Commentary: Big 12: Conference among equals

Sports, especially now with less than 50 days before the election, is supposed to be a welcome respite from the nonstop name-calling, negativity and outrage by which this presidential election, as usual, is defined.

We’ve grown weary or at least numb to the back and forth, though that doesn’t include the confused dogs and cats in Springfield, Ohio.

Let me throw in a couple of political buzzwords into college football – “socialism” and “democracy.” Hang on for a minute, and I’ll try to make them fit, at least how it relates to the Big 12 Conference.

You know the Big 12 Conference, which is actually 16 teams, which is two less than the Big 10 Conference, which has 18. In realignment, who has time for math? The Big 12, which has schools in 10 states, stretches 2,320 miles, from Brigham Young in Provo, Utah, to the University of Central Florida in Orlando, Fla.

That still trails the Big 10, which has schools in 14 states, stretches 2,830 miles from the University of Washington in Seattle to Rutgers in New Brunswick, N.J.

Geography and math aside, and probably talent, the Big 12 is not quite like the Big 10, certainly not like the Southeastern Conference, the two conference gorillas out of the Power 4 conferences. That’s a good thing, at least for the 16 conference members that begin this weekend in earnest fighting for a conference title and an automatic berth in the first-ever 12-team College Football Playoff field.

The Big 12, having somewhat reinvented itself after watching Texas and Oklahoma bolt for the riches of the SEC, is a conference awash in socialism. The textbook definition of socialism includes phrases like “a more equal society” and “goods and services are distributed fairly.”

Paint the Big 12 in democracy too, with its labeling of “absence of class distinctions,” and “the common people are the source of authority.”

Maybe more easily understandable, now that bluebloods Texas and OU are gone, it’s a level playing field for “the common people,” – the 16 members who are more alike and have less have and have-not distinction than any other conference.

Gone is Texas, ranked No. 1 in the latest Associated Press football poll and with the country’s second-richest athletic department revenue at $239.2 million. Gone is Oklahoma, with its seven Heisman Trophy winners, seven national titles, and 14 Big 12 titles, including six in a row from 2015-2020.

What’s left is a conference without a behemoth or two or four– no Ohio State, Michigan or Oregon in the Big 10, no Georgia, Alabama, Texas or Tennessee in the SEC – but a number of similar programs with similar budgets who are one rung of the ladder down. They are programs that can be good and for one season aspire to be great.

It's telling that there are no Big 12 teams in the top 10 after three weeks, but in that next tier, there are four. No. 12 Utah, No. 13. Kansas State, No. 14 Oklahoma State and No. 20 Iowa State are not too shabby. There are at least four others knocking on the Top 25 door.

It’s parity without parody.

TCU and UCF got a one-week jump on conference play last Saturday. The final score of Central Florida 35, TCU 34 is symbolic of balance and unpredictability. The Frogs led 28-7 early in the second half and 31-13 with 20 minutes left before the Knights stormed back for the winning touchdown with 40 seconds remaining.

In this weekend, the first full-fledged schedule of conference games, Vegas sees what the Big 12 is, a lot of evenly matched teams. The largest point spread is Kansas State favored by 7.5 points at BYU. The other point spreads are 5.5, 3.5, 2.5, 1.5 and 1 point. That will be the case most weekends through late November.

In Lubbock, the panic button has been momentarily turned off after Texas Tech routed North Texas, 66-21, a game the Red Raiders led, 52-7, at halftime. As is the case when a team looks poor for two games in a 1-1 start and then can do no wrong in the third, the true barometer of strength is somewhere in the middle.

Tech hosts Arizona State at 2:30 p.m. (CDT) Saturday. The Sun Devils, picked either last or next-to-last, are off to a surprising 3-0 start. The two teams were in a conference once before, the late-and-not-that-great Border Conference from 1932 to 1956.

The Raiders are favored by a field goal. Out of the shadows of the Sooners and Longhorns, it truly is a conference among equals.

Jon Mark Beilue writes about sports for The Eastern New Mexico News.