Huge 12 college football sneak peek, part 2: Oklahoma and Texas

Expense Connelly, ESPN Staff WriterJun 30, 2023, 07:11 AM ET

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Bill Connelly is a staff writer for ESPN.com.When Oklahoma and Texas leave the

Big 12 for the SEC next year, it will undoubtedly affect ticket sales for their future former conference mates. The conference’s new media rights offer, though solid, doesn’t have quite the exact same ceiling as it would have with its long time big dogs.On the field, however, the conference has already carried on.

Texas hasn’t made the Big 12 champion given that 2018, and while OU enjoyed a late-2010s dynasty, winning 6 straight conference titles from 2015 to’20, the Sooners have fallen short of the title game for two straight years. In the lack of either the Sooners or Longhorns, 4 various groups have participated in 2 outright classics– Baylor’s 21-16, by-a-millimeter win over Oklahoma State in 2021 and Kansas State’s overtime success over TCU last December.This might be the new normal: 2 groups using the kiss of the close-games god to dominate loads

of similarly gifted(and monied )teams, then placing on a classic at Jerry World in Arlington, Texas. There are even worse fates. But prior to the two blueblood programs leave, they’re going to try to lord over the Big 12 one last time. Texas and OU are both projected in the top 15 in both SP+ and FPI, and either or both might put together a gaudy record if they have the ability to make peace with the aforementioned god of close games.In games chosen by more than one rating in 2015(omitting their uneven game against each other), the Horns and Sooners went

a combined 11-1. That’s popular of good teams. However in one-score surfaces? They were an incredible 2-10. The wackiness of their final Huge 12 title race might come down to just how much they progress towards the mean in these games.Last week we previewed the seven Big 12 groups that live outside of Oklahoma or Texas. Now let’s talk about the conference’s geographical heart.Every week through the offseason, Expense Connelly will preview another division from the Group of 5 and Power 5 solely for ESPN+, eventually including all 133 FBS teams. The sneak peeks will include 2022

breakdowns, 2023 sneak peeks and burning questions for each team.