What’s going on in the Big 12 and beyond? I expand and explain every week in Postscripts at Heartland College Sports, your home for independent Big 12 coverage.
This week, Brett Yormark had a lot to say on Saturday.
SUN DEVILS GO BYE
Brett Yormark stumped all week to make sure his Big 12 champion got a first-round bye. Arizona State’s blowout of Iowa State probably made the committee’s job a bit easier. But, sure enough, the Sun Devils got that bye.
I’m not saying Yormark influenced the committee. But he made sure he was clear how he felt on Saturday before the game.
“There should be no comparison between us and any G-5 conference champion,” Yormark said. “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.”
Arizona State, frankly, should be a No. 3. If we’re valuing strength of schedule, Arizona State was No. 35 before the title game and Boise State was No. 78. Arizona State beat Iowa State (No. 55) while Boise State beat UNLV (No. 81). Plus, ASU had nine power conference wins and Boise State had none.
PARITY, FOR NOW
Much has been made about the Big 12’s parity this season. The two participants in the championship game were 7-2 in league action. So were BYU and Colorado, who sat home when the tiebreakers didn’t go their way. Meanwhile, Baylor, TCU and Texas Tech were all 6-3.
Nearly half of the league was within one game of the top. If you love parity, you love the Big 12.
Yormark said that went the way he thought it would this year. Parity and depth is what he’s selling, in his words. But, in the future, he doesn’t expect the parity to last.
“Over time certain schools will ascend to the top, and I’ve said that publicly before. I think that’s going to happen here,” Yormark said.
I wrote something along those lines a few years ago, when Baylor won the Big 12 title. That was the first season after we learned Oklahoma and Texas were leaving for the SEC. Schools like Baylor, TCU and Tech started investing to be the lead dog in this conference.
Eventually, someone will be. It just make take a few years to get there.
SPEAKING OF INVESTMENT
Yormark was asked in the scrum about how schools were coming along with preparing for the revenue-sharing world brought on by the House vs. NCAA settlement. He said he had a call with the Big 12 board a few days ago. He said investment matters now more than ever.
“They understand what’s at stake here,” he said. “We’re at a reflection point. And we are here to win championships, to be relevant. Nationally, to continue to win at a high level, an investment will drive that. I’m very confident we’ll be well-positioned.”
By the way, the question was what number of teams are going to be fully-funded at the expected $20 million revenue share? Not exactly a specific answer. Not that we expected him to get specific.
SPONSORSHIP AND PRIVATE INVESTMENT
There was no real update on Big 12 Conference naming rights or tapping into private equity on Saturday. But he did provide one little nugget that may be new to some but not to others. It’s about what the Big 12 would have to give up in that sort of a deal.
“You can work with private equity and not have to give up any long-term value or give up a stake in the conference,” he said.
That would be an interesting development. He said he knows that world well. So, we’ll see. But nothing imminent on either front.
EIGHT OR NINE?
Yormark is well aware of the debate between eight and nine conference games. He said he plans to have a conversation with the league’s athletic directors in Las Vegas (there’s that city again).
The league has a schedule drawn for three more seasons with nine-game league slate. I wouldn’t expect movement to eight, if that’s what you’re thinking.
“We like the nine-game conference schedule, but we’ll discuss it, and rightfully so,” he said. “I think after every season we get together with the ADs, we do an after-action review, what worked, what didn’t, how we can get better, and we’ll do that and go through that exercise next week.”
NO SUPER LEAGUE FOR HIM
By the way, Yormark is not a fan of the Super League approach, even though he and some of the Big 12 leadership heard a presentation earlier this week.
The reason? Well, why leverage someone else when you can do it yourself?
“Where I sit today, I’m not supportive of third-party intervention,” he said. “I’m just not. I haven’t seen anything that they’ve come up with that we can’t do ourselves.”
THE BIG 12 TITLE GAME ISN’T GOING ANYWHERE
Yormark was asked about the game’s future given the expansion of the playoff to 12 teams. He made it clear the game is part of the league’s brand and that it wasn’t going anywhere. Plus, there’s that pesky contract through 2030 with AT&T Stadium. He was asked in the scrum about the game, perhaps, moving to a campus site one day. He seemed cool to that idea, but the questions were really around the fan dollar.
He knows fans can’t travel to every game and choices have to be made. He gets it.
“I will tell you, though, for the fans there’s an unintended consequence when you think about the 12-team format,” he said. “Fans now have to decide what games they want to go to. There was a little media mention about that this week. If you host that first-round game, you’re going to four games to get to the finals and to win the championship. That’s something that’s new.”
You can find Matthew Postins on Twitter @PostinsPostcard.
