CBS Sports puts BYU at the top of their Big 12 power rankings and I am supposed to take that seriously? This league has become unrecognizable from what it was when we joined back in 2012. We came into this conference with Texas and Oklahoma and a real sense of what Big 12 football meant. You had Bob Stoops and Mack Brown and Bill Snyder and Mike Gundy and Gary Patterson all beating each other up every single week. That conference produced a national champion in 2005 and played for multiple others. Now we are looking at BYU and Texas Tech and Utah and I am supposed to believe this is the same league?
The 2014 season when we went 12-1 and won the Peach Bowl against Ole Miss, that was a Big 12 team. We had Trevone Boykin running that offense and we played in a conference where every Saturday felt like a war. Now we have a league where the power rankings change every three weeks because nobody is actually good enough to stay on top. BYU is a nice program with history but they are not what Texas and Oklahoma were. Nobody in this league strikes fear into anyone anymore. The old Big 12 had hierarchy. You knew who the bullies were. Now everyone is just hoping to catch lightning in a bottle for one season.
The worst part is that the teams that built this confernece are gone or irrelevant. Nebraska left years ago. Texas A&M left. Missouri left. Colorado left and came back. Texas and Oklahoma are heading to the SEC. What is left is a collection of programs that used to be mid-tier in the old Big 12 now pretending they are the top dogs. I remember when playing at Owen Field or DKR was the measuring stick for our program. Those games meant something. Beating Texas in 2014 when they were ranked 11th, that was a statement. Now we are supposed to get excited about a Thursday night game against North Carolina? No offense to them but that is not Big 12 football.
Gary Patterson built this program to compete with the best in the country not to fight for scraps in a watered down conference. We went to Rose Bowls and Peach Bowls and Fiesta Bowls. We were one play away from a national championship in 2022. That was against Michigan in the Fiesta Bowl and we had them beat before the clock ran out. That team was full of kids who developed in our system and bought into what we were building. Now I watch the portal shuffle and kids leaving after one season and I wonder if we will ever see a team like that again.
The Big 12 used to have an identity. It was wide open passing attacks and speed at every position and defense optional on most Saturdays. Now it is just a collection of leftovers trying to figure out who gets to be the tallest midget. BYU at the top of the power rankings tells you everything you need to know about where this league is headed. We are becoming the Group of Five of the Power Four and I hate it.