Picking the Big 12 Football Bowl Games
By Chip Rouse
The holiday bowl season kicks into high gear this week with five games scheduled involving Big 12 football teams.
Oklahoma’s 8-9 bowl record since the formation of the Big 12 Conference 21 years ago is representative of the conference’s notable lack of success in bowl games.
The Big 12 is 70-75 overall in postseason bowls, and 18-19 in the last five years. The last time the Big 12 won more games than it lost in a bowl season was in 2011-12, when six of the eight conference teams that participate in postseason play that season were winners.
In the relatively short history of the Big12, only Texas, among the schools who played in five or more bowl games, has a record better than .500, at 10-7.
Five bowl games featuring teams from the Big 12 will take place over the next four days, all leading up to the signature game of the postseason this year, as far as the Big 12 is concerned, which will pit the conference-champions, the Oklahoma Sooners, against the Auburn Tigers, the second highest-ranked team out of the SEC this season.
The Big 12 2016 bowl season kicks off today in the Cactus Bowl in Phoenix, with a matchup between Baylor and Boise State.