Vote clears way for Big 12 title game

SAN ANTONIO — The Big 12 Conference got what it wanted and showed the smallest power conference in major college football still has muscle.

A rule change approved Wednesday at the NCAA annual convention will allow the Big 12 to hold a championship game as early as next season.

The change scraps the requirement that leagues have 12 members and play in two divisions to hold a title game. The new rule lets a smaller league — one with 12 teams in its name but only 10 on the playing field, for example — to play a title game pitting its top two teams, provided it plays a round-robin regular-season schedule as the Big 12 does now.

The vote by the NCAA Division I Council passed 7-2. The Atlantic Coast Conference and the American Athletic Conference voted against it, and the Pac-12 didn’t vote.

The Big 12 is the only major conference that doesn’t play a football title game. League Commissioner Bob Bowlsby said he doesn’t know if the change will guarantee the league plays one, but it was determined to have the right to do so.

The decision to play a championship game rests with Big 12 member schools, whose next meetings are in early February, Bowlsby said. If approved this year, a title game could be played as early as next season, but 2017 would be more likely.

“I could not forecast how the school athletic directors, presidents and chancellors will vote,” Bowlsby said. “[But] we accommodated for it in our schedule as early as next [season].”