In new college football playoff system it’s what you call the game the counts

I really hope Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby is on the phone right now. And I hope he stays on the phone until he convinces two of these four teams — Colorado State, BYU, Utah State or Boise State — to leave the conference they are currently members of and join the Big 12. Then it all becomes symmetrical again — you actually have 12 teams in a conference called the Big 12.


But symmetry and logic are the least important reasons for adding these teams. Th real reason is that then you can divide the conference into a South Division — consisting of Baylor, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, TCU, Texas and Texas Tech — and a North Division with Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, West Virginia and whatever two new teams are added.

Why is that important? Because then you can have a conference championship game and it appears you need to have a conference championship game in order to make it into college football’s four-team playoff. All four teams in the playoff — Alabama, Oregon, Florida State and Ohio State — won a conference championship this weekend. The two teams left out — Baylor and TCU of the Big 12 — won convincingly yesterday, but they only won regularly scheduled games.

Baylor defeated a very good Kansas State team 38-27. Had the Big 12 had 12 teams in the conference and that Baylor-Kansas State game had been a Conference Championship game and not just a regular season game, I absolutely guarantee you Baylor would replace Ohio State as the No. 4 team in the playoffs. The Bears finished fifth only because that game wasn’t set up as a championship game.

That’s why I hope Bowlsby is on the phone taking steps to correct this injustice.