff expanded without requiring to expand their conference it could be very bad news for BYU. Again though, my guess is in an expanded playoff format the P5's will argue for autobids for conference champs to ensure a piece of the pie. That would leave the Big 12 in a position to expand once again to have a CCG unless they create some tie breaker like head to head, CFP rank, etc. But I think that other P5 will push the Big 12 into expansion to play.

Or they expand.

[Green Monstah]

I woke up this morning and realized that from BYU Fan's perspective, this is all for naught. BYU has invested too much in independence and it seems there are too many hurdles to overcome (from BYU's perspective and the Big12's) to make it work.

[TripletDaddy]

I woke up this morning and realized that from BYU Fan's perspective, this is all for naught. BYU has invested too much in independence and it seems there are too many hurdles to overcome (from BYU's perspective and the Big12's) to make it work.

[imanihonjin]

No kidding. If BYU is given the chance and doesn't jump now, BYU football is finished. While I was hoping for the last week to have the exact scenario play out that actaully played out this could actually end up very badly for BYU. If the Big 12 expands and BYU is not a part of that expansion, the demise of the football program will have been greatly accelerated. At least right now we hope to be included...if that hope is taken away, we are done.