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Big 12 will have ‘One True Champion’ after eliminating co-champions

By Patrick Schmidt

Jul 21, 2014; Dallas, TX, USA; Big 12 trophy reflecting the new logo is displayed during the Big 12 Media Day at the Omni Dallas. Mandatory Credit: Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports
Jul 21, 2014; Dallas, TX, USA; Big 12 trophy reflecting the new logo is displayed during the Big 12 Media Day at the Omni Dallas. Mandatory Credit: Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports /
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The Big 12 will have one true champion this year but won’t have a conference championship game.

Baylor and TCU shared the crown as co-champions of the Big 12 last year which didn’t sit well with the Bears or the Horned Frogs and ultimately played a prominent role in both teams being left out of the first ever College Football Playoff.

The logical solution to avoiding co-champions would be having a conference championship game like every other conference in college football, but the 10-team Big 12 will not have a conference championship game, not this year at least.

However, the Big 12 finished their spring meetings Wednesday to create a tiebreaker to eliminate multiple champions being crowned, according to CBS Sports’ Jon Solomon.

Head-to-head is the first tie-breaker so to go back to last year’s case, Baylor beat TCU so Baylor would have been the conference champion. Therefore, they would have been the conference’s representative for the Sugar Bowl when it’s not a semifinal game for the playoff and the Big 12 already has a team in the playoff.

Should there be a three-way tie the conference will use scoring differential instead of non-conference strength of schedule or quality of wins.

“There’s probably a little bit of apprehension about scoring differential because theoretically it could contribute to running up the score,”Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby said, via CBS. “But I just think when you get down to that level, there aren’t a lot of real good ways to break the tie and this is probably as good as any. … It gave us some comfort that a 21-7 win is more valuable than a 48-41 win. We were concerned does it favor a defensive or an offensive team?”

Without a conference championship game that would be the ideal solution to crowning “one true champion” but considering the complicated steps they would need to take to have one with only 10 teams, settling it based on head-to-head meetings is the most logical.

Baylor beat TCU last year but they were still co-champions, which didn’t make sense, so thankfully the Big 12 is taking the necessary steps to eliminate from happening again.

You can read the entire language in the Big 12 tiebreaker courtesy of CBS Sports here.

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