3 Group of 5 teams Big 12 Football should consider adding for 2020

2. Houston Cougars, American Athletic Conference

The most notable and obvious option seemingly for Big 12 expansion for a long time throughout the 2010’s was the Houston Cougars. The football program that current Texas head coach Tom Herman used to preside over has an enormous TV market, good tradition of recruiting success for a Group of Five program, and a pretty good amount of success in the win column.

The only non-conference game on tap for Houston with their altered 2020 season schedule in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic is the BYU Cougars. And while that matchup with BYU is technically in the non-conference category, the Cougars are not in a conference for football. There’s nothing that the Cougars have on tap against a Big 12 team.

What would make the Houston football program a potentially appealing one year option for the Big 12 is the high-powered offense, recognizable brand, and former West Virginia head coach Dana Holgorsen. Very familiar to all of the Big 12 programs, Holgorsen had lengthy stints as the Mountaineers head coach and previously as the Oklahoma State offensive coordinator under head coach Mike Gundy.

Houston had a down stint during the 2019 season, where they finished up with only four wins. But that was largely because of the early transfer of current star Miami quarterback D’Eriq King four games into last season.

Watch out for the Cougars to be one of the dark horse programs to breakthrough in the race to win the AAC Championship this fall, and they would be a fun hypothetical inclusion in the Big 12 for the fall.