Oklahoma St. football: Would Cowboys, others benefit from Pac-16?

The (New) Pac-16 format

To mirror the discussions taking place between the two leagues from the summer of 2010, the mega-conference would feature two divisions of eight teams each. Each division could play round-robin each year with only one or two crossover games against farther opponents from the other division. The only changes would be that the Pac-12 has since added two teams (Colorado and Utah), while the Big 12 has swapped Missouri and Texas A&M for West Virginia and TCU.

In this setup, let’s exclude Baylor just to be spiteful and include Utah, a relatively recent addition of the Pac-12.

East Division: Oklahoma State, Oklahoma, Texas Tech, Texas, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, Arizona State

West Division: Washington, Washington State, Oregon, Oregon State, USC, Stanford, UCLA, Cal

The benefits

Although it would be painful to separate OSU from its former Big 8 and Big 12 conference foes such as Iowa State, Kansas State, and Kansas, these schools are not consistently competitive and do the Big 12 few favors on the national stage.

Sure, sixth-year head coach Matt Campbell has Iowa State on the rise after last year’s Fiesta Bowl win, but the Cyclones did experience an 11-year stretch between 2006 and 2016 with just one winning season. Within the past decade, Iowa State has lost to two multiple FCS opponents (including Northern Iowa).

Besides, several of OSU’s fellow conference rivals and geographic counterparts would make the move. Longtime former Big 8 and Big 12 foe Colorado is there, in addition to the Red Raiders and the Longhorns.

The Pac-16’s strength is predictably in its numbers. With an emphasis by the CFP Committee on strength of schedule during its deliberations, imagine an undefeated, Lincoln Riley-led OU squad going on the road in October to face an undefeated or one-loss Washington team in a divisional crossover game. The Cowboys might face the Buffaloes late in the season to set up an East Division ‘championship’ game against the Sooners the following week. In the conference title game, a potential USC-Texas matchup would draw the nation’s eyeballs in few ways that Iowa State and Baylor currently do.

Today’s college football world is dictated by media rights deals and a large geographic footprint. The greater the reach of a conference into more TV markets and large metro areas, the greater the potential revenues. Couldn’t OSU and OU, too, become players for more California high school recruits under this arrangement?

The idea of the Pac-16 has the psychological advantage of being new and unproven. It preserves several of OSU’s current geographical and in-conference rivalries, and it creates a power conference with a national footprint that could best the Minnesota-to-New Jersey reach of the Big Ten or the Missouri-to-southeast Texas-to Florida expanse of the SEC.

16-team conferences have happened before at the FBS (or Division I-A) level before. And, given the unwieldy size of the 14-team fellow power conferences today against whom the Big 12 competes, it might be wise to roll the dice on a 16-team move instead of waiting for the next conference realignment domino to fall.