Sorry, UConn and Cincinnati. You, too, Central Florida and BYU. It doesn’t appear Sunday’s disappointment of seeing Baylor and TCU left without dance cards to the College Football Playoff will send the Big 12 knocking at your door.
Not yet, anyway.
The league’s athletics directors and Bob Bowlsby, in New York for the National Football Foundation’s annual dinner on Tuesday and the IMG College Athletics Forum on Wednesday, hunkered down Monday to plan their next move after this weekend’s debacle of seeing its co-champions get treated like non-champions by the College Football Playoff selection committee. To be clear, the meeting was scheduled way in advance, but those involved didn’t have to think very hard to find a topic of conversation.
While the conference did not come to a conclusion on staging a championship game (it joined with the ACC to petition the NCAA for the ability to play a conference title game without two divisions featuring at least six teams) it did resolve to not expand solely to get to 12 teams.
“Adding two schools for the purpose of getting to 12 (to have a league championship game) would be among the poorest reasons to do it,” Bowlsby told USA Today.Gist from Big 12 reception in NYC: Will evaluate how champ determined - but little traction for league title game and less for expansion.
— Travis Haney (@TravHaneyESPN) December 9, 2014
West Virginia athletics director Oliver Luck, a committee member, provided some debriefing on how the dynamic worked inside the room without revealing how he or other members voted.
Following this year’s disappointment, the Big 12 has nine months to come better prepared to force another conference to live with the same shafting the conference is dealing with today. And it sounds like the league will have some suggestions for the committee as well.
TCU reps in NYC for LT HOF induction. They were left most disappointed CFP made Frogs 3rd wk before. False hope. They expressed that to comm
— Travis Haney (@TravHaneyESPN) December 9, 2014