Big 12 Football: 4 programs that would benefit by joining the conference

4. Memphis Tigers (AAC)

The AAC offers a lot of schools that bring both solid men’s hoops and football programs to the table, but might not get the national recognition they deserve since they play in a Group of Five conference. That’s largely why the AAC at times can be considered worthy of changing the Power Five to the Power Six conferences.

But the AAC has yet to place a single football program in the College Football Playoff. Really the closest they ever got was when current Texas head coach Tom Herman guided his Houston squad to wins over the Oklahoma Sooners and Louisville Cardinals back during the 2016 season. Yet, Houston wound up fading down the stretch, and thus was out of the College Football Playoff conversation.

One team that sticks out from great play on the gridiron of late, and that his a rising power of a men’s hoops program, is the Memphis Tigers. It will be interesting to see how Memphis moves forward after the loss of head coach Phil Norvell to the Florida State Seminoles earlier this offseason. They do return star redshirt senior quarterback Brady White this fall, and could continue to be a top-25 caliber team in the AAC.

White is just one example of the type of star power that Memphis could bring to the table for the Big 12 and add valuable depth to this conference. And while the Big 12 would benefit in this hypothetical expansion conversation, Memphis would be the big victor of this conference move. They have a decent athletic program that could be considered Power Five caliber. But they don’t get the recognition for it competing in the AAC.