What’s going on in the Big 12 and beyond? I expand and explain every Sunday in Postscripts at Heartland College Sports, your home for independent Big 12 coverage.
Five Stories I Thought About This Week
I went through our site and found five stories that I thought were interesting this week and wanted to redirect readers to those and provide my thoughts. All five are stories I didn’t write.
Lane Kiffin’s Spotty Math
Lake Kiffin, new LSU coach, said this at SEC media days:
“Until we can get into a world where people can actually look at teams and say, that team that is 9-3 with their schedule is a better team than that 11-1 in a different conference, which now I think we aren’t even close to doing that, I think it causes problems.”
Here’s hoping we never get to that day. Because the day we start giving 9-3 teams invites because they’re in a certain conference and play a certain schedule is the day this whole endeavor collapses.
The beauty of sports is that if you win you get in. If you win, you advance in your postseason. There’s no ambiguity between winning and losing. There is a scoreboard. There are points, and there’s finality.
The SEC finally gave in and added a ninth conference game. Good for them. But if adding that ninth conference game gives the committee a data point that allows at 9-3 SEC team to get in over at 11-1 ACC team or Big 12 team, then we’re losing the plot.
And Kiffin really hopes the committee loses the plot. That was the point of the comment.
Charles Huff Wants Memphis in a Power League
I loved the confidence of Charles Huff during American Conference media days. He’s the first-year coach at Memphis and his career has been building for the last decade.
If you don’t know the name, file it away for future coaching searches. He’s going to get a job at a power conference school at some point. He’d love it if that were Memphis.
“I’m in the best situation possible. I’m in a vehicle that has the resources, the platform, the opportunity to continue to grow. So hopefully, I’ll be standing here, one more, two more, three more years, and then I’ll be standing in the Power 4 Conference, with the same logo on, with the same people, with the same President, the same AD and some of the same players, because I’m standing in a vehicle that can do that… I feel really good, not only about tomorrow, and fall camp, and this season, but for the next 10 years.”
Some of that is for the boosters. Some of that is for a booster of one — FedEx. The company is one of the school’s biggest overall boosters and recently reached a jersey patch deal with all sports. A few years ago FedEx helped Memphis try and SMU into a power league (as in, we don’t need your TV money we have our own) but it didn’t work in a reported attempt to get into the Big 12.
They may not need to do that again. Things will reset in a few years because they’ll have to and Memphis will be one of the few Group of 6 schools well-positioned geographically and financially to pounce on it. If it gets to that point, will the Big 12 bite? Or will another conference beat them to the punch? And will Huff still be there? All good questions.
The Oklahoma State Robot
Oklahoma State has a partnership with a company called Monarc. The Chicago-based technology company has a device called a “seeker,” not to be confused with Harry Potter. This robot can throw touchdowns, kick field goals, and punts.
No, he’s not replacing Drew Mestemaker. It’s a practice tool. Think of it as a more sophisticated Jugs gun. It’s there to help players get more reps during the season and in the offseason without wearing out the arms of backup quarterbacks. It should make OSU’s practice more efficient.
Now, if this thing sprouts legs and gains consciousness, quietly back away.
Spot the Ball Already
Texas Tech head coach Joey McGuire’s “spot the ball” comment was about trying to get a game with Texas. During the Texas High School Coaches Association’s annual convention, he and Texas head coach Steve Sarikisian sat next to each other on the dias and joked with one another. It’s all cool.
Then, this week, an incoming Texas recruit, CB John Meredith III told Rivals he wants the game, too. But maybe not for the reasons you think.
“I would like Texas to play Texas Tech so people can know what’s the real difference between them,” he said.
I’m sure Meredith knows that Texas Tech has come a long way since the last meeting with Texas in 2023, which was a 57-7 loss. It would be a far more competitive game if it was played tomorrow.
We should want more games like this. If we had a year-to-year non-conference schedule, we might get more of them. I actually wrote about that this week.
Westward Expansion
Our Conner Becker wrote about the merits of the Big 12 expanding out west at some point, bringing up Oregon State, Washington State and Boise State. His piece stemmed from a nugget of news from congressional negotiations over the Protect College Sports Act that wanted to cap conference membership at 19 teams.
The theory was who would be the three most likely teams the Big 12 might go after? And there’s value in adding those three teams out West. It would help the four corners schools, along with BYU, and create a solid western front for the conference.
But if the Big 12 expands on betting some schools in the central and eastern time zones are going to be in the mix too, including Memphis and USF. I don’t think commissioner Brett Yormark would go whole hog into one region of the country if those schools are not already part of a power conference.
