The New Big 12, Better Than the Old Mountain West?

The new Big 12 features three teams that will become reunited in 2024. The question is whether the new digs are an upgrade, and if so, how much?

The Big-12 Conference has gone through quite the transformation over the course of the past year. The announcement of the departures of Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC sent things into a frenzy as they are the two main powerhouses in the conference and have been for the past several decades.

The Big-12 proceeded to add BYU, UCF, Houston, and Cincinnati, and all are gearing up to begin their first season of football in the Big-12.

The past few weeks have been wild as realignment talks ramped back up. The departure of Colorado from the Pac-12 to the Big-12 led to a domino effect that ultimately landed Utah, Arizona, and Arizona State in the new look Big-12 in addition to Colorado.

One thing this realignment does is reunites three programs that played in the Mountain West together in the early 2000s. I am talking about Utah, BYU, and TCU. These programs were a clear-cut “big 3” in the Mountain West, and when two of them played each other it was a matchup that generated national attention. Looking at the new Big-12 that will no longer include Texas and Oklahoma, it is a real possibility that these programs will once again be regularly competing with one another for a conference title, and the question needs to be asked, how much stronger is this conference than the old Mountain West?

Is the new Big 12 better than the old Mountain West?

Time will certainly tell as the mark of a strong conference is one that can produce true national title contenders. The implementation of the 12-team playoff will allow for opportunities. It is a question of whether these programs will sneak into that playoff and be a first-round exit consistently or whether they can make a deeper run.

2009 was a strong year for the Mountain West. TCU won the Mountain West and finished #6 overall. BYU and Utah both finished the year in the top 18 as well. Of the nine teams in the conference, five of them finished with winning records. These three programs are good adds for the Big 12. TCU has already shown an ability to compete in this conference and I think the other two can get there as well, especially after the official exit of Texas and Oklahoma.

I think it’s fair to say that the new Big 12 is stronger than the old Mountain West given the track record of teams like Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, and Kansas State having shown an ability to compete for conference championships in the Big-12 every now and then, whereas in the Mountain West there really weren’t teams that would jump up and challenge the top three programs.

However, I believe the main point is that if these three programs reunite and are a core at the top of the conference, that tells me the conference as a whole is not that much stronger than the one they played in before. This is a real possibility.

The Big-12 has done its best to make necessary adjustments to stay relevant in the college football landscape. As time goes on it will become evident whether or not this conference can produce title contenders and whether they are still well-respected and classified as a power conference going forward.