As long as college football is a beauty contest and evaluated by a crew of biased Olympic judges, schools like Baylor will continue to get the shaft.
It’s not fair.
It’s not right.
And it’s not OK.
(The rest of this Whitney Houston song no longer fits here).
Baylor, not Texas nor Oklahoma, is the class of the Big 12 Conference, which is new commissioner Brett Yormark’s biggest problem.
As Yormark presents a Big 12 without Texas and Oklahoma to ESPN, Fox, Apple TV, Hulu and any other potential media rights broadcast partners, one of his biggest challenges is convincing these networks a league can be powerful with the likes of Baylor, Oklahoma State, TCU, Kansas State and the rest as its annual “power.”
No sport like college football is more rooted and plagued by a myopic vision that says the best teams are only Alabama, Oklahoma, Ohio State, Georgia, LSU, Notre Dame and precious few others.
There is a reason Texas remains a top 10 team without the résumé.
Don’t expect this to change any time … ever.
The system is the system.
Any system that makes as much money as college football but is anchored around a model built on prejudice is a successful failure. It won’t change much until it starts losing money.
The best Baylor or any team in the Big 12 not named Oklahoma or Texas can do is to win every game and pray it changes the hearts and minds of the old people who cannot fathom that a Baylor, Oklahoma State or Cincinnati is a top four program.
Since the formation of the BCS Championship in 1998, and then the creation of the BCS Plus 2 (aka the CFP) in 2014, the teams in these annual invitationals has become the Member-Member at Augusta National.
Only Oklahoma from the Big 12 has received an invite to this fake playoff.
Third-year coach Dave Aranda’s Baylor team is picked to win the 2022 Big 12 regular season title, one year after it won the Big 12 title game against Oklahoma State.
TCU’s 30-28 win over Baylor one week after Gary Patterson “resigned” last season is the only reason Baylor was not a bigger part of the College Football Playoff discussion.
“We want to build a program that can be the best program in the Big 12,” Baylor linebacker Dillon Doyle said on Wednesday at Big 12 Media Days. “For a long time Oklahoma was the standard.”
Some might say for too long.
Oklahoma is the only team to reach the College Football Playoff from the Big 12; the Sooners were 0-3 in the playoffs.
That Baylor was close again to a playoff berth for a third time is a wonderful development for Baylor, and the long-term health of the conference.
Baylor’s road to first place in the Big 12 in football and a national title in men’s basketball has not been particularly smooth or pretty.
It is also here for a reason.
Baylor has spent a small fortune, and has hired competent coaches.
Aranda not leaving Waco during last fall’s crash of high profile job openings is the single best development for the university since the Southwest Conference and Big 8’s merger into the Big 12 included Baylor.
That Aranda showed no interest in the openings at LSU, USC or Oklahoma is more proof the Lord works in mysterious ways.
All of this is a plus for Baylor and the Big 12, and it’s still not enough.
The problem is it’s Baylor.
It’s not fair.
It’s not right.
When it comes to college football, unless you are Ohio State, or Texas, USC, or any of those established names from 1970, it’s never enough.
When Texas and Oklahoma leave the Big 12 for the SEC, likely in 2025, the Big 12 will feature one team that has won a national title since 1939: BYU won the national title in 1984. TCU won the national title in 1938.
The league will feature one team that has reached the playoff: Cincinnati last season.
When Texas and Oklahoma leave the Big 12 for the SEC, new commissioner Kevin Yormark will not have a celebrity power to sell.
From Baylor to Oklahoma State to Cincinnati, he will have a plate good teams, not one of which has been accepted in the modern era as a power.
It’s not fair.
It’s not right.
It’s just college football.