After the 2014 season, when Baylor and TCU were both left in bridesmaids' dresses, locked out in the cold while Ohio State danced alongside Alabama, Oregon and Florida State to the chimes of church bells inside, the Big 12's powers that be declared it too early to reinstitute its championship game.
Apparently one season wasn't enough, but two is.
After a season in which the Big 12 actually did get in the College Football Playoff without the existence of a championship game, the conference revealed Friday it will bring back its league title game for the 2017 season.
A bullet in the argument for the championship game: in each of the two CFP's final rankings, the Big Ten champion used its title game to pass the Big 12 champion. Ohio State famously leapfrogged TCU and Baylor after waxing Wisconsin 59-0 in 2014, and Michigan State used a last-second win over unbeaten Iowa to jump idle Oklahoma for the No. 3 spot in 2015. The oracles running the CFP's selection process have previously extolled the value of evaluating 13 "data points" over the Big 12's dozen. This negates that disadvantage -- as long as the right team wins. And no conference knows just how sharp the double-edged sword of championship games can be like the Big 12. Four times in the 15 years of its previous iteration a Big 12 team lost a chance to play for a national championship due to a title game upset. And that's not counting 2003 Oklahoma, who lost as the nation's No. 1 team but was so far ahead in the BCS standings those Sooners could absorb the lost, and 2009 Texas, who at first saw time expire on its bid to play in the 2010 BCS National Championship before fate intervened. The SEC, for what it's worth, hasn't suffered a costly championship game upset since 2001. Imagine how the college sports landscape may look today had the two leagues' fortunes flipped. Another bullet in favor of a championship game: money. A Big 12 championship game is said to be worth between $20 and $30 million in additional television revenue. Big 12 presidents just spent this week telling the media they don't necessarily dislike the conference's 10-team makeup, they just wanted the 10-team model to make them more money. This is a step in that direction. (The Big 12 also announced a 20 percent increase in payouts on Friday, up to $30 million and trailing only the Big Ten and SEC. And that's without counting third-tier contracts such as the Longhorn Network.)
Until January the Big 12 was not allowed by NCAA rules to hold a championship game, but the organization altered the rules to permit 10-team conferences to hold title games -- as long as they played a round-robin schedule or split into divisions.
The Big 12 could split into divisions -- which invites the dilemma of putting Texas and Oklahoma schools in the same division and stacking its power structure like The Mountain and Tyrion Lannister sharing a see-saw -- or splitting Texas and Oklahoma up and risking a rematch. (An early prediction: if the Big 12 does split into divisions, expect a non-geographic split that sees Texas and OU nonetheless in the same division.)
Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby floated the idea of keeping the round-robin structure and choosing the top-two teams -- which would have pitted a hotly-desired Baylor-TCU rematch in 2014 and asked Oklahoma and Oklahoma State to play an immediate rematch in 2015. The winner of the '14 game alters history before it happens, as either the Bears or Frogs would proactively prevent Ohio State from winning the 2014 national championship. The 2015 game asks Oklahoma to chance a playoff spot it had already won, largely so everyone else in the conference can make some extra money.
So clearly there is some risk there, too.
No one knows at this point exactly what the Reborn Big 12 Championship Game will look like, where or when it will be played, or how those teams will be selected. All that's known is that it's back -- for better or worse.