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West Virginia's coach is Berry's guest this week to talk about a variety of topics, including West Virginia's place in the Big 12, how he manages NIL, the transfer portal and how he'd like to see the Big 12 schedule conference games.
Berry Tramel
Sports Columnist
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STILLWATER — Here’s a list of OSU’s last nine conference opponents, starting with the most recent: Kansas State, Utah, Texas, Brigham Young, Houston, Central Florida, OU, Cincinnati, West Virginia.
That’s nine games, from last Saturday to last October 28.
The only schools on that list that were Big 12 members as recently as 2011? K-State, Texas and the Sooners. And the latter two are gone, off to the Southeastern Conference.
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So when the Cowboys host West Virginia on Saturday, the Mountaineers will qualify as a traditional OSU foe. An opponent from the old days.
This isn’t your father’s Big 12. Or your older brother’s Big 12. May not even be your TWIN brother’s Big 12, things change so quick.
This isn’t the Big 12 at all. It’s a brand-new league, that just happens to be flying the Big 12 flag until Brett Yormark can sell off the name.
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“It’s a new conference,” West Virginia coach Neal Brown admitted. “I think that’s fair.”
Eight new members have joined since in the past 15 months. Seven original members are left, though one of them, Colorado, went prodigal for 13 years.
No wonder no one can figure out this league. Even before the Big 12 underwent an Extreme Makeover: Conference edition, the league was goofy.
Egalitarian in Big 12 Championship Game berths, with seven schools represented in the last four Arlington showdowns. Unpredictable, with teams picked first and seventh (Texas, OSU 2023); fifth and seventh (Kansas State, Texas Christian, 2022); and fourth and eighth (OSU, Baylor, 2021) making the last three title games.
Is it any wonder why people are puzzled over what’s going on in 2024 Big 12 football? Nobody knows what will happen week to week.
Nobody knows how K-State can rip Arizona 31-7, then lose at BYU 38-9. How Utah can win 22-19 in Stillwater, then lose 23-10 at home to Arizona. How the three teams atop the conference at 2-0 were picked ninth (Texas Tech), 11th (Colorado) and 13th (BYU).
We’ve spent the last two weeks deciphering how this OSU season has gone sideways, with losses to Utah and Kansas State. And that’s legitimate concern and criticism.
But part of it, too, is that this league is as wacky as the cartoon races that featured Penelope Pitstop and the Gruesome Twosome.
Nobody has a feel for at least half the league. Brown, whose Mountaineers play OSU in Boone Pickens Stadium on Saturday, said his mental grip on the Big 12 is rather precarious.
“Got a really good feeling about the teams that have been in the league, when I was in it as a coordinator at Texas Tech (2010-12) and then as a head coach here (2019-present),” Brown said. “Got a really good feel for who those programs are.”
But the only teams still in the Big 12 from 2011 are OSU, Iowa State, Kansas State, Kansas, Texas Tech and Baylor. From 2019-22, you can add TCU and West Virginia.
“It’s a new league,” Brown said. “I think it’s a diverse league. What I mean by that, not just geographically, but style of play, it’s diverse.”
Here’s how kooky is the scheduling for 2023 and 2024 Big 12 football. OSU is playing just three opponents in both seasons: KSU, West Virginia and BYU.
How does that affect the Cowboys’ attempts at a season salvation? Just like last year, OSU is off to a rough, 3-2 start. The 2023 Cowboys rallied and made it to Arlington. Doesn’t seem likely in 2024, but of course, it didn’t seem likely in 2023.
The schedule appears on the verge of lightening up, but then again, maybe West Virginia is Arlington-bound. Or Colorado. Or BYU. You just never know in this league.
Mike Gundy said the 2023 script should have no bearing on 2024, “but I think it does. Because they think of everything. When I tell them not to read social media, they still read social media. So, things work on their brain. Social media works on a part of your brain that you don’t even know about and it stores stuff in there that messes with you. It does it to them, too.
“In the back of their mind, ‘we went through this last year and we’re good.’ Whatever it takes them to get them to that point, I’m good. I just need them to get to that point.”
Maybe so. If the Cowboys ran off a seven-game winning streak to finish 7-2 in the Big 12, they would have a chance to finish in the top two and qualify for the championship game. But a seven-game winning streak is quite unlikely.
In the Big 12, your best prognostications, in games not involving Houston, are something around 50-50, before adjusting for homefield advantage. So OSU’s odds of running the table are somewhere around one percent.
It’s a wacky conference. In recent years, being picked high has been a curse. Seems like it’s other teams’ turn to write a cool script.
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Berry Tramel
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