It’s almost as if this whole scenario has been written by The Onion. A conference calling itself the Big 12, but consists of 10 teams, is potentially five days away from crowning two teams as its “One True Champion.”
With AP No. 5 Baylor set to host No. 9 Kansas State and No. 4 TCU hosting Iowa State Saturday, wins by the Bears and Frogs would find both teams finishing their conference seasons at 8-1, meaning they’d be co-champions.
Both teams would be champions and receive trophies as the 2014 Big 12 champions. As far as league purposes go, there would be nothing separating them. But as far as bowl purposes go, which is all anyone truly cares about, the conference would designate Baylor as its champion.
“The only reason we apply the tiebreaker later on is because we have to, we’re the ones who designate who goes into one of those host bowls,” Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby told ESPN.com. “In the case of the College Football Playoff, they’re the ones who designate who goes into those games. We wouldn’t be designating our champion. We would be designating our representative to the host bowl.”
Really, that’s all the conference can do.
But what about the slogan? It’s natural that the conference would want to designate itself as the only Power Five league that plays a true round-robin. Having a catchy slogan crystallizes that. But surely they’d realize the hubris of declaring One True Champion and handing out two trophies. Right? Maybe they’ll be a different slogan next year. Maybe? Surely the conference recognizes that it can brag about its round-robin schedule while still not yoking itself to the number “One.” Possibly?
“‘One True Champion’ is really about everybody playing everybody,” Bowlsby said. “That’s the right way to do it. We believe that playing everyone every year is the right way to determine a champion even if ends in a tie.”
Oy vey.
