Where will Oklahoma be in 2026?
Copycat poll! Where do you see the Oklahoma Sooners playing football in 2026?
My take:
The most likely result of the expiration of the Big 12's GoR in 2025 is that there is no change, and the schools renew for another decade or so.
Next most likely is Oklahoma leaving for the SEC. Better cultural and geographic fit than the Big Ten or Pac, and unlike the Big Ten, the SEC would take OSU. This leads to UT going independent in football while retaining non-football sports in the Big 12. Thus Bedlam and the RRR are preserved as in-conference and OOC annual matchups, respectively. UT keeps Tech, TCU, and maybe Baylor on the FB schedule every year while continuing to play the non-Texas Big 12 schools in FB, albeit much less frequently than annually. Now down to 7 full-time FB schools, the Big 12 promotes Cincinnati, UCF, and USF from the American, which in turn picks up FAU and FIU from CUSA, which stays put at 12.
SEC
Eastern: Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vanderbilt
Western: Arkansas, LSU, Mississippi State, Missouri, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Ole Miss, Texas A&M
Big 12
East: Central Florida, Cincinnati, Iowa State, South Florida, West Virginia
West: Baylor, Kansas, Kansas State, TCU, Texas Tech
Non-FB: Texas
American
East: East Carolina, FAU, FIU, Memphis, Temple
West: Houston, Navy (FB only), SMU, Tulane, Tulsa
Non-FB: Wichita State
CUSA
East: Charlotte, Marshall, Middle Tennessee, Old Dominion, UAB, Western Kentucky
West: Louisiana Tech, North Texas, Rice, Southern Miss, UTEP, UTSA
Maybe the SEC would be clever enough to go with rotating pods, but I dunno. With 2 fixed divisions of 8, they'd drop protected crossovers and just have 1 rotating crossover.
If pods:
School: Protected crossover (play annually), Alternate crossover (play 2 years out of 3)
POD 1
Alabama: LSU, Florida
Auburn: Georgia, Mississippi State
Tennessee: Kentucky, Missouri
Vanderbilt: Ole Miss, South Carolina
POD 2
Florida: Texas A&M, Alabama
Georgia: Auburn, Oklahoma
Kentucky: Tennessee, Arkansas
South Carolina: Oklahoma State, Vanderbilt
POD 3
LSU: Alabama, Texas A&M
Mississippi State: Oklahoma, Auburn
Missouri: Arkansas, Tennessee
Ole Miss: Vanderbilt, Oklahoma State
POD 4
Texas A&M: Florida, LSU
Oklahoma: Mississippi State, Georgia
Arkansas: Missouri, Kentucky
Oklahoma State: South Carolina, Ole Miss
(This post was last modified: 07-30-2019 04:58 PM by Nerdlinger.)
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