The Big 12 Conference may finally be releasing its 2024 conference schedule. After months of knowing the opponents and the locations of each game between now and 2027, fans have eagerly been waiting to find out the exact dates of when each team will be playing each other.
Next season, the Big 12 will be entering their first season as a 16-team league, and the first year without the name brands of Texas and Oklahoma. However, with the additions of Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, and Utah, along with the four additions from this past year, the hit on the conference image has been minimized.
When Will the Big 12 Schedule Be Released?
In a tweet, the Big 12 released an image of the Big 12 trophy with the words “10 am CT.” The image features the trophy sitting on top of AT&T Stadium, the host location of the 2024 Big 12 Championship Game. While not officially stating that the announcement of the schedule will be released at 10:00 AM CT, there have been rumors that the schedule would be released this week, suggesting that the tweet is almost certainly referring to that.
In addition, the ACC already released its schedule last week, opening up this week to be focused all on the Big 12, as opposed to having to share the spotlight with another P4 Conference. In fact, of the four Power Conferences, the Big 12 is the last to release their schedule with the Big 10 releasing in early November, the SEC in the middle of December, and the ACC last week.
10 a.m. CT. pic.twitter.com/w36D8GImTI
— Big 12 Conference (@Big12Conference) January 29, 2024
What We Can Expect
We already know the non-conference schedule for most teams. For example, we knoww that TCU will open against Stanford and that BYU will play SMU on a Friday night in week two. Aside from this, anything is possible. We do have a few clues of what we may see:
- Rivalry Weekend: Without Bedlam or The Red River Rivalry, there aren’t a ton of rivalry games that traditionally take place outside of rivalry weekend. In fact, there aren’t a ton of rivalries period. The Big 12 is either going to spread these out throughout the season or move them all to the final weekend of the season. What could be a lot of fun would be to have games on Black Friday and the following Saturday to spread out the great slate of games.
- UCF’s Unique Home Slate: UCF has five home Big 12 games, and four of them are against teams in the west (BYU, Utah, Colorado, and Arizona). With just how the schedules tend to work with those teams likely not traveling to Orlando and then another location the prior or following week, don’t be shocked if UCF plays most of these teams either before or after a BYE week.
- Will BYU Get Their Friday Game? BYU traditionally has played on a Friday the first weekend of October due to a church conference they have the following day. In the past, this game has been against Utah State, another predominately LDS school, but last year it was against Cincinnati. Will the Big 12 allow BYU to play on that Friday again, or perhaps will that be one of their two byes, a new rule to college football this season?
- Weekday Games: Brett Yormark, at media days last year, suggested that he would be open to having more weekday games to allow for higher ratings and more exposure. There is no secret that a 7PM Thursday night game on ESPN would draw better ratings than a 2:00 PM ESPN2 game on Saturday. The ACC is embracing weeknight games; don’t be surprised if the Big 12 does the same.
Conclusion
The release of the Big 12 schedule is going to be both exciting and very interesting. With 16 teams, it is already tough to create a fair and competitive schedule. Throw on the two bye weeks and the possibility of playing during the middle of the week, and it will be interesting to see which teams end up getting a tougher perceived schedule and which ones get a favorable one.
Regardless, the Big 12 should be the most competitive conference top to bottom next year, and it is the only P4 Conference where the top three or four teams are not obvious, creating a parity that makes the conference the most entertaining in the country week to week.
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