The Big 12’s Biggest Problem Is Perception, Especially Compared to the SEC

Berry Tramel wrote a couple of really good things on the Big 12 on Thursday. First, he wrote about how to help change the Big 12’s national status. Then, he wrote about the politics that exist between conferences and how it affects the College Football Playoff. You should read both.

My biggest takeaway, and something I’ve been thinking about for a while now, is Power 5 scheduling. On Tuesday, it was revealed that the Big 12 would force its teams to play at least one Power 5 team in non-conference play which means its teams will now play  no fewer than 10 (!) Power 5 teams in a given season with the nine-game Big 12 schedule.

That’s a lot. And something Berry brought up and Joel Klatt has been pumping all year is that it’s a lot more than, say, the SEC. Like more than one more per season more.

Average number of Power 5 opponents (+BYU & ND) per team for each conference
Pac-12 (9.92)
Big 12 (9.80)
AAC (9.50)
B1G (9.36)
SEC (8.86)

— Joel Klatt (@joelklatt) November 12, 2015

Why is this not talked about? Because the Big 12 has a perception problem (which is not a revelation to anyone who has been even mildly following along). But that needs to change. The Big 12 is a good conference and it is at least trying.

One of the unintended consequences 0f the College Football Playoff is that it sort of insinuates that the committee is selecting from a level playing field even if conferences have different teams. But that’s not true as you can see from Klatt’s tweet above. The Pac-12 and Big 12 play a lot more good games than the SEC. They just do. I keep hearing about this 13th data point of a title game for all non-Big 12 conferences. But why do we even consider FCS games or non-Power 5 games (which the SEC plays more of) as data points?

All of this underscores something we learned this year (and last year) with OU (and Ohio State). The committee doesn’t really care about your games against bad teams (win or lose). They only care about your big boy games. They only care about the national stage (conference title games, for example). And I’m not sure if any amount of positive PR can change that. The Big 12 has a perception problem. But it also has a “the committee ain’t changing how it selects teams at this point” problem.

I’m not sure which is worse.