What Oklahoma State In The SEC Could Look Like

The Big 12 expansion talk has been underwhelming, uninspiring and likely not all that forward thinking when it comes to the future of the conference. Which means it is probably going to happen. And I guess I’m OK with that. Oklahoma State is raking in an outrageous amount of money simply because the Big 12 exists and its school is part of the conference.

The other thing I would be OK with is OSU grabbing the back of that Sooner schooner and hightailing it east to make the SEC a 16-team league. According to OKC Dave’s survey, I am not alone. Here’s how that question shook out among OSU fans.

With regard to conference affiliation, OSU’s best course of action would be to:

• Remain in the Big 12 and lobby for expansion – 54%
• Leave the Big 12 for the SEC – 24%
• Leave the Big 12 for the Pac 12 – 14%
• Remain in the Big 12 and lobby for no changes – 8%

Clay Travis wrote recently about why ESPN won’t want to extend its deal with the Big 12 and what that means for the Big 12’s future (nothing good!)

Which leads us to this big question: How could the SEC and the Big Ten make their television packages more compelling as they come to market in 2023 and 2024? By poaching the best teams in the Big 12 before their television contract comes up for renewal. These Big 12 schools either pay an exit fee — there would only be one year or two years left on their existing TV deal — or just wait to officially join until the Big 12 TV deal is complete.

OK, there we go.

What could a sixteen member conference look like? Look to the NFL model, you set up four divisions of four teams and, potentially, create a Big Ten Final Four and and SEC Final Four. Can you imagine the money TV would pay for that package? You’d effectively create your own conference playoff. (You’d also set up the possibility of a sixteen team playoff in the future where four mega conferences all automatically advanced their 16 division winners to a 16 team playoff and there was no need for conference title games at all.)

Whoo boy.

The revamped SEC West could include Arkansas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State. You could play each team in your division, one game with an out-of-division rival and all the teams from a different division every year for a total of eight conference games. Let’s say this happened and Oklahoma State played Tennessee as its out-of-division rival and the fake SEC South that Travis created as its different division. This is what that schedule could look like for 2020.

• Week 1: Oregon State
• Week 2: Tulsa
• Week 3: South Alabama (it’s the SEC way!)
• Week 4: at UTSA
• Week 5: at Arkansas
• Week 6: Tennessee
• Week 7: BYE
• Week 8: at LSU
• Week 9: Florida
• Week 10: Texas A&M
• Week 11: BYE
• Week 12: at South Carolina
• Week 13: at Ole Miss
• Week 14: Bedlam
• Week 15: SEC Semifinals

Somebody fan me with palm branches and bring me a wet washcloth for my forehead. Would this be a compelling schedule or no? I know Big 12 fans want to categorically hate the SEC just because it’s the SEC. That’s a fair thing because there’s a disproportionate love for a conference that sometimes is not as good as we think. But it’s still the best, most lucrative conference in the country.

For the future of the school and the future of the football program, that is something I want to be a part of.