Terry Mitchell

How the Big 12 Should Move Forward



Posted: Friday, October 07, 2011

by Terry Mitchell
http://commenterry.blogs.com

I was glad to hear that the Big 12 Conference has voted to invite TCU into its fold. It’s about time! TCU had previously decided to join the Big East beginning next season, but it was not a good geographical fit for that conference. The travel situation would have been a logistical nightmare for them. The Big 12, on the other hand, is a natural choice for TCU. They will now get to renew their in-state rivalries with Texas, Texas Tech, and Baylor, schools they were once part of the old, now-defunct Southwest Conference with. It’s a win-win situation for both TCU and the Big 12.

With the loss of Nebraska and Colorado this year, and the impending defection of Texas A&M to the Southeastern Conference next year, the Big 12 needed desperately to expand anyway. In addition, Missouri is currently exploring its options to leave the conference. Perhaps the addition of TCU will convince Missouri to stay put. I hope so. The Big 12 should also consider adding SMU and Rice, both of which were also once part of the Southwest Conference. That would also solidify the Dallas and Houston mega-markets, respectively, for the conference.

Then, if Missouri decides to stay, that would give the conference 12 teams again, allowing it to once more split into two divisions and have a championship game the first Saturday in December. Of course, the divisions would have to be aligned a little differently this time, with the six Texas teams in the South and others in the North. But that would work out just fine, as big rivals Oklahoma and Texas could still play each other every year, and would get a second shot at one another whenever both won their respective divisions.
Terry Mitchell is a software engineer, freelance writer, amateur political analyst, and blogger from Virginia, USA. He posts a least one article a day to his blog - http://commenterry.blogs.com - on subjects such as current events, politics, technology, society and culture, religion, health and well-being, self improvement, personal finance, trivia, and sports. He is also the owner of a new privacy-enhanced search engine - http://www.SearchMost.com.

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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)
» left by Christofer French
 226 days 22 hours ago.
74 fans.
It's fascinating to me how tough the PAC 12 is now. Did CU know what it was getting into? I know they had little choice, but they could win just one game this year, and CSU, unfortunately allowed that.
» left by Terry Mitchell 226 days 21 hours ago.
93 fans.
Christofer, I think CU should have stayed in the Big 12. I think they will ultimately regret their decision to join the PAC 12.
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