Turkey, family and your favorite Big 12 football team crushing a hated rival on the gridiron.
Those are the thoughts that come to mind for a Big 12 football fan during the week of Thanksgiving.
Yet the last round of conference realignment robbed the college football landscape of some of its best longstanding rivalries, especially when it comes to Big 12 football.
It’s a heck of a lot harder for folks in Austin to get excited about Kansas coming to town than a Turkey Day date with rival Texas A&M.
With the return of the Big 12 title game and the country’s only true round-robin schedule, there’s an added complication to Thanksgiving week scheduling for the conference, which wants to avoid a scenario where two teams play each other in back-to-back weeks.
There’s a simple answer to this problem. Make Thanksgiving week in the Big 12 football “rivalry week”. Each team goes out of conference to take on a longstanding rival. The SEC already has a mini-model of this that works. Think Georgia-Georgia Tech, South Carolina-Clemson and Florida-Florida State all in the same week.
Not only do you get a traditional rivalry game out of it, but the with conference standings set the week before Thanksgiving, the Big 12 football has 14 days to promote the matchup between its best two football teams.
Not excited yet? Here are the games we have come up with to fill out the Big 12 rivalry week slate.