Last Days In The Big12

There’s not much I’ll miss about that league in its current state. Although I’m sure you boys down south can understand the retrospective admiration of the pre-expansion SEC. If you’re an actual fan of college football, you’d understand the brilliance of what the Big12 was for over a decade.

I don’t think any league took on the identity of its recruiting base like the Big12 did. Texas highschool football is a high stakes pressure cooker that breeds innovation out of necessity. The Big12 really did become this experimental football lab that would influence football at all levels. Even in its demise it was still probably the best conglomerate of coaches in College Football, evidenced by the amount of professional interest the leagues coaches received throughout the years.

I know a fun talking point about A&M was that they were a middling Big12 team prior to the SEC. Thats not necessarily accurate. The Big12 South was the most competitive division in college sports outside of the SEC West. Texas and Oklahoma were legitimate heavy weights with some of the most talented rosters in the history of college football. Oklahoma State had Gundy backed by a lunatic billionaire pumping hundreds of millions into the Pokes athletic department. A&M has always been able to recruit the highly rated small town kids and the Houston suburbs. Texas recruiting wasn’t nearly as competitive in that era so Tech and Baylor were cleaning up with some loaded rosters too. Not to mention they had Leach and Briles as HCs.

That being said I’m excited about this new era of SEC football. I can’t wait to visit all these atmospheres. The stakes are bigger than ever. What a time for College Football.