A Simple Proposition

Texas and OU fans - don't get your panties in a bunch. I'm about to suggest something almost blasphemous to Sooners and Longhorns everywhere. It's time to move the Red River ShootOut.

For years, the game has been played on a nice Texas fall day, usually the 1st or 2nd weekend in October in the midst of the Texas State Fair in Dallas at the Cotton Bowl. The new Big 12 Lite, with the way football scheduling will be done, should be the catalyst for change of this near century old tradition.

Face it: the Big 12 Lite is now a 2 team conference, Texas and Oklahoma. Folks will argue it has been that way for up to a decade now, and this is correct. But like them or not, Nebraska was the 4th winningest program in the history of college football. That makes them a national attraction, and with their departure, we are left with just 2 marquee schools in the conference: UT and OU. The new Big 12 Lite will require each team to play the nine other members once, and will eliminate a conference championship game. Everyone plays everyone now, so it begs the question: why put the marquee game at the START of the conference season.

Big 12 Commissioner Bebbe has told the remaining 10 schools to schedule aggressively for their 3 non conference games going forward. Why? Because the national perception of the Big 12 Lite is about to fall to the level of the ACC. One loss teams in the Big 12 Lite will have extreme difficulty in getting a BCS title shot, with the limited number of quality opponents in conference available to schedule. Worse: the Big 12 Lite won't have a conference championship game the first weekend in December to showcase the league against the ACC, SEC, and presumably now - Big 10 and Pac 10.

Solution? Move Texas-OU to the first weekend in December, and put the game in JerryWorld. The game will sell out. The networks will come in droves to pick it up. Imagine undefeated OU vs. undefeated Texas for a Big 12 championship and BCS birth on the line in December? It brings to mind the last two Florida vs. Alabama SEC Championship clashes.

Even if the two schools aren't the dominant teams in the league, the game has historically drawn huge ratings in the southwestern part of the country. The best way to pull viewers away from multiple league championship games is to offer something almost or just as good. The best matchup in the Big 12 Lite offers this to network executives.

The proposal can be temporary. Ultimate success in football is cyclical, and certainly Texas and OU won't be the only winners of the Big 12 Lite, should the league continue to exist indefinitely.

For now, in order to garner the ratings and the money we've been hearing about that will come to all 10 schools, moving this game helps ensures the relevancy of the Big 12 moving forward.