Good Riddance to the Big XII

by Larry Carlson for https://texaslsn.org

The below article is Professor Carlson’s condensed version of the History of the Big XII and conference member the Texas Longhorns.

I never really bought in to the Big XII.  Fancy Roman numerals and all.

Sure, the old Southwest Conference had eroded into a Texas vs Arkansas league from the '60s thru the late '70s, then revved up into the U of H TransAm era, on to SMU's Pony Express  (complete with an actual team payroll) and downward to the Aggie heyday of Cheatin' Jackie Sherrill and more probation.  The wild, wild Southwest had indeed become a bandit league.

Teams such as Rice, TCU, SMU  and Baylor had long ago suited up as irrelevant, with two conference titles between the quartet, in more than three decades leading into the "exit, stage right" pulled by Arkansas.  Unwise move, by the way, Piggies.  You went from being in the shadow of UT to being eclipsed by almost an entire conference.

I digress.  Suffice to say, the SWC was on a ventilator and it was time for Texas to pull the plug and move on in the mid-'90s.

The Big XII was not in my dreams, however.  I mean, I just never envisioned the Longhorns in a geographical tornado alley through the Dust Bowl north to wheat fields and cornfields.  The prospect of road trips to college towns such as Stillwater, Manhattan and Ames didn't excite.

Geez, at least the old SWC made travel plans pretty simple.  Only the excursions to the South Plains and the Ozarks required planning.

The lone attraction, to this observer, was Texas suddenly having the chance to beat Nebraska.  In the mid-1990s, Nebraska was THE big bad wolf of college football.

The Longhorns came through, big-time, against the Cornhuskers. The Big Red had won back-to-back national titles in '94 and '95, as the titans of the Big 8.

First, Texas famously took them down in the inaugural Big XII championship in St Louis.

The Horns were a pedestrian 7-4, having won four in a row after a disastrous 3-4 start.  They were lowly underdogs in Vegas.  But QB James Brown, a la Joe Namath, predicted a Texas win and UT pulled off the biggest upset of the collegiate season.

After a horrendous 4-7 showing that axed coach John Mackovic the following season, Texas was ready for its next matchup versus The Children of The Corn.  With a freshman QB, Major Applewhite, at the helm on Halloween '98, UT upset seventh-ranked Nebraska, 20-16, ending the nation's lengthiest home winning streak.  Then in '99, Applewhite led Texas to another upset, this one in Austin.  The Huskers did avenge that one in the conference title game in December, though.  But the Horns' football success against the Midwesterners wasn't finished.

And Texas denied the Huskers again in a big one, the '09 title game, saved by Hunter Lawrence's walk-off FG.

Put simply, the Longhorns owned Nebraska during the two teams' Big XII years.

That did not sit well with the Husker brass.  They protested what they called UT's oversized influence in the conference and bolted for the Big Ten.  Colorado, a team that played Texas in two Big XII title games (once denying UT a would-be shot at a national title, then later absorbing a 70-3 annihilation in the Horns' national title year of 2005), also bolted for perceived greener pastures for Buffaloes.

Texas was golden, minus some OU games, from 2001-2009, winning at least ten games per year, taking two conference titles and a national trophy.  Then it all swirled down the toilet, a messy flush that lasted most of thirteen years.  Yeah, the 2018 team upset Georgia in the Sugar Bowl,and that was a highlight, even though UT still lost four contests.  And, an uncomfortable truth must be acknowledged:  Texas has won just eight of the last 24 games against OU.  The Sooners have earned 14 conference titles while UT won three.  Truthfully, the conference never had the same cachet or swagger, once sometimes-mighty Nebraska and often competent Colorado split the scene, bound for pigskin hell.

It's time for Texas to stylishly depart the mis-named Big XII.  The conference hasn't had a dirty dozen for a while, and now will have about 78 teams this fall, including notable "rivals" such as BYU, Central Florida, Cincinnati and Cougar High.  Utah, Arizona State and Arizona are primed to expand whatever brand there now is.  TCU, Okie State Texas Tech and Baylor might well be nervous.  Utah has been very good for awhile, and if rejuvenated donor bases can shell out more than peanuts at UAz and ASU, those sleeping desert giants should awaken.  All things being equal, is Joe Mercenary Four-Star more likely to pick Waco and Lubbock over Tucson and The Greater Phoenix Area?  I think not.

Back to the present.  Memo to Steve Sarkisian:  Better win the damn conference crown this year.  Bookend the Horns' time in the weird conference that never -- at least to 

this writer -- made sense, by winning your last season in the league, same as UT won the first.  And only two others in all that time between.

Get ready to slither around with the water moccasins of the SEC.  It looks enticing but ominous.

Might as well drop the mic this year after a last date with the conference that has been the unlikely, ugly girlfriend who should've never crashed the party and found the rich guy. 

So long, Ames, Manhattan and Stillwater.  Hello  Athens, Knoxville and Baton Rouge.  Get ready to rumble.  But take care of unfinished business first.

Then you can resume tormenting the Aggies on a regular basis.

(TLSN's Larry Carlson teaches sports media at Texas State University.  He is a member of the Football Writers Association of America.  Write him at lc13@txstate.edu)