BYU Football Gets Company in the New Big 12
BYU Football will not be joining the Big 12 alone next year. The Big 12, ten teams, will have fourteen teams playing football in 2023. Cincinnati, Houston, and UCF will each pay 18 million dollars to leave the AAC next year, as reported by The Athletic.
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The four teams will eventually replace Texas and Oklahoma, leaving the conference to join the SEC in 2025. The two teams could go earlier if willing to pay a more significant buyout fee. Most experts believe that there are no plans for the two teams to leave the Big 12 before the television contract ends in 2025.
The schools will have twelve years to pay the entire buyout amount. The teams and the conference reached a deal that allows the conference to make more money and the teams more time to pay off the conference exit fees. The original exit fees were ten million dollars but only allowed the teams to pay the entire payment for four years.
The good news for BYU and the Big 12 is that the conference will have fourteen teams until the Texas/Oklahoma exit situation is settled. One college football expert told ESPN/SEC's Paul Finebaum that a fourteen-team Big 12 could be the best college football conference in America from top to bottom.
There is terrible news for Cougar fans as this will be the last year the teams will play Utah State and Boise State. As we've reported here, this year's schedule is one of the most challenging in the country.
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