How might a two-division Big 12 Conference look? Here are five suggestions

Well, here’s a question you probably didn’t think you’d be pondering since the Big 12 Conference is not expanding (for now):

What would be the realignment look like?

Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby said with the return of the conference championship football game, it’s possible that there would be two five-team divisions starting in 2017.

How would you split the schools?

Tom Fornelli at CBSsports.com offered up his suggestion, writing: “I named the divisions after Oklahoma and Texas because, no matter what, Oklahoma and Texas are going to be the most important schools in the Big 12, and I had to call them something.”

This was his suggestion (and I’m going to call that Option 1 for the poll that is listed below):

One of the troubles, as Fornelli notes, is that six schools are in Texas and Oklahoma, so breaking them off geographically is impossible.

However, here’s a suggestion: How about breaking them into Big 8/Southwest Conference affiliations? That would look like this (Option 2):

How about a North/South breakdown? (Option 3)

This is a split based on last season’s records. The top team went in Division 1, the second-place team in Division 2, the third-place team in Division 1, etc. (Option 4)

And, last, here are two divisions that I created based on the assumption that it would best help Iowa State (my alma mater) in the long run (Option 5):

So what do you think? There are five options for alignment of two five-team Big 12 divisions. Which do you like best? Vote in our poll. If you don’t like any of them, leave your suggestion in the comments.

This story was originally published June 6, 2016 at 9:32 AM.