Big 12 Football: 3 expansion candidates that should’ve been included

Boise State

As one of the teams on this list that recently faced a Big 12 opponent in non-conference play this fall, the Boise State Broncos and head coach Andy Avalos are a program that deserved consideration for expansion. I was personally a big fan of the idea that the Big 12 try and expand with six or eight teams instead of just four.

If the Big 12 does decide to expand further in the future, then Boise State should be a real consideration. That would help to form some clean north and south division splits. It also opens the door to nab other Mountain West Conference schools to expand the reach of the Big 12.

The Big 12 already got BYU and head coach Kalani Sitake in this round of conference expansion. You could form a nice geographic rivalry between Boise State and BYU. As of now, Boise State and BYU are two of the best non-Power Five football programs in the entire country on a consistent basis.

And with Boise State off to a competitive start this fall, even in the post-Bryan Harsin era under the direction of Avalos, the sustainability still looks to be there for the football program.

Boise State would bring a very unique presence to the table for the Big 12. And it could start to eat into the PAC-12’s recruiting territory and television market, which would be a smart move for the Big 12 to compete with another Power Five conference.

If Boise State continues to be one of the premier Power Five conferences around the college football landscape, the Big 12 should consider them for a potential next round of expansion.

We already saw that Boise State can compete with the likes of the Oklahoma State Cowboys and UCF, two teams that the Broncos nearly knocked off early this season.