OSU’s College Football Playoff hopes rise as OU exits Big 12
OU’s exodus from Big 12 could raise OSU’s College Football Playoff hopes
Rough week for OSU athletics. The Cowboys' economic health is imperiled.
The decision by OU and Texas to join the Southeastern Conference leaves the remaining eight Big 12 schools in jeopardy.
Those that don't find a landing spot in a Power 5 Conference will face life in a league with far less revenue than before. Think of the Big 12 as a rust-belt town when the lone factory shuts down.
But no matter what awaits OSU — new life in a Pac-16 Conference or forging ahead in a makeshift Big 12 — here is a consolation prize to soothe the alarm.
The Cowboys' future College Football Playoff chances are on the rise. Seriously.
The financial hazards are real and they are massive. This is a pivotal moment in university history. OSU has been raking in $38 million a year from the Big 12; if that is cut in half or more, every corner of the Athletic Village will feel the pain. Extend all that Covid costcutting. Even Eskimo Joe's juke joint will not be jumping quite so high.
Still, this could be prime opportunity for Mike Gundy's Cowboys. Their captor is gone. The gate is unlocked. The stone has rolled away from the tomb.
Soon enough, the Sooners will be gone, and no matter where OSU finds itself, the path to a conference championship and a playoff berth will be more navigable.
OU has been the Strait of Magellan to OSU football since Gundy's Cowboys got good more than a decade ago. OSU won the 2011 Big 12 championship, but Bedlam losses in 2013, 2015 and 2016 denied the Cowboys a conference title, and Bedlam losses in 2010 and 2020 kept OSU out of the Big 12 Championship Game.
The Sooners are hard to beat. They've won six straight league championships. But OU has been an albatross to OSU, winning Bedlam 14 times in Gundy's 16 seasons.
I don't know how to explain it, and this is not the place for that. Check back in November.
And even in separate conferences, the Sooners might dominate Bedlam, but now, non-conference defeats won't ruin OSU league title hopes. The Panama Canal has opened. Be it here in Middle America with the Big 12 remnants or out West with the Pac, OSU's conference title hopes are improved with OU's exodus.
The proposed 12-team College Football Playoff, perhaps set for launch in 2023, guarantees a spot to the top six ranked league champions, out of the 10 conferences that make up Division I-A.
If the Big 12 sticks together and becomes a league lingering in the netherworld between Power 5 and Group of 5 conferences, its champion is almost
guaranteed a playoff spot. And there's no reason why that champion can't be OSU more often than not. In the 11 years of the 10-team format, the Cowboys have been the Big 12's second-most consistent winner, behind you know who.
Adding Brigham Young and Boise State wouldn't bring the Big 12 anywhere near its current status, but that would be some good football, and its champion never would be a chump.
Or maybe the Pac-12 does come calling, deciding that while it can't match the SEC in star power, there is strength in numbers and adding four Central Time Zone schools makes it more attractive to the television networks.
A quartet of OSU, Tech, Kansas State and Iowa State would make a solid East Division with Pac-12 schools Arizona State, Arizona, Utah and Colorado.
There are many hurdles to such a 16team league. Academic. Cultural. Economic. Might be a longshot.
But you never know. Maybe the gravity pull towards 16-team conferences has arrived. If so, that's really the Pac's best option.
And OSU would become an instant prime contender in a Pac-16.
The Pac has parity. In 2020, Oregon won the Pac-12 championship via dubious means — the Ducks were a fill-in in the title game after Covid sidelined Washington, then Oregon upset Southern Cal in the championship game. Before ‘20, the Pac-12 champs going back have been Oregon, Washington, USC, Washington, Stanford. Four champs in five years.
USC and Oregon have had more sustained success than have the Cowboys, but no one else in a Pac-16 could claim more, and it's not like the Trojans and Ducks have been dominant.
The Cowboys in the Rose Bowl, or least the playoff, is not that far-fetched.
Of course, we're a long way from a Pac-16, or even a Big 12 remnant standing
on its own two feet.
But there are decisions OSU can undertake to start making itself attractive to television networks, be it the Pac-12's or the Big 12's.
The Cowboys and every other Big 12 remnant need to start scheduling the heck out of September.
No more Missouri States. No more Stephen F. Austins. No more Duquesnes. No more South Dakotas.
Build that baby up. In OSU's case, keep playing Bedlam as a non-conference game, keep the already-scheduled marquee non-conference opponents (Arizona State, Arkansas, Alabama, Oregon, Nebraska) and schedule even more, like Notre Dame, which apparently is under discussion with OSU. Keep Tulsa if you want, but a minimum of two marquee non-conference games.
That guarantees OSU at least one good non-conference home game per year. Tell a network that you're peddling Notre Dame or Alabama or OU every year, and ears perk up.
Of the eight remnants, OSU has the best national brand, thanks to the highpowered offense and the cool uniforms and even Gundy's mullet. Some things work out in crazy ways.
The near future is going to be difficult in Stillwater. Lots of sleepless nights for the bean counters. Lots of long meetings for new athletic director Chad Weiberg and president Kayse Shrum. Lots of questions from the Mullet Man.
But OSU can get through this and come out strong on the other side. The Panama Canal has opened to the College Football Playoff.
Berry Tramel: Berry can be reached at 405-760-8080 or at btramel@oklahoman.com. He can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including FM-98.1. Support his work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.