ARLINGTON, Texas — Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark almost thought about wearing a T-
shirt instead of his usual suit and tie to Saturday’s Big 12 Championship game.
If he had, it would have read, “Resumes over Logos.”
Yormark didn’t want to relitigate his comments on Wednesday in which he talked about his
conference’s chances of getting a first-round bye in the College Football Playoff.
The winner of Saturday’s game between Iowa State and Arizona State would be eligible for one
of the four first-round byes. Right now, the conference is on the outside looking in as Boise State
— the Mountain West champion — has the No. 4 seed.
The final bracket comes out on Sunday. Yormark says he has trust in the CFP committee to do
the right thing.
“There should be no comparison between us and any G-5 conference champion,” Yormark said
in a press conference before the game. “Strength of schedule matters. We play nine conference
games, and we mandate 10 (games against power conference teams). You know the data points.
I’m not going to get into that too much today.”
Yormark had an expansive conversation about that on Wednesday in the lead-up to the title
game. He hammered home the points on strength of schedule. In some computer rankings, the
conference, overall, is second in strength of schedule, behind only the SEC. In other major
metrics, they’re in the Top 4 among conferences.
If everyone in the Big 12 is playing 10 power conference teams, it bears comparing them to
Boise State, which is 12-1 and is going to get a playoff berth on Sunday.
The Broncos have played one power conference team, a three-point loss to No. 1 Oregon in
Week 2 of the season. The rest of their games have been against G-5 schools, FCS Portland State
, and Washington State, which is in the Pac-12, but the conference is no longer considered a power
conference for playoff purposes.
To Yormark, that makes his case, no matter which Big 12 team wins on Saturday.
“I’ll double down on that,” Yormark said. “Hopefully, the selection committee will do what they
need to do. I have a lot of trust and faith in them.”
He will see if that faith is rewarded on Sunday.
You can find Matthew Postins on Twitter @PostinsPostcard.
