ROSEMONT, Ill. -- Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez, a member of the College Football Playoff Selection Committee, said Wednesday the Big 12 was affected last season by not declaring one true champion.
Baylor and TCU finished just outside the inaugural four-team playoff. Because the Big 12 doesn’t play a championship game and Baylor and TCU had similar league records, the schools were declared co-champions. Baylor beat TCU head-to-head.
When asked at the Big Ten spring meetings whether having co-champions impacted the Big 12, Alvarez replied, "One of our main criteria is conference championship. You can’t give two teams in a conference the conference championship. You can’t give two teams credit for that."
Alvarez said the Big 12 "didn’t have a champion, they had co-champions."
Earlier this month, the Big 12 announced that it created new tiebreakers to determine how the conference will recognize only one champion going forward.
The Big 12 tapped the breaks on some discussion about possibly moving toward a championship game in the future if proposed NCAA legislation would allow it.
The issue of what impact, if any, co-champions had on the Big 12 has been an unusual debate for months. The topic even caused Baylor coach Art Briles and Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby to have a heated debate on the championship podium last December, with Bowlsby saying he couldn’t change the Big 12 bylaws regarding co-champions during the season.
Until now, CFP committee members had publicly shied away from saying that no Big 12 tiebreaker impacted the committee's decision in picking eventual national champion Ohio State. Alvarez didn't say Big 12 co-champions was the only factor, but suggested it was an important one.
Winning a conference is “one of the first (criteria) that’s mentioned," Alvarez said. "So if you don’t have a conference champion, obviously that doesn’t bode well for you. You have to have a conference champion. If you're not a conference champion, that hurts you in the evaluation, much like strength of schedule."
As for whether the Big 12 should add a championship game, Alvarez sees the pros and cons.
"I think they've been good," he said, "yet I can remember Bill Snyder’s Kansas State team was ranked No. 1 and got beat in the championship game and I don’t think they even played in a Jan. 1 bowl game."
