There's a few rumblings I've heard in recent weeks, so thought I may as well put it out there in advance of next week's Big 12 meetings in Scottsdale, Ariz, which will be held May 2-4.
I know there was another thread made about this particularly tidbit earlier. Those schools want to make the official announcement about their departure in conjunction with the Big 12 meetings, which will likely confirm the scheduling plan.
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According to the Houston Chronicle, the AAC initially demanded a $45M exit fee ($
35 million on top of the $10 million exit fee). I don't know what the final number will be, but it will likely be in the UConn range of $17M ish. It really should be lower. The $10M buyout is based on a 27-month exit notice. UConn gave about 12 month's notice. These schools announced their departure in Sept. 2021 and will join the Big 12 in July 2023, which is 22 months, just five months shy.
A couple weeks ago, TCU AD Jeremiah Donati dropped this nugget during an interview with SirusXM. We've been fixated on possible division alignments, but the leader in the clubhouse could be
no divisions.
TCU AD:
"I'll be candid with you. At first, I was staunch, let's do the divisions. Selfishly for us, it was really important for TCU to be in the same division as Baylor and Texas Tech. Since then, I've reconsidered that a little bit. Here's where I'm at. I think it's important the two best teams play in the championship game. I'm not convinced you're going to get that every year with divisions. If you look at the old Big 12, you could see evidence of that. We've seen that in other conferences. One division is really loaded and the other is not and the two best teams are not playing each other.
"You advance that thought, who are we putting out there? Who is making NY6 games, who is playing in the CFP when it expands? I'm more concerned about getting the right two teams in there rather than the two top teams in each division. That's kind of where I'm leaning now.
"The conference has done a really good job. They've created a competition and scheduling committee that's looking at all those things. I would tell you it's kind of split right now. We've got Big 12 meetings in Phoenix in a few weeks. I know this is gonna be one of the top discussion points, if not the top.
"That's where I'm leaning now, how do we get the two best teams in there. If that means scrapping the division concept, that means scrapping the division concept."
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Prior to that, there was a lot of back-and-forth about keeping the Texas schools together or splitting them up. At the end of the day, when the league eventually moves to 12 teams after Texas/OU leave, a nine-game conference schedule means you'd only miss two conference teams per year, divisions or not. So it may just be easier to scrap divisions while maintaining certain rivalries.
It's possible each team is paired with a permanent crossover opponent, a team they'd face every year no matter what. Those pairs would rotate on and off the schedule.
UCF-Houston
Cincinnati-WVU
BYU-Texas Tech
TCU-Baylor
Kansas-Kansas State
Oklahoma State-Iowa State
Texas-Oklahoma
This could be the setup for 2023/24, then would continue after Texas/OU go to the SEC.
Some of the pairs make sense, some of them are out of necessity. There aren't any slam dunk rivalry pairs outside of KU/KSU. You'd put UC/WVU together because they're only five hours apart by car. Texas Tech gets BYU because those are the two western outposts. Oklahoma State would get Iowa State because the existing Texas schools are already paired up, and OSU may rather continue playing a Big 12 legacy program like Iowa State instead of Houston.
The duos could change, but that's how you'd do things in a division-less concept.
I would love an opportunity for UCF to play Texas/Oklahoma one of those two seasons, but if UCF does get linked with Houston, I wonder if those two schools would be the odd man out in playing them, considering the legacy Big 12 schools want one more home game between the two.
So a Texas/OU schedule could look like this:
Their rival (UT or OU)
BYU-Texas Tech
TCU-Baylor
Kansas-Kansas State
Oklahoma State-Iowa State
That's nine conference games for 2023/24, which leaves off the UCF-Houston and Cincinnati-WVU blocks.
How they'd structure things in regards to UT/OU is my speculation, but the duo concept in regards to no divisions is something definitely being talked about.
