Big 12 football: OU, Texas dominance will continue
Big 12 football’s structure after this season — 10 teams, round-robin schedule, no conference championship game — means one thing for certain. The dominance of Oklahoma and Texas should continue into the foreseeable future.
With a playoff game, the North Division champion has a puncher’s chance of winning the league title. But under a round-robin format, winning the title for any of the other eight teams likely means beating OU and Texas.
“Yeah, but we got to beat them, too,” Bob Stoops said.
The difference is, OU isn’t playing itself. Texas isn’t playing Texas.
Stoops laughed, which is as close as an admission as he’s likely to give, and said, “Yeah, but we got to beat nine others.
“In the end, I don’t take it for granted. You gotta beat ‘em all and just like this year, it isn’t just Texas. You gotta beat ‘em all to have the chance to be the champions and we’ve done that a fair amount of times. And we’re aware of that. So it isn’t just that game and it isn’t just between us two.”
But OU and Texas already have established their South Division dominance. Since Stoops’ arrival at OU for the 1999 season, the Sooners have won the South seven times, the Longhorns four. The rest of the South combined? Zero.
Now the North Division gets to experience life like Texas Tech and OSU and Texas A&M and Baylor have. North schools have been playing only three South schools a year. Some have OU and Texas split, so that they play just one of the powers per season. Others play them both in the same year, but that means two straight years without having to play the Sooners or Longhorns.
Starting in 2011, the North schools will get OU and Texas every year, along with OSU and Tech and A&M every year. Hey, K-State, Missouri, Iowa State and Kansas. Welcome to the South. Welcome to my world, say the Big 12 South coaches.
Stoops won’t bite on such analysis: “I don’t look at it that way. You know, going to play all those North schools at their place is never a joy. They’ve got good teams and good players and nice stadiums, so I don’t look at it that way.”
Maybe so. But Stoops never has lost to Missouri, Kansas, Iowa State or Kansas State in conference play, though K-State did upset OU in the 2003 Big 12 title game. Which sort of proves out the point that the easiest path to the league championship just closed for those North schools.
-------------Berry Tramel can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including AM-640 and FM-98.1. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter @BerryTramel. Visit Berry's website here.
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Berry, are you coining a new name for the Big 12? The Big 12 South.