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With both Oklahoma and Texas announcing Thursday their plans to officially succeed from the Big 12 and join the SEC in 2024, the conference has once again undergone a dramatic geographic transformation.
Beginning this next academic year, with the addition of the conference's four next schools: UCF, Cincinnati, BYU, and Houston, the Big 12 will be the largest conference in the nation (in terms of miles), stretching across three time zones from Utah to Florida. That is, until the Big Ten officially expands its national footprint into Southern California once USC and UCLA both officially join the league in 2024 as well.
Throwback to a little more than a decade ago in 2010 and the Big 12 appeared to be a sunken ship. At the time, Oklahoma and Texas were pondering the idea of jumping out west in search of a more lucrative TV deal, which the then-Pac 10 was prepared to offer at the time (little did they know that no one in America would be able to watch the Pac-12 Network via their cable providers). With this, the Big 12 was dead and the remaining 10 schools seemed to be left on their own to find a conference that would offer them a spot.
At the time, the SEC sat at 12 members. The Pac-10 would soon have it's brands in OU and Texas, and if they really felt generous, they were willing to swoop in and grab Nebraska, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, and Colorado.
Which would have left six major schools without an athletic conference to call home: Baylor, Iowa State, Kansas, K-State, and Mizzou.
According to Kansas head basketball coach Bill Self, the latter four schools had all prepared to accept official invites from the Big East if this entire hypothetical situation would have actually unfolded, forming a 13 team football conference and a 21 member basketball conference in total (which happens to be 9 more teams than the WNBA currently holds in 2023).
*In 2010, TCU announced their plans to join the Big East in all sports, which would have formed a 13 team conference when paired with the 4 Big 12 schools + 8 existing Big East football members*
To gain an actual understanding of what this mega league would have looked like, here's a map stretching from Storrs to Aggieville:
Big East Football Map (Assuming the Big 12 had Collapsed)
Would this have been the best league in the nation by any means? God no. But the matchups would've been certainly interesting. Just 3 years prior to this situation blasting ESPN screens, KU was ranked as high as #2 in the BCS rankings, Mizzou reached #1 in Week 13, USF peaked its way into the top 5, and West Virginia was one touchdown away from playing in the '07 National Championship.
Fast forward to this most recent year, here were the records of said 13 teams in 2022 :
#2 TCU (13-2), CFP Runner-Up
#14 K-State (10-4), Big 12 Champion
#22 Pitt (9-4)
Cincinnati (9-4)
Louisville (8-5)
Syracuse (7-6)
Kansas (6-7)
UConn (6-7)
Mizzou (6-7)
West Va (5-7)
Iowa State (4-8)
Rutgers (4-8)
USF (1-11)
Overall, a very solid conference that wouldn't have likely landed a marquee media rights deal to stay in tact, but it would have been fun to entertain the idea of KU having been able to win at least one conference game each year.
On the basketball side of things, this would have easily have been the greatest conference in the nation during the 2010's. With the Big East already at 16 teams in 2010, the addition of 5 newcomers would have only enhanced its on-the-court product.
Shown below is a basketball version of the previous map, with the inclusion of DePaul, Georgetown, Marquette, Notre Dame, Providence, St. John's, Seton Hall, and Villanova.
Big East Basketball Map (Assuming the Big 12 had Collapsed)
Traditionally speaking, this conference would have had 5-6 of the greatest basketball programs in the entire sport with Kansas, Louisville, Villanova, Syracuse, Georgetown, and UConn. The potential rivalries that could've emerged with the addition of KU would have been great for the country from a viewership standpoint, not to mention the fact that K-State and Mizzou would have joined the league as well.
Since the turn of the century, this league and its members would have theoretically accounted for nine national championships:
Syracuse ('03), UConn ('04, '11, '14),
Kansas ('08, '22), Louisville ('13), Villanova ('16, '18).
Even today, this version of the Big East features seven AP Top 25 teams, with a couple more looking in from the outside:
Am I glad the Big 12 stuck together for another 15 years until OU and Texas got greedy once again? Most certainly. But had the conference fallen to crap, this proposed version of the Big East would have made for great matchups on both the gridiron and hardwood--likely saving the league's football side from dissipating entirely and ultimately destroying the old Big East.
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