One of college football’s most prominent media voices released his Top 12 college football program rankings on Sunday night, and there was not a Big 12 team in sight.
Josh Pate ranked the teams No. 1 to No. 12, and, in order, picked Georgia, Ohio State, Michigan, Texas, Alabama, Oregon, Notre Dame, Tennessee, Penn State, LSU, Clemson and Ole Miss.
As Pate noted, this is a combination of on-field results, talent acquisition, and program resources/stability over four years.
Frankly, it’s hard to argue there should be a Big 12 team on this list right now.
If Oklahoma State didn’t have the abysmal season of 2024, there might have been a case for the Cowboys to crack this ranking. But given their 0-9 campaign last fall, there was no way they deserved to sniff this list.
Otherwise, the Big 12’s best trait, it’s parity, is going to hurt them in rankings like this. As we’ve discussed with Pate and others on our YouTube Channel (subscribe here) is that the parity, as exciting as it is, prevents a true blue blood from breaking through. Eventually, having 2-3 teams become the “blue bloods” of the league would actually be best for the conference. But that isn’t going to happen overnight.
Now if you want to bet which team is most likely to find itself on this list in four years? Arizona State, Kansas State, Iowa State, Texas Tech and West Virginia come to mind. But there are going to be another half a dozen fan bases who will argue it could be them. That’s the beauty of the Big 12 right now.
But until that team, or teams, break through, don’t expect to see many Big 12 teams on lists like this one. We’ll have to deal with it, because it’s not wrong.
