College Football - Big 12 Conference History
History - Important facts - Teams - Winners
The Big 12 is a college athletic conference of twelve schools located in the central United States from Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas.
It’s part of the Football Bowl Subdivision of the NCAA Football Division I.
The conference was formed on February 25, 1994, when the former Big 8 Conference merged with 4 Texas schools coming from the Southwest Conference.
The 12 teams are divided in two groups: South Division and North Division, and the top team from each division play at the end of the season to determine the conference champion.
Teams play eight conference games a season, facing all five opponents within its own division and three teams from the opposite division. Inter-divisional play is a "three-on, three-off" system, where teams will play three teams from the other division on a home-and-home basis for two seasons, and then play the other three foes from the opposite side for a two-year home-and-home.
This format has received considerable disapproval, especially from fans at Nebraska and Oklahoma. The Oklahoma-Nebraska rivalry is not the only intense rivalry from the former Big 8 that is affected; fierce rivalries such as Oklahoma-Colorado and Oklahoma State-Missouri also must sit dark for two seasons at a time.
There has been talk of modifying the current format to allow each team to have one permanent opponent from the opposite division (as is the case in the Southeastern Conference), or for Nebraska and Oklahoma to play a non-conference game when the two teams are not scheduled to meet in conference play.
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