The Other Shoe to Drop: Which G5 schools will take which Big 12 schools when the conference inevitably implodes?

The Big 12 is not going to make it.

A stalwart Power Five conference for over 20 years now, this is not a conference that runs itself like an organization that wants to stick around. Members have struggled to make the football playoff (and will continue to do so), the conference does not have a TV network (and never will, while the Longhorn Network exists), Baylor has failed in their commitment to keep students safe, and newest member West Virginia is 872 miles from their nearest conference-mate, Iowa State.

As Underdogs, we are in a unique position to see the writing on the wall. When the WAC became too top-heavy at 16 teams, back in the late 1990’s, we watched the top teams bolt to form the Mountain West. When the realignment dominoes fell again a few years ago, the WAC was forced to drop football completely, unable to find new membership or enough competition on the field to continue. The WAC, in many ways, was the Big 12 of the Group-of-Five.

And much like the WAC, Big 12 basketball remains strong. Its football, however, remains weak, and a title game that will pit two two teams that already played each other during the regular season will do little to help. Sure, it’ll pass the buck down the line by a season or two, but eventually fans will see what we have known for some time: The Big 12 leadership is not serious about the conference surviving.

This makes no sense, and either they have their reasons, or ignore the entire sports world when given reasons why they are quite literally running the conference into the ground. That’s their business. And the Big 12 already has a blog elsewhere on SB Nation, who perhaps can give reasons why the Big 12 might survive after all. But if the conference doesn’t make changes, it will indeed fall apart, as all the problems that contributed to that first scare are still very much in place.

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First, some background, bringing that back to the Group of Five for a moment: In 2016, the Sun Belt Conference announced it would not renew football-only contracts with New Mexico State or Idaho. While NMSU will become an independent after their last SBC season in 2017, Idaho has opted to drop-down to the FCS level. Many news outlets commented that the Vandals were the first school to do so, because this is obviously not a common occurrence.

Despite this, you might be thinking, it’s still ridiculous for a Power Five team to drop down to the Group-of-Five level. That would obviously never happen.

Except it did, when Temple was kicked out of the Big East after the 2004 season.

Now that we’ve discovered precedent, a couple of caveats:

Number one, this is serious. The Big 12 leadership has consistently proven itself to ignore basic logical principles of business and college football growth and success, and when the time came to restock its numbers after losing four teams, the conference did literally the minimum amount of work and then rested on its laurels. Meanwhile, the ACC kept adding teams to project strength after being raided by the stronger Big Ten, and perhaps as a result, now has two National Titles to show for it.

Number two, we recognize not all these teams would fall so far when the Big 12 does finally implode. The futures of Texas and Oklahoma are absolutely secure, and either or both could play as independents for the foreseeable future, and not only have success on the field but in their bank accounts as well. It is because of this success that fans of the Big 12 think the future of the conference is secure. This assumption is reliant on Big 12 leadership doing the correct and wise thing, for which they have shown little aptitude.

Number three, as Underdog Dynasty covers football exclusively, this is an article about football. Having an exceptional basketball team will not help you here (sorry, Kansas), though it certainly doesn’t hurt.

So, here we are. At some point in a year, maybe three or five, if the Big 12 does not make major changes (or add members), the conference will die. As Underdogs, we have seen it before, and this is a clear warning. In the event of your untimely demise, this is where you land, and it should be noticed we’ll be happy to have any of these schools. Even Iowa State.

Top Tier: The Unstoppables

Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State

Texas is one of the largest universities in the nation, and its annual rivalry with Oklahoma make these two a package deal wherever they go. You wouldn’t split Florida & Georgia into two different conferences, just like you wouldn’t split Michigan and Ohio State. Some things are sacred. That rivalry plus the Sooners’ in-state rivalry with the Cowboys, not to mention the Cowboys continued success in football and basketball, means these three are the only locks to remain Power Five in the event of being set adrift. If Notre Dame can go on its own, these three are in a unique position to do so.

Secondary Tier: The Take ‘em or Leave ‘em

Kansas, Kansas State, Texas Tech

Original members of the Big 12, the athletic programs here are perceived as being equal to their fellow Power Five brethren— despite lack of general success overall. Kansas remains one of the top basketball programs in the nation, and Kansas State is the only current conference member not named Texas or Oklahoma to win a conference title (2003 solo, 2012 co-champs). Is this enough to form a cornerstone of a new Power Five conference? Perhaps. But lack of geographical options means either they’d entice a handful of Mountain West teams to form a basketball power conference, or else they can bite the bullet and simply join the existing AAC.

The football budgets at the Kansas schools would take a hit, of course, but odds are Texas Tech would not notice, as their athletic department is clearly not interested in anything other than nine wins a year and a bowl game. The evidence to support this is spread out over the last twenty years.

Bottom Tier: The Leftovers

Texas Tech

Already listed above as on the same level as Kansas and Kansas State, the Red Raiders straddle the line as their only hope of remaining Power Five is as a package deal with Kansas and Kansas State, and staking their claim as a basketball power conference.

Despite this, Texas Tech has never won a conference championship in football or men’s basketball, appearing in the latter title game only once, losing in 2005. They are routinely outplayed by the women’s team, one of the best programs in the state, as the women’s Raiders squad actually did win the conference twice, in 1998 and 1999. Those were great teams, but titles from 18 years ago are not enough to make a case for Power Five football or basketball. If Kansas+Kansas State go it alone, or join the Big Ten, Texas Tech would make an excellent addition to the Mountain West conference, and annual games between Boise State and the Red Raiders would surely produce some high-flying, high-score results.

Baylor

The Bears joined the Big 12 when it was created in 1996. The Bears did not have a single winning season until 2010, when Art Briles arrived. Art Briles was then fired in one of the biggest college football scandals of the last twenty years, a scandal still ongoing as we continue to learn more about the damage caused by the lack of action from both the university and its athletic department.

There are those who are calling for the death penalty for this program, but this is not a punishment the NCAA has seemed interested in instituting again. They did not institute it when a member of the basketball team was convicted of murder in the early 2000s, and the NCAA did not institute it when Penn State coaches were accused of assaulting children or failing to report the behavior of fellow coaches.

No, Baylor will not be receiving any kind of athletic death penalty, but certainly no one else would want them in the event of them becoming a free agent. It is not in their budget to go independent, and they will need local teams to play as they’ve not been interested in travelling too far as a football team.

In the last five years, the only time they’ve traveled out of state for a non-conference opponent, other than a bowl game, was one half of a home-and-home with the MAC’s Buffalo in 2014. In 2017 they are schedule to travel to Duke, but then play host to FCS squads in 2018 and 2020, and host BYU in 2021 and 2022. Perhaps this is in anticipation of going independent?

At any rate, Conference USA would be a fine place to welcome the Bears, provided the university stuck to the strict moral and legal codes set forth by the currently 14-school conference. This would give Baylor its local home games, and some top basketball competition in the form of WKU and Louisiana Tech.

TCU

A former Group-of-Five team, TCU should make it big at the Power Five level and we’re pulling for them to do so, but ultimately there’s just no one to take them. The Pac-12 is a longshot, and a long drive, even though TCU would certainly meet their high academic standards. Without that, the Horned Frogs are a bad fit for the SEC, and would be left returning to the Mountain West. This would only help the conference, as a return of TCU and coach Gary Patterson would be a huge get, on the level of, say, Urban Meyer returning to Utah (full disclosure: Urban Meyer will never return to Utah). TCU is a smaller school, only about 10,000 students, so even with their winning ways, this is their best case scenario if the Big 12 is not able to keep it together.

West Virginia

Depending on who you ask, the Mountaineers were a 2nd or 3rd or even 4th choice when the Big 12 desperately needed a tenth member back in 2012. TCU was a no-brainer, and while WVU was coming off multiple Big East championships, these were all under Rich Rodriguez, and these were all after the departure of Miami and Virginia Tech from the conference. When a Power Five school came calling, they jumped while the iron was hot, as it were, despite this making no geographical sense, and throwing a wrench into plans of the Big 12 ever considered expanding west.

Much like TCU, West Virginia could not survive on its own, and barring a surprise invite from the ACC (already full at 14), the American Athletic Conference is a likely landing spot, where the football squad would regularly struggle against Houston, Memphis, and South Florida. On the upside, though, UConn has been looking for a new rivalry trophy for some time.

Iowa State

Flying under the radar in hopes no one will notice they’re in this conference, we almost forgot they were in this conference. Cyclone football is regularly terrible and not worth mentioning; their basketball program has been been hit-and-miss in recent years, having seasons where they only had single-digit losses, and seasons where they miss the tournament entirely. This is absolutely a case for the AAC, in truth we’re not sure what the school is still doing in the Power Five in the first place. There is nothing the Cyclones offer that couldn’t be equaled or improved upon by Houston, Memphis or-- had the conference moved fast enough— Louisville.

A curious knick-knack to keep in the conference, Iowa State is further proof that the Big 12 doesn’t want to win, they just want to have ten members and collect a check.

Very soon, this will rear back and bite them, and we here in the underdog Group of Five equally await the opportunity to dine on their scraps.

North Texas Mean Green 2017 Preview

From 2015 to 2016, UNT went from one to five wins. Mathematically speaking, they’ll win 20 games this year.

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The Mean Green have been to only two bowl games since the end of the 2004 season. They under-performed in their last few years in the Sun Belt, and despite getting the nod for C-USA expansion, haven’t exactly been lighting it up since then. Nationwide expectations are, we are sad to say, pretty low.

Expectations in #NewDenton, on the other hand, are something else. UNT is sporting a new coach, a vastly improved roster and staff that took a 1-11 team to a bowl game in their first year— the last time a G5 coach did this, his program was shut down. Truly we live in remarkable times.

But the Mean Green are alive and kicking, with a wunderkind AD who is supposed to be paying off any minute now. It’s true, UNT hasn’t made the G5 headlines of a WKU or Louisiana Tech, but you can’t judge an entire program based on just one season. Even though UTSA ran circles around its Texas G5 brethren in the offseason, don’t sleep on North Texas. They have the resources, the fan base, and their stadium is much prettier than yours. Are we in for another successful season from Seth Littrell and company?

That #NewDenton Offense

Coming back for year two, Mason Fine is expected to lead the offense to at least as many wins as he did last year— four, before going down late in the season and handing the keys to senior Alec Morris to beat Southern Miss. The QB corps goes a little deeper this year, with backup Quinn Shanbour standing right behind Fine, and freshman Cade Pearson lurking somewhere in the shadows, padding out a roster that was sorely in need of literally any players after the disastrous 2015 season.

Jeffrey Wilson is the best returning offensive player for North Texas.

 Sean Pokorny-USA TODAY Sports

Senior RB Jeffrey Wilson is returning, which is good because his 936 yards in 2016 was the bulk of the rushing offense. A distant second was Willy Ivery with 490, who is no longer with the team, and an even more distant third was Andrew Tucker with 153 yards all season. This being Wilson’s last year of eligibility, expect big numbers (he has yet to play a 12-game season thanks to injuries), but beyond that, the RB core is mostly freshmen and transfers, save for junior Anthony Wyche (21 carries, 67 yards in 2016).

On the receiving end, the WR corps isn’t much better. Senior Turner Smiley returns, last year’s second-leading receiver with 33 catches and 389 yards last year. The rest is, again, a motley crew of transfers and freshmen, though that’s to be expected with the rebuilding job Seth Littrell has been doing, and continues to do. Still, it was good enough for five wins and a bowl game last year, so surely there’s nowhere to go but up as another year in the Air Raid system should yield better results.

That #NewDenton Defense

From the disastrous 2015 season to last year, the Mean Green defense improved on the other side of the ball as well, allowing 41.3 points a game the year before Littrell arrived, and only 32.6 a game last season.

Troy Reffett takes over as sole DC this year, after sharing duties last season with since-departed Mike Ekeler. Overall reviews of this year’s defense are “fast, but not strong,” and that might just be enough to make their mark in CUSA.

With Kansas State transfer Bryce English, the D-line has some experience to get behind (after English misses the season opener due to a foot injury), especially with a secondary that ranked second in CUSA last season in both defense and interceptions (14) last season. On the line, juniors Roderick Young and TJ Tauaalo will make some noise.

Expect things to be more aggressive under Reffett, as the D-line finds its stride and fills out some spots in year two under Littrell.

Them #NewDenton Special Teams

This more or less rests on the foot of senior Trevor Moore, who was automatic under 40 yards last season, but 2 for 10 otherwise. The only two punters on the roster are unproven commodities Alvin Kenworthy (redshirt sophomore) and Blake Patterson (redshirt freshman), we should get a good sense of accuracy pretty early in the season, if not in Week 1 against Lamar, then certainly by Week 3 at Iowa.

Those #NewDenton Intangibles

So what’s all this mean? Every site has its own spin, its own cracking of the numbers, charts and graphs that basically tell you, ON PAPER, this is just what to expect from the team.

Unfortunately, real-life isn’t always so black-and-white. A year ago UNT was largely picked to maybe eke out a handful of wins if they were lucky, a rebuilding project lucky to climb to three or four wins. But this scrappy little team confounded expectations and made some waves, if not at the top of the conference then certainly in the rest of it.

Expect the same this year, unless UTSA manages to steal some of their thunder. Five wins was a surprise last year; you may not see six wins on their schedule and in fact many publications are calling for a repeat of last year. These publications are blessedly wrong.

Schedule

Home vs Lamar (Sept. 2) - Prediction: Win

After the homecoming game that shall not be mentioned again, the offending coach was kicked out of Denton and a new coach was hired, presumably one with FBS credentials who could at least handle an FCS team. Still, we’re not willing to blow off the Cardinals just because of their FCS status, they’ve hung in there pretty well in the Southland Conference, finishing third as recently as 2014. Still, they’re breaking in a new coach this year and Beaumont is like a six-hour bus ride from Denton, this should at the very least be a repeat of last years’ 41-20 trouncing of Bethune-Cookman.

Away vs SMU (Sep. 9) - Prediction: Loss

In the season-opener a year ago, senior QB Alec Morris got squashed by this Mustangs team, and was replaced the next week by current(?) starter Mason Fine. Still, the margin of victory was only 13 last year, and while we can’t predict a win, it may be a closer game. It’s not like SMU was exactly impressive during their own 5-7 campaign last year.

Away vs Iowa (Sep. 16) - Prediction: Loss

UNT played Iowa in 2015 and lost 62-16. Two weeks later, there was that homecoming game that got the coach fired (margin of victory: comparable). Money games like this pay the bills, and UNT won’t come away with a win here, but if Vegas puts the spread at that same 40+ points for this game, that’s easy money for the discerning Mean Green fan.

Home vs UAB (Sep. 23) - Prediction: Win

We’re thrilled to have the Blazers back and their coach did some impressive things in their last season, going 6-6 in 2014. But this is their first year back and they’ll still be working out some kinks at this point. UNT is a year up on them and playing on their home turf. Should be a fun game anyway, but predicting UNT on this one.

Away vs Southern Miss (Sep. 30) - Prediction: Win

Look. Remember above when we said Morris got shelled by SMU? Well last year he took over for an injured Fine during the USM game, and beat them 29-23. If Fine is healthy for this game, UNT takes it. That’s just science.

Home vs UTSA (Oct. 14) - Prediction: Loss

Any UNT fan wants this game real bad, and as much as it pains me to mark it down here, the only win over the Roadrunners in UNT history was three games into the tenure of head coach Mike Canales in 2015, taking over midseason from the fired McCarney— which meant there wasn’t a lot of game film on any new changes. Granted, that game was in Denton, but after last years 31-17 trouncing of the Green in San Antonio, we can’t see any other new tools that might make any difference here, at least this season.

Away vs FAU (Oct. 21) - Prediction: Win

Lane Kiffin has a lifetime head coaching record, at the college level, of 35-21. On the other hand, this was with the excessive resources of Pac-12 and SEC teams, and also we predict his team will have turned on him by October. We’re predicting a win for UNT here, but if FAU somehow takes this one, it’s because they’re headed for the top of C-USA East, which doesn’t seem very likely for a first year at this program. Kiffin may even make them a power down the line, but UNT is a year ahead in the rebuilding process.

Home vs Old Dominion (Oct. 28) - Prediction: Win

This is the first meeting between these programs, and ODU put together an impressive-looking record last year, finishing second place in C-USA East. When they played the first place team in the East, WKU, they lost 59-24. We’re not drinking the ODU Kool-Aid, and even though they might have a nice W-L record again this season, we’re calling a win for the Mean Green.

Away vs Louisiana Tech (Nov. 4) - Prediction: Loss

UNT is improving, but Louisiana Tech is already exactly where they want to be. The Bulldogs beat UNT by three touchdowns in Denton last year, this one’s in Ruston. Look away, baby, look away.

Home vs UTEP (Nov. 11) - Win

How do I put this in objective, journalistic terms: This UTEP team is trash. They finished 4-8 last year (2-6 in conference), and for some reason kept their coach, maybe they looked around at the available replacements for the cost and decided to stick with this mess. The Green made the long trip to El Paso last year and won 52-24, this game is going to be as ugly as the La Tech game, but in the other direction. Get it together, UTEP.

Home vs Army (Nov. 18) - Win

In a quirk of scheduling, UNT played Army twice last year: once during the regular season, in Denton (UNT won, 35-18), and then again in the post-season at the Heart of Dallas Bowl (Army winning, 38-31 in OT). It’s worth noting that UNT was down a few players in the bowl game, and this contest is again in Denton. Let’s win this one and not play play these guys again for a few years.

Away at Rice (Nov. 25) - Prediction: Win

Rice has had some up years under coach Dave Bailiff (winning the conference in 2013) and some down years (3-9 overall, 2-6 in conference last year). So which was the fluke? Over time, signs points to that 2013 season, as Rice just wasn’t unlucky last year, they were incompetent. Sure, UNT needed overtime to beat them, but it was four games into the season under a team still working out the kinks. Consider the kinks worked out, and a win here to finish the season.

PROJECTED FINISH: 8-4 (6-2)