How the Big 12’s innovation became college football’s great equalizer

After parting ways with the Pac-12, the Colorado Buffaloes have found a home in the budding Big 12. (Photo by AP/LM Otero)

In the summer of 2021, college football buried the Big 12 alive.

When Texas and Oklahoma announced their move to the SEC, the headlines wrote themselves. Fans spoke of realignment fallout in somber tones. 

The Longhorns and Sooners had been the league’s financial engine, ratings draw and national relevance. The conference’s two brand-name programs were gone. Without them, the Big 12 was supposed to wither into irrelevance. 

The SEC and Big Ten had multi-billion-dollar TV deals, mega-donors and five-star pipelines. The Big 12? Squat. 

It wasn’t just losing brands; it was losing its identity. But just four seasons later, the conference is humming with life. The secret to the Big 12’s renaissance? Pioneering innovation and having a willingness to get creative. 

When Utah, UCF, Houston, Arizona, Arizona State, and Colorado joined, the league expanded in personality. The Big 12 turned into a geographic experiment, connecting the Rockies to the Atlantic coastline. It sounds chaotic. It kind of is. It's also the kind of chaos that reflects the new landscape of college football. 

Now, the Big 12 stretches across time zones, from Lubbock’s oil wells to Disney World. The conference touches new media markets and recruiting hotbeds. Its pitch: play early and profit immediately, has flipped recruiting on its head. 

For players who value opportunity, the Big 12 is now a destination. These opportunities produce breakout seasons that fuel playoff runs and draft players into the NFL. The biggest case in point of this is last year’s Arizona State. 

Sun Devils running back Cam Skattebo captivated fans with his 284 all-purpose yards in the Peach Bowl that included a touchdown pass. The former zero-star high school recruit is now a poster boy for the New York Giants. Not to mention, ASU was projected to finish dead last in the conference that season.

But for decades, this parity was punished. In the BCS and four-team eras, a league without juggernauts was a liability. In the 12-team playoff, it’s a weapon. Depth matters now. Non-conference schedules matter. At the halfway point of 2025, 13 of the Big 12’s 16 teams have appeared in or received votes for the Top 25. 

Two-loss teams aren’t eliminated by Halloween anymore. Instead, marquee losses provide avenues to becoming one’s at-large argument.

Now, the Big 12 has a legitimate shot to place two teams in the playoff for the first time. Texas Tech’s and BYU’s physicality, Utah’s and Cincinnati's fireworks, could all make a run. Those are the seventh, 15th, 23rd, and 24th-ranked teams in this week’s AP Poll. 

From Lubbock to Provo, Salt Lake to Tempe, programs are discovering that when the landscape changes, you adapt or die. That’s exactly what the Big 12 has done.

A league that once depended on two flagship brands is ready to send two new headliners to the dance.