Oklahoma Proves Why Big 12 Doesn’t Need Title Game

I said this last year. I’ll say it again. The Big 12 does not need a conference title game. When everybody else is zigging, you zag. It’s one of the few things the Big 12 has gotten right. And of course it did it on accident!

Consider this final line from Jon Solomon’s column today on the CFP rankings.

It’s five more days until the only rankings that matter. While everyone sweats on Saturday, Oklahoma will watch from home as the only sure thing in the field.

Yep. That’s why you don’t have a conference championship game, especially when everybody in the conference plays each other already. OU proved this season you can afford a slip-up (even to a bad team) and as long as you’re dominating at the end of the season, you’re in. Why risk that?

Good thing Big 12 doesn't have a championship game. Or else #OU has to risk near-certain CFP berth vs. #Baylor, #TCU or #OkState next week.

— Don Williams (@AJ_DonWilliams) November 29, 2015

The argument here is that the problem for the Big 12 is that Ohio State got an extra week to prove itself in 2014 while Baylor and/or TCU didn’t. False! The problem for the Big 12 is that Ohio State has been good at football for the last 85 years and Baylor and TCU haven’t. That’s flipped in 2015 with Boomer at the top.

Think about Stanford. What if Stanford had beaten Northwestern in the first game of the season? They’d probably be in the top four, right? (with the way the committee has voted, they might be No. 1). Now Stanford has to go beat USC for a second time this season in the Pac-12 title game? That’s ludicrous. You’re risking a playoff spot against a team you already proved you’re better than.

I’m not sure I would be saying this if every other Power 5 conference didn’t have a title game. There are so many opportunities for top four teams to lose, though. What if OU was 5th this week? Everybody would be crying for a Big 12 title game. Except, there’s a decent to good chance one of the four teams ahead of them would lose in their own conference title game and OU would slide in without even doing anything.[1. This is where comparing fractured teams gets just silly. The argument goes both ways. OU didn’t have to play a 13th game! If they did, they would have rolled! Etc.]

As Max Olson pointed out earlier this year, a Big 12 title game hurt a national championship contented just as much as it helped. Erasing it from the equation is going to be a benefit in the future. Don’t let 2014 make you think differently.