Kevin Blackistone of AOL Sports writes that the Missouri Tigers should cancel their plane tickets and hotel accommodations for the Big 12 Championship Game this Saturday and allow one-loss Texas to do battle with Oklahoma instead.
So I phoned the Big 12 office on Monday to see if it could get the Tigers to cancel their bus or plane reservations — however they figured this week to make the two-hour drive from Columbia, Mo., to Kansas City — for the conference championship. After all, the Tigers, with three losses and hanging on to the Top 20 by their claws, could win the Big 12 game by 100 points and still not get a certificate of appreciation from the organizers of the national championship game, let alone an invitation to participate. The only people who would benefit would be those who bleed Burnt Orange.
But the Big 12 office informed me there was nothing it could do. NCAA rules bound the conference’s championship procedures.
So it is up to the Tigers to voluntarily step aside and let Texas and Oklahoma settle the Big 12 crown. And everybody would win. I bet Texas and Oklahoma would even agree to give Missouri a little more of their title game loot.
Above all, the Tigers moving aside would further demonstrate the ridiculousness of how the highest level of college football decides who plays for its championship — with voters, computers and hocus pocus. Every college sport decides its champion with a postseason tournament except for D-I (that’s right, I said it again, so sue me) football. Every college team that goes undefeated in its sport can play for that sport’s championship except D-I football, where this season three undefeated teams — Utah, Boise State and Ball State — are locked out.
I know Blackistone is being facetious with most of this, but it’s not MIZZOU’s fault (or concern) that Oklahoma and Texas play in the same division. They won the North and therefore deserve to play in the Big 12 title game. That’s the bottom line.
But it is a novel idea. Outside of MIZZOU fans, most of the college football world would love to see Texas and Oklahoma settle this debate on the field once and for all. (Settle the debate on the field again, that is.)
