Five Things Big 12 Fans Should Hope For in 2024 Football Schedule Release
The Big 12 will release its full 2024 football schedule on Tuesday, January 30, according to a report from The Athletic’s Max Olson on Sunday.
While the conference unveiled all of the upcoming matchups for its first season as a 16-team league back in November, dates, times, and bye weeks have yet to be released to the public.
Knowing the matchups is certainly something the get excited about, but how those matchups stack and when they take place is often what plays a factor in the outcome.
With that in mind, next Tuesday is a huge moment for Big 12 football fans and here are five things that you should be hoping for when the schedule is unveiled.
One Friday Night Game Every Week
I’m not typically a proponent of college football games being played on any other day than Saturday. The National Championship game being played on a Monday night was an absolute travesty and should never be allowed to happen again. However, with the Pac-12 going dark, there’s a chance for some Friday night action in the Big 12 and I actually think it would be a great opportunity for some of the fan bases. While it should be limited to one Friday night game per team, playing a nationally televised game under the lights and being the only game in that window worth watching would be a great move for the conference. If it works, and I believe it would, the Big 12 could market the hell out of it moving forward.
Minimal Effects of Long-Distance Travel
We are going to see just how well some teams can deal with the effects of jet lag this season in college football after conference realignment put teams like UCLA and Rutgers in the same conference. It makes no sense logistically, but it is the world we live in now. There are some pretty monstrous road trips in the Big 12 in 2024 as well, with BYU heading to UCF, Arizona hosting West Virginia, and Arizona State heading to Cincinnati. The Big 12 needs to take the distance of road trips into account for matchups that will drag one team across the country, at least when it comes to spacing those kinds of trips out. Getting visiting teams back home, or even on a bye week following those games would be a huge win for the conference.
A Packed November Slate
The inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff will take place at the end of the 2024 season, and we’ve seen recency bias become a factor in the way that some teams have been seeded to this point. So, setting up monumental matchups just ahead of the Big 12 Championship might be a huge benefit for the conference. If we’re all being honest with ourselves, the Arizona State-Cincinnati game probably won’t have any effect on who will be in the Big 12 title game next December. However, there’s a great chance that Oklahoma State’s matchup against Kansas State or Arizona’s matchup with Utah could have a direct impact on that game. While we can’t know for sure how teams will play from week to week, there is still a way to backload the schedule with marquee matchups. Doing so will keep the Big 12 toward the front of the committee’s mind, and that will be huge for the leagues chances of getting multiple teams in.
A Dedicated Rivalry Week
Remember the good old days when the last week of the regular season was “Rivalry Week,” with Kansas-Kansas State, OU-OSU, and Texas vs. Texas A&M all on the same weekend? It was perfect, but now things are spread out and the final week of the year has lost some of its luster. Well, with 16 teams in the league now, there’s a chance to restore what was lost. The final weekend of the regular season should be reserved for the big-time rivalries, and the conference should really lean into it. The final week of the season should include these matchups:
- BYU at Utah
- Arizona State at Arizona
- TCU at Baylor
- Colorado at Kansas
- Kansas State at Iowa State
- Texas Tech at Oklahoma State
- Cincinnati at UCF
Farmageddon has been more entertaining thank KU-KSU over the last several seasons, and Oklahoma State-Texas Tech has a chance to be a big rivalry going forward. These games, plus future editions of Houston-Rice and West Virginia-Pitt would be an awesome way to wrap the regular season.
Big First Week of Conference Play
It’s not going to be feasible to put all of the biggest games of the season in the final four weekends, so why not start off Big 12 play with a bang? Utah’s trip to Orlando to face UCF has all sorts of intrigue, as does West Virginia’s trip to Arizona to take on the Wildcats. Shedeur Sanders vs. Avery Johnson is a storyline that writes itself, so it’s got to be on the list for the first week of Big 12 games. I know that not all of the top games are going to bookend the Big 12 season, but I do expect the conference to try and start things off with a bang. So, what will the marquee game of Week 4 be? We’ll have to wait around until Tuesday to find out.
Here’s a quick reminder of all the known matchups for 2024.
