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Introducing the Big 18: Why SMU should join Big 12, form 18-team conference

Despite potential interest from the ACC, SMU should consider another Power Five conference.

For how many weeks (or perhaps it was months) were SMU fans led to believe they were on their way to the big time in the form of the Pac-12? Well, Bill Walton’s beloved “conference of champions” is now a conference of yesteryear, so excuse me for not buying in immediately to the notion that SMU is bound for the ACC.

The latest reports have indicated the Mustangs are even willing to pass on the financial benefits of joining the major leagues (we can’t really call it the Power Five any more, can we?) for a few years. Heck, when you’ve got Highland Park donors, who really needs ESPN money, anyway?

But until that Stanford, Cal, SMU trio to the ACC story gets locked down, indulge me. I have a better plan. This, of course, suggests that anybody really has a decent answer to today’s college mess. Allow me to give it a try. If the Big Ten can put together an 18-team plan, why can’t the Big 12? In fact, I already have it arranged.

It’s time to let SMU play football and basketball with its old rivals. Add the Mustangs and, needing another West Coast team, I’ll take San Diego State and make this the Big 12 X 1.5. Would love to have Stanford join — did you know no school has won more national championships in all sports than the Cardinal? — but I’m afraid the Palo Alto and Berkeley rivals are attached at the hip and we don’t need 19 teams here.

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Anyway, let’s discuss what this would look like. You set up the Big 12 X 1.5 in three six-team divisions. In football, you play everyone in your division each year, which maintains or revives Texas rivalries. You play two other conference games against each division (nine conference games total), so that West Coast teams only make one East Coast trip each season. We don’t want to overdo Arizona at Central Florida or BYU at West Virginia.

The divisions would look like this:

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West — Arizona, Arizona State, BYU, Colorado, San Diego State, Utah.

Southwest — Baylor, Houston, Oklahoma State, SMU, TCU, Texas Tech.

Midwest (no geographical name makes sense, but don’t worry about it) — Central Florida, Cincinnati, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, West Virginia.

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What happens at the end of the season? You could have the three division winners and a wild card play for the conference title, but I don’t even care about that. All that’s going to matter for the Big 12 in the near future is having two teams ranked high enough to claim spots in the 12-team national playoff that, undoubtedly, will include at least eight SEC and Big Ten teams. Conference championship games may become completely unnecessary.

In basketball you could have two options. Play everyone in your division home and road (10 games) and play another entire division and two games against a third division (total of 18 games). You could also just play everyone once and play a rival (Baylor vs. Tech, SMU vs. TCU, Arizona vs. Arizona State) twice and get 18 games that way. Your choice.

Now to deal with the question some of you are asking. What exactly has SMU done to suggest it has arrived in the major leagues?

First, speaking only somewhat cynically, the school has shown the world it can pay players with the best of them. The NIL landscape has broken all rules. A school with well-heeled boosters ready to shell out a total package well into the millions each season will get players.

For those doubters that remain, you may remind me that SMU has not finished in the AP top 25 poll since emerging from the Death Penalty of 1987. That, indeed, is a long time. But allow me to mention that Arizona, which may be a nice big state school in Tucson instead of a small private institution in University Park, has one top 20 finish this century. The 2014 club finished 19th in the AP poll. Way to go, Wildcats.

Arizona State, its only slightly more successful rival, has had three top 20 finishes but hasn’t landed in the top 10 since its last Rose Bowl visit after the ‘96 season.

Meanwhile, Sonny Dykes had three consecutive SMU squads that penetrated the top 20 but just didn’t finish there. Even with Dykes having fled crosstown, I’ll take that sustained success on a limited basis over what Arizona and Arizona State haven’t been doing for a couple decades.

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One thing we did learn while Dykes put together those top 20 teams is that SMU will never create any buzz playing East Carolina or Temple. There’s an easy fix if only the Big 12 will listen. And SMU has indicated a willingness to briefly forego that TV pot of gold just to gain admission behind the velvet ropes.

If you’re looking at national titles this century the Big 12 doesn’t have any. Not anymore. The SEC has won 14 and now adds Texas (’05) and Oklahoma (’00) to its list. The Big Ten, for all its huffing and puffing, has only two from Ohio State plus the two USC captured (one was split with LSU, technically) 20 years ago. It’s really an SEC World, and others are just trying to survive.

So while TCU played in a CFP title game, Cincinnati went to a playoff and Baylor, Oklahoma State and Utah have at least played in recent New Year’s Day bowls, it’s not like SMU would be joining a land of Alabamas here. It’s more a land of Houstons and Texas Techs, and I know it’s where the Mustangs belong.

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Twitter: @TimCowlishaw

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