OSU Played in an Impressive Four Big 12 Title Games in the 2010s

With a decade of Big 12 football wrapping up this weekend, I thought it might be fun to look back at all the (somewhat convoluted) Big 12 title games that have been played over the last 10 years. OSU played in a lot of them. OU played in a lot more.

Here’s how I defined the years in which there wasn’t an actual Big 12 title game (2011-2016): If in your last Big 12 game of the season, you could say “If we win this game we are the outright Big 12 champion (applying tiebreakers!).”

Here’s a look.

2010: OU, Nebraska
2011: Oklahoma State
2012: Kansas State
2013: Oklahoma State, Baylor, Texas
2014: Baylor
2015: OU, Oklahoma State
2016: OU, Oklahoma State
2017: OU, TCU
2018: OU, Texas
2019: OU, Baylor

Totals (titles in parentheses)

OU: 6 (5 …)
OSU: 4 (1)
Baylor: 3 (1 …)
Texas: 2 (0)
Nebraska: 1 (0)
TCU: 1 (0)
Kansas State: 1 (1)

• I refuse to recognize you, 2012 OU and 2014 TCU. You lost to the team that won it. You can hang all the co-champs banners you want, but they don’t count. Those are the rules.

• How about OU only playing for two more Big 12 titles than Oklahoma State? It felt like that number was about 9-2. Maybe 10-1.

• Baylor > Texas for a decade is incredible.

• Nebraska played for more Big 12 titles in the 2010s than Iowa State, West Virginia, Texas Tech and Kansas combined. A thing.

• That 2013 year was such a mess. OSU had every opportunity to end it cleanly and make it neat, but they didn’t take it. Instead they delivered Baylor-Texas a de facto Big 12 title game later that afternoon. How sick would it have been if Mack Brown won the Big 12 title in his last year at Texas?

• Related! Mack Brown played for as many Big 12 titles in this decade as Charlie Strong and Tom Herman combined.

• There were 18 teams that ran onto a field in the final week of the season and said, “if we win this game, we’re the undisputed Big 12 champs.” OSU and OU represent 10 of those 18. That’s remarkable.

• /Whispers OSU was a bad Blackmon leg from playing for as many Big 12 titles in the 2010s (five) as OU. When we talk about expectations at Oklahoma State, getting to the Big 12 title game should be a great season in terms of expectations. Gundy did it 40 percent of the time the last decade.

• I get that the last three years haven’t gone to plan — nobody really thinks they have — but it’s worth looking at the bigger picture here when we talk about this stuff.

• But really, 2013 was wild.