The Big 12 is a Power 4 conference in name only

When it comes to the Power 4 conferences in major college football, there is one conference that isn’t like the others.

No, it’s not the SEC or the Big Ten. It’s the Big 12, and the difference between that league and the rest is the ability to win at the highest level of college football.

The Big Ten has won the last two college football national championships. Before that, the SEC won four in a row. 

Since the inception of the College Football Playoff, the SEC has won six national championships, followed by the Big Ten with three and the ACC with two.

The Big 12 has zero. The league hasn’t had a team reach the national championship game, and based on current trends, it’s not likely to anytime soon.

To put it bluntly, there isn’t a single national title contender in the entire conference, unless something crazy happens.

Bud Elliott of CBS Sports released the “Blue-Chip Ratio,” a list of teams that Elliott says “can actually win the national championship.” In what Elliott calls the “modern” era of college football, no team has ever won a national championship with a blue-chip ratio (percentage of four and five-star recruits on a roster) below 50 percent.

Michigan won with a 54 percent blue-chip ratio in 2023. Clemson was at 52 percent in 2016. Last season, Ohio State’s number was 90 percent. 

The number can vary. Having an elite quarterback is essential. So are culture and development. But no program has won a national championship in this era without more than 50 percent of the roster being made up of blue-chip recruits.

According to Elliott, transfers don’t move the needle. High school recruiting is the name of the game, and on that front, the Big 12 just can’t compete.

18 teams were rated by Elliott, citing the 247 Sports composite ranking, as having the minimum talent required to win the national championship this season. Not a single one resides in the Big 12. Here’s a quote from Elliott that explains perfectly how college football’s Power 4 is actually a Power 3.  

“The Big 12 is nowhere close. I thought this was interesting, considering the recent playoff model floated where the Big 12 and ACC are given two auto-bids each. Texas Tech could get there in three or four cycles if it continues to spend like crazy. The Big 12 likes to argue that it is the deepest league, but it has zero national title contenders.” 

That’s what happens when you put together a league without a single elite program. Kansas State, Colorado, Utah, and Arizona State are nice programs, but they aren’t blue-bloods.

This is the collection of teams left at the altar that weren’t big enough brands for the other three, and it’s painfully obvious. 

There is a lot of talk about how the Big Ten and SEC are head-and-shoulders above the rest of college football. 

But there should be more conversation about how the Big 12 is a Power 4 conference in college football in name only.