Read the opposing arguments from Bleacher Fan and Sports Geek.
For weeks now the college football world has braced itself for expansion in the BCS conferences… expansion that was supposedly sure to change the overall landscape of college football. Rumors have been circulating for months. Would the Pac-10 expand to 16 teams? Would the Big Ten expand to 16 teams? Where would that leave the Big XII? Would the SEC stand pat? As time progressed, it became quite apparent that the University of Texas held the keys to this driving force. After much conversation, Texas decided to stay in the Big XII, and the other teams in question followed suit. My initial reaction when the news broke Monday afternoon was, “Well that was much ado about nothing.” And that’s essentially the case. All in all, it’s a good thing because over the years the Big XII has established some rivalaries, and those could have been compromised if the “Pac-16” was formed. For the purpose of this debate, it’s important we are focusing only on football, though, since football was the culprit behind expansion talk (sorry women’s softball).
Some of our Midwestern readers, and some of our Big XII fans, may differ on what is the best rivalry in the Big XII. As someone who lives in Georgia, to me, the Red River Rivalry (I still call it the Red River Shootout) is the biggest rivalry in the Big XII, at least in my lifetime. The game has been played 104 times and is the centerpiece of the Texas State Fair. The game often has national significance. It’s usually played toward the middle of October, and I look forward to watching the Oklahoma Sooners and Texas Longhorns battle for Big XII supremacy. The Red River Rivalry has produced some of the best games in college football over the past 15 years.
How about the battle between the Longhorns and state rival Texas A&M, which is part of the Lone Star Showdown? This game is annually played either on Thanksgiving Day or the day after Thanksgiving. Just this past year, the Aggies had the Longhorns on the ropes before Texas pulled away late. I have relatives that live in the Dallas area and they tell me that this is a bitter rivalry. If you live in Texas, you’re either a Longhorn or an Aggie.
And then there’s Bedlam, which involvs Oklahoma and Oklahoma State. Over the past five years, this game has been played the Saturday after Thanksgiving, with the Sooners winning all five games.
It’s also important to note that there are many natural rivalries that take place due to geographic location. Four of the teams (Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Baylor) reside in Texas. There are two schools in Kansas (Kansas, Kansas State). And there are building rivalries like the Border War between Kansas and Missouri. This does not even touch the rivalries that the Pac-10 has formed over the years. Would Southern Cal still be able to play Notre Dame every year? We’ll never know.
Maybe some of these rivalries would have remained, as the schools likely would have been put into divisions in the Pac-10 and chances are good that the “Big XII” schools would have been in the same division. But the rivalries, and the times those rivalries are played, were definitely at risk, and ultimately, the risk far outweighed the potential reward.
