By Alec Nederveld
Rivalry week. Every college football team in the country has at least one school they refer to as a rival and every college football fan should love everything about rivalry week. They get to play (and hopefully beat) a hated rival, sometimes ruining their season and it feels like just about anybody can beat anybody this week.
As fans, we wait eagerly all season for rivalry week and the opportunity to watch the next installment of The Game, the Iron Bowl, and all the other great rivalries in the sport.
Unless you’re in the Big 12.
Of the Big 12’s eight games on rivalry week, I would only refer to two as rivalry games: the Battle for the Territorial Cup between Arizona and Arizona State and Farmageddon between Iowa State and Kansas State.
Outside of that, Kansas vs. Baylor and Texas Tech vs. West Virginia are the only games where the teams have played each other since 2020. There’s also the Colorado/Oklahoma State game, which should be exciting as the Buffaloes’ second game against the Cowboys since leaving the Big 12 in 2011.
What matchups strike me as really bad is Utah vs UCF, TCU vs Cincinnati, and Houston vs BYU. It’s hard to find any similarities or reasons for bad blood between any of these teams, from geography, past conferences, to looking at their institutions as a whole. There’s also little to no history on the field. Utah has never played UCF while TCU and Houston have only played Cincinnati and BYU three times each. Why are they playing now when there is so much on the line for the conference?
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As much as the Big 12 changed with conference realignment, they weren’t alone in adding teams from new markets.
Looking at the ACC, almost all of their games are fantastic for rivalry week. The only problems I have come with SMU playing Cal, Stanford playing San Jose State, and to a lesser extent, Miami playing Syracuse. The story is the same for the Big Ten. Their only non-rival games are Fresno State playing UCLA and Rutgers playing Michigan State.
Why is Rivalry Week such a problem for the Big 12?
Compared to the ACC and Big Ten, yes, the Big 12 has changed more. They lost two teams with such a great history in Texas and Oklahoma who seemed to be rivals with everybody. Their replacements came at two separate times – 8 teams in total from across the country, much more than the other conferences.
Still, there are enough good matchups to make a rivalry week exciting for all fans of the conference. Here’s what I would do if I were commissioner Brett Yormark:
Is this perfect? Absolutely not, there’s only so much I can do with the current 16 teams. Is it better than the Big 12’s rivalry week in 2024? By leaps and bounds.
I think 11 of the 16 teams play their biggest rival and all of the games makes sense for the most part. I’m not a fan that I had to make Kansas and Oklahoma State as “rivals”, but the two schools have been in the Big 12 together forever and are only four hours apart. There have been some notable games, including the 2022 game where Kansas achieved bowl eligibility for the first time since 2008 and threw the goalposts into Potter Lake.
THE KANSAS GOALPOSTS ARE IN POTTER LAKE! (A much more sensible walk than the Kansas River we suggested early) pic.twitter.com/S69RzudMwW
— Sickos Committee (@SickosCommittee) November 6, 2022
Big 12 rivalries – an all-year, not a one-week problem
As disappointing as rivalry week is in the Big 12, it’s a seemingly all-year problem. Only four rivalries encompassing eight of the conference’s 16 teams will be played annually. If you’re Cincinnati, Colorado, Houston, Iowa State, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, UCF, or West Virginia, you do not have a yearly rival.
Iowa State and Kansas State, playing this Saturday with major conference championship implications is the hardest-hit rivalry. The teams have played every year since 1916 and it’s always competitive. That’s set to change soon. The teams will play in Dublin, Ireland in 2025, Ames, Iowa, in 2026, and are not scheduled for 2027. Farmegeddon is likely to return in 2028, although Big 12 scheduling has not been announced yet past 2027. Either way, the over 110 years of consecutive play will have closed barring a matchup in the Big 12 Championship Game.
At a minimum, I think every team should play at least one protected rival every year, preferably two or in some cases three. I understand that I am not a schedule maker and I don’t understand the complexities within the schedule-making process, but it makes the most sense to preserve rivalries. The ACC, for example, has 16 protected rivalries built into their schedules through 2030.
For Brett Yormark, people tune into rivalry games and this would give his conference more viewership and money. I think Yormark has been fantastic as the conference commissioner, but he’s not taking advantage of one of the Big 12’s biggest advantages. The conference, in a way similar to the SEC, has a ton of pride from being underdogs on the national level and hatred within.
That hatred should be expressed this week by passionate fans in historic rivalry games. Not in UCF playing Utah to no strong opinions.
