Big 12 Expansion

BYU, Houston, Central Florida and Cincinnati are all joining the Big 12.

Obviously the only people talking about the Big 12 expansion and how it relates to volleyball are going to be volleyball people. I'm not expecting a breakdown of the different volleyball programs on Sportscenter anytime soon. I spoke with several of these coaches over the summer about this specific topic and they mentioned to me that this was going to happen. I'm not sure if all the schools were getting invited even if UT and OU had decided to stay? But, we know from past experience that ADs and Presidents do a TON behind the scenes with these things, so that will just be up for debate.

But I thought it would be interesting to look at each of these schools briefly and talk about how well they will do in the Big 12. My guess is a lot of people will look at this and say, "well they will struggle to play in the Big 12 for sure." But I don't think that at all. So lets take a look and see how these teams have done against other P5 schools the last few years.

BYU - This one is pretty easy. BYU will be just fine in the Big 12. 2-1* so far this year with a win over Michigan State, Utah and a loss to Pitt in 4 sets. In 2020 they beat UCLA in the 1st round of the NCAA tournament and then lost to Wisconsin. They went 2-2* in 2019 Losing to Utah in the 2nd round of the NCAA tournament; BYU had wins against Utah and Stanford that earlier in that season. We also have to mention 2018. In that season they went 31-2 overall and 10-1 against P5 schools, including wins over Florida and Texas in the NCAA tournament, finally losing to Stanford in the NCAA semi-final. A team they beat in 5 earlier that year.

HC, Heather Olmstead strikes me as a great coach and person. I would imagine she will continue to do great things with the program.

Cincinnati - Cincinnati certainly has a long history of being one of the great programs that isn't in a P5 conference. In 2019 they went 3-3 against P5 teams in the preseason and split during the NCAA tournament (1-1). They beat Pitt in the 2nd round; a team they lost to during the preseason. They would lose in the next round to Penn State in 5 sets. This season they are 1-1 against P5 teams, losing to Kentucky while beating Notre Dame. Cincinnati certainly has the program pedigree to do big things right away in the Big 12.

Houston - Houston went 3-2 this preseason vs the P5 schools with wins against Oklahoma, Mississippi State and Oregon State. Both losses came on the road against Texas A&M and Arkansas. The coaching staff is in their third season and already has 13 wins (13-3) on the year. They will certainly be in a position to come into the P5 and make an impression.

Central Florida - They went 3-5 this year during the preseason, beating Clemson, Florida State and Miami. In 2019 they went 5-1 against the P5 during the preseason, losing a 5 set match to Miami. The beat Florida State in the first round of the NCAA tournament then lost to Florida after that. They will certainly be able to hang in the Big 12.

I think as a whole all 4 of these teams will be able to compete right away in the Big 12. The biggest question will be how they maintain playing at a high level for the entire conference season vs just 4-5 preseason matches. The other piece of this is that 3 of these teams play in the AAC. Are we going to see that conference add any more teams going forward? It will certainly be an interesting year! Let's watch closely :)

Final thought - Take a look at the photo below of a massive "banner" that UCF placed in their football stadium. This picture was taken the DAY OF the announcement. That's quite the rush order; pretty impressive considering all of the logistics issues we are having right now, hahaha. Or, and this is something I've said a bunch of times, this process is a long one and a lot happens behind closed doors before the media knows what's going on. Chances are relatively good that they knew this was happening.

(stole the photo from a friend)

Expansion Article