Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark made an interesting declaration about the college football hierarchy.
"We have solidified ourselves as one of the top three conferences in America," Yormark said at Big 12 Media Days in Las Vegas on Tuesday. "There has never been a better time to be a part of the Big 12."
Given the Power 5 is now the Power 4 – is that a veiled shot at the ACC? While it is clear the Big 12 has weathered the loss of Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC because of Yormark's aggression, it is clear Yormark is selling an alternative product heading into the 12-team College Football Playoff era.
In the short term, that is going to work. But it is also important to consider the Pac-12 — the self-labeled "conference of champions" – is out of that hierarchy now. How much value is in being a top three conference when the top two are undisputed in terms of revenue and power?
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How Brett Yormark keeps Big 12 in right direction
Yormark is entering his third year as commissioner, and he should be given high marks considering the conference was left for dead when the Sooners and Longhorns – two blue-blooded all-time brands – announced their intentions to leave.
The conference added four schools in 2022 with BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF. Then the conference added four schools from the Pac-12 in Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah. It's a 10-state, cross-country conference with an appeal for those who do not live in the Big Ten or SEC bubble.
"Our brand can be younger, more progressive and innovative than some of our peers," Yormark said.
Yormark has been good with that, too. The conference has television deals with ESPN and Fox. The conference has been active in discussion about selling naming rights for the conference, and the Big 12 partnered with Microsoft to bring tablets to the sideline and the booth for the 2025 college football season.
Yormark mentioned the Big 12 is now the second most-followed conference on X and Instagram. The SEC leads all conferences with 773.4K followers on X and 632K followers on Instagram. The Big 12 is, in fact, second with 271.8K on X and 255K on Instagram. The Big Ten ranks third with 180.1K followers on X and 186K followers on Instagram.
Yet there is not one fan of any of those conferences bragging about those numbers. It comes down to the football on the field.
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Brett Yormark promotes Big 12 football parity
The Big 12's best selling point this year is simple. The race for the conference championship should be the most-compelling of the four major conferences – at least in theory.
"We will be the deepest conference in America, and every week will matter," Yormark said. "We have star power and parity. … We will brand it as a race to the championship."
In the Big 12 preseason poll, five different teams received at least one vote to win the conference – a list that included Utah, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, Kansas and Arizona. Three quarterbacks – Colorado's Sheduer Sanders, Kansas' Jalon Daniels and Arizona's Noah Fifita – could emerge as legitimate Heisman Trophy candidates. And yes, everybody will be watching Colorado and second-year coach Deion Sanders – at least for the first month of the season.
The football in the Big 12 will be good – compelling enough to compete for two berths in the 12-team College Football Playoff and at first glance ahead of what the ACC will offer in 2024. That, however, is subject to debate.
The real question, however, is one the Pac-12 or Big 12 could not answer in the four-team College Football Playoff era.
Will the new-look Big 12 compete for national championships?
That is the stat that matters. Alabama, Georgia and LSU combined for six national championships for the SEC in the last 10 years. Ohio State and Michigan each won one for the Big Ten. Clemson won two for the ACC.
Texas won the Big 12's last national championship in 2005. Oklahoma won a national championship in 2000. Those national titles were during the BCS era, and both schools are gone now. Colorado won a split national championship with Georgia Tech as part of the Big Eight in 1990, and BYU won a national title out of the WAC in 1984. You didn't hear those facts mentioned during Yormark's speech.
Sure, TCU made the CFP national championship game in 2022-23, but that 65-7 blowout wasn't on the PowerPoint presentation.
The truest benchmark for conference success is competing for and winning national championships. Is this 16-team conference truly equipped to do that?
The Pac-12 additions are fascinating. Will they fare better in Year 1 than BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF? That won't take much. Those schools combined for an 18-31 overall record and 8-28 record in Big 12 play last season.
Will the Big 12 be able to put multiple teams in the playoff and win those head-to-head arguments with the second-, third-, and fourth-place teams from the Big Ten and SEC? Those will be real challenges over the next five years, and Yormark promises to stay aggressive as the talk of realignment never stops.
"Two years later, I guess you could say, we're still open for business," Yormark said.
Business is good – and for now a top-three conference is good enough.
We'll see if it stays that way in the next three years.
