Big 12 Schedule Release

[Dawgg]

The Big 12 released its 16 team schedule for 2024 and beyond.

Big 12 reveals 16-team football slate through '27

The Big 12's new conference football slate features all 16 teams playing each other at least once home and away over a 4-year span from 2024 to 2027.

www.espn.com

A couple of things I noticed:
1. Baylor and Utah were already scheduled for a non-conference game next season and they kept that as a non-conference game for both teams instead of integrating it into the conference.
2. UCF's travel in 2025 is kind of laughable, but I guess this is what they asked for. I was curious how it looked compared to their last season in the American, so I made a map. (red is conference, purple is non-conference)

 

[OG Goat Holder]

Seems like things are almost, but never completely, perfect. If I was the Big 12 I'd be wanting to offload UCF and WV for Oregon State and Washington State.

 

[patdog]

1. I suspect this was so the schools won't have to add a non-conference opponent on such short notice.

2. Travel with these new conferences is insane. Take a look at USC and UCLA travel for 2024. It's not sustainable for minor sports or really for major sports other than Big 10. SEC has played the conference expansion game much better than any other conference.

 

[Dawgg]

Seems like things are almost, but never completely, perfect. If I was the Big 12 I'd be wanting to offload UCF and WV for Oregon State and Washington State.

I think you're right. Seeing the matrix, they probably did the best they could covering 3 time zones. UCF and WVU are expectedly the primary outliers (though WVU has been a Big 12 outlier for over a decade now).

Couple of things I would change:
1. I feel like West Virginia and Cincinnati should be playing every year. They finally put somebody in West Virginia's hemisphere and it's not a protected matchup.
2. Texas Tech and Houston should play each other every year. Neither TTU nor UH has a protected in-state matchup. They appear to be the only teams that share a state with a Big 12 team without playing them every year. (Arizona-ASU, Utah-BYU, KU-KSU, and Baylor-TCU play every year)

Of course, that's easy for me to say. Putting it into practice is another thing entirely.

 

[Dawgg]

1. I suspect this was so the schools won't have to add a non-conference opponent on such short notice.

2. Travel with these new conferences is insane. Take a look at USC and UCLA travel for 2024. It's not sustainable for minor sports or really for major sports other than Big 10. SEC has played the conference expansion game much better than any other conference.

1. I think you're right. They both have FCS teams on the schedule (Tarleton State and Southern Utah), so it was going to be tough to get two FBS teams to fill a specific void with this short notice.

2. I'm going to do the same thing for basketball and/or some of the minor sports when those schedules are released next season. Football is the most manageable since it's once weekly, but basketball, soccer, volleyball, where you play could end up with multiple mid-week games is going to look pretty ugly. Stanford and Cal can't just play each other for every mid-week game.

 

[GloryDawg]

1. I think you're right. They both have FCS teams on the schedule (Tarleton State and Southern Utah), so it was going to be tough to get two FBS teams to fill a specific void with this short notice.

2. I'm going to do the same thing for basketball and/or some of the minor sports when those schedules are released next season. Football is the most manageable since it's once weekly, but basketball, soccer, volleyball, where you play could end up with multiple mid-week games is going to look pretty ugly. Stanford and Cal can't just play each other for every mid-week game.

Then you have to add into the scheduling BYU no sports on Sunday.