Big 12 debates whether expansion would help playoff cause

Being left at home during the first College Football Playoff last season wasn't much fun for the Big 12.

Even though the CFP title game took place in the heart of the conference's footprint in Arlington, the league wasn't represented in the inaugural four-team tournament. And no matter how the conference tried to spin the snub, it hurt.

Despite 11-1 regular-season records by Baylor and TCU, the 13-member CFP committee decided that conference championship game victors Ohio State, Oregon, Alabama and Florida State were more worthy choices to play in the first tournament.

"This year has been interesting, challenging," Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby said. "It certainly was a wild football season last year and ended in a way that was hard to accept.

"But it is what it is."

After the first year of the playoff, members of the CFP's selection committee said the Big 12 was disadvantaged because it doesn't have a championship game like everybody else. Bowlsby explained it by saying that he was told "13 is better than 12."

Big 12 teams won't have an opportunity for a 13th game this season as the league again won't have a championship game.

In order to stage one, the league either would have to add at least two new members or obtain a waiver from the NCAA removing the 12-team requirement for conferences to stage a championship game.

The expansion rumors got another boost last month when Oklahoma president David Boren said the conference needed to expand. Boren said he feels "psychologically disadvantaged" because the league doesn't have a championship game.

"I'm an advocate of a 12-member Big 12. I'm an advocate of us living up to our name," Boren told reporters last month. "That doesn't mean go out and find anybody. You've got to be very careful about it. … I think we should scientifically - not emotionally - but scientifically look at that."

Coaches weigh in

Veteran Kansas State coach Bill Snyder said a return to the conference's previous configuration and the addition of a championship game would be beneficial for the league's future.

"I have always favored the way it was at one time," said Snyder, who became the only currently active coach to be elected into College Football Hall of Fame earlier this year. "I favor a 12-team conference, I favor two divisions, and I favor a conference championship game."

Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy also supports expansion but not as an immediate priority.

"I have a lot of confidence in our league office," Gundy said. "Do I think at some point two more teams will get on board? I do. I don't know who they are. I don't know when.

"But do I want to have a conference championship game right now? No. I don't think there's any reason right now to hit a panic button."

Despite the increasing rhetoric, Bowlsby doesn't detect a major shift in opinion on expansion from most of the conference.

"It is my understanding at the present time that the majority of our presidents and chancellors believe 10 is the right number for us," Bowlsby said. "There are those that believe we should get larger, and they feel strongly about it. There are those who believe we should stay at 10, and they feel strongly about it. And there are probably four or five in the middle who are persuadable one way or the other."

Such differences in opinion are to be expected, Bowlsby said.

"I would much rather have our CEOs hold strong opinions and share them than not be engaged," Bowlsby said. "I don't think it's realistic to think they're going to be of one voice. Our ADs aren't of one voice. Put any group of 10 people ina room, and there's going to be some variance inhow they see things. That's the process you go through."

Fighting to keep pace

The Big 12 members shared in a record $252 million in revenue for 2014-15. It provided per-school totals of about $25.6 million for the eight remaining original members and $24 million to TCU and West Virginia, who joined in 2012.

But college sports is about keeping up with competitors. The Southeastern Conference will provide its members with $31.2 million after the rapid growth of its SEC Network, which helped account for per-school growth of 49.3 percent from its payouts of the previous year.

Adding more members has always been presumed to reduce per-team payouts in the Big 12. But Boren and Bowlsby said the league's television contracts - which provide about 55 percent of the total revenue for the conference - would not reduce per-school payments with expansion and actually could grow.

It's not a stretch to deem schools like BYU, Central Florida or Boise State as being more competitive in football than Big 12 schools like Iowa State and Kansas. And that's not considering how much those programs could grow because of the added exposure and money of making a move to a power conference.

Extra teams wouldappear to push for the creation of a conference television network, putting the Big 12 on equal footing with the other major conferences. But the Longhorn Network effectively has clogged those plans as it siphons much of the programming available from one of the conference's biggest traditional powers.

Boren said as much, calling the Longhorn Network "a problem."

"The elephant in the room remains the network south of us that has struggled and has in a way as long as it's been there," Boren told reporters last month. "But someday, maybe we'll get past that other problem as well."

The conference is pursuing a waiver from the NCAA to stage a championship game in its current 10-team format. Bowlsby feels confident that will be approved in time for the 2016 season.

Key September games

Instead of the squabbling between schools, immediate on-the-field improvement this season would produce some national respect the conference desperately needs.

The conference stumbled to a 2-5 bowl record last season - its fifth without a winning record in the last six seasons.

During last season, Big 12 co-champions Baylor and TCU were 8-2 in games against teams in the Associated Press 25. The rest of the Big 12 was a combined 4-37 against ranked teams.

"We got left out. So we need to be in a consistent improvement mode," Bowlsby said. "We need to play better. We need to get better in every single way."

Baylor and TCU should be national title contenders again this season. But the rest of the conference needs to step up its game, making early road games like Texas-Notre Dame, Oklahoma-Tennessee and Texas Tech-Arkansas critical for the perception of the league's strength.

Continued struggles could make it tougher for the conference winner to qualify for the CFP. If the Big 12 is denied again, it could serve as a linchpin for change and give expansion more of a boost.

"If we go another year and get left out and it appears to be systemic, we need to be mindful of it," Bowlsby said. "And that's why we've gone about the process of trying to get the postseason rules deregulated. We think that gives us a full array of options.

"One year doesn't make a trend. I don't believe we're disadvantaged at this point. I think it's the majority of our CEOs right now that believe likewise."