ARLINGTON, Texas – A little more than an hour before the Big 12 championship game kicked off in front of thousands of empty seats at the home of the Dallas Cowboys, Commissioner Brett Yormark brought up the conundrum faced by fans with the expanded postseason format.
“Fans now have to decide what games they want to go to,” Yormark said before No. 12 Arizona State beat 16th-ranked Iowa State 45-19 on Saturday before an announced crowd of 55,889 that appeared far smaller.
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The winner will make the first 12-team College Football Playoff, possibly as the 12th seed and almost certainly as one of four teams that will play at their opponent's stadium in the first round.
“If you host that first-round game, you’re going to four games to get to the finals and to win the championship,” Yormark said. “And that’s something that’s new, plus the conference championship. On the fans, I think it’s kind of challenging right now.”
Regardless, Yormark remains committed to conference title games. Besides the issue of fans, there have been suggestions that some conferences might be better off not playing a title game as it relates to playoff hopes.
It's possible that SMU will get left out of the playoff with a loss to Clemson in the ACC championship game. The Sun Devils were the top seed in a tiebreaker in the tight Big 12 race. The top four teams in the 16-team league finished with two conference losses apiece.
“It’s a tentpole event,” Yormark said. “And for this game specifically today, it’s win and you’re in. So it’s a very meaningful game. This is an important part of who we are, our brand.”
The Big 12 has a contract through 2031 to play at 80,000-seat AT&T Stadium. While it's unlikely any of the Power Four conferences would abandon the neutral-site approach, Yormark didn't dismiss the idea of the top seed hosting a league title game.
“We've got to think through that,” Yormark said. “We can't expect our fans to travel to every game, given where the world is today, discretionary income. We'll see how it plays out the first year, but we have to be mindful of it.”
Crowd counts
This is the 10th time the Big 12 championship game has been played at AT&T Stadium, and a year after a record attendance of 84,523 for the game when Texas — now in the SEC — beat Oklahoma State to get into the four-team playoff.
Iowa State’s only other Big 12 title game appearance came during the COVID 19-impacted 2020 season, when there was a restricted crowd of 18,720 to watch the Cyclones lose to Oklahoma.
Other than that, the smallest crowd for a title game under the retractable roof and the giant video board was the first one in 2017, when an attendance of 64,104 was announced for Oklahoma’s win over TCU.
Doubling down
Yormark didn't want to revisit his comments earlier in the week that the Big 12 winner was more deserving of a first-round bye than any Group of Five conference champion.
But he didn't ignore his thoughts either a day after No. 10 Boise State beat 19th-ranked UNLV 21-7. Heisman Trophy candidate Ashton Jeanty ran for 209 yards and a touchdown and will have a chance to break the FBS single-season rushing record in the playoff.
“I don’t want to get into too much about how we’re positioned versus other conferences,” Yormark said. “But I will say, where I sit, there should be no comparison between us and any G5 conference champion. I'll double down on that for sure. Hopefully the selection committee will do what they need to do.”
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