Every fall, Dallas is the site of the Red River Showdown between Texas and Oklahoma. It’s one of college football’s biggest rivalries. But with the Big 12 reinstating the conference championship game, the stakes might have been raised higher.
You could possibly see the Red River Showdown twice in the same season. It was a topic at Tuesday's Big 12 Media Day.
“It would be something special,” said Texas head coach Charlie Strong. “I think that we’ll get it worked out the right way and whomever ends up in it, it’s going to be a big-time game.”
One possibility is having the top two teams in the conference play at the end of the regular season. But you are taking a chance of having teams play each other in back-to-back games, which would have been the case last season between Oklahoma and Oklahoma State.
“However they set it up, we will be ready to work with it,” said Oklahoma head coach Bob Stoops. “In the end, let’s go play.”
Another scenario would be splitting the league into divisions. The problem with that? You could see a 11-1 team face a 7-5 team that could possibly cause damage in the chances of a Big 12 team landing in the college playoff picture.
“You may not be playing the top two teams, you may be playing a team that in one division that may have more losses than the two in another division,” said Stoops. “So I’ve been back and forth on that.”
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“You look at it and I think the commissioners and everyone that’s involved, they’re going to do a great job with it,” added Strong.
The Big 12 Championship game is set to return in 2017 at a neutral site, possibly AT&T Stadium in Arlington.
The Red River Showdown is scheduled for October 8, at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas.
* During a conference call Tuesday afternoon, Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby and Oklahoma University president David Boren confirmed the conference will look into expansion. Boren said schools have made contact with the Big 12 and the conference will move forward in gauging interest from those schools.
