Projecting the Big 12 Divisions

Holy cow. The Big 12 is really doing something, isn't it?

Today, the conference announced the addition of a championship game, beginning in 2017. The Big 12 also announced they would be looking to split the teams into two divisions. The details of the divisions are not available, but we can now start to look at what the Big 12 might do.

Here's what the divisions would look like based strictly on geography, and without expansion:

That's not exactly ideal. The Big 12 would be harkening back to the old days of the Big 12 North being completely irrelevant, and the South division being dominant. Because the Big 12 probably doesn't want to do that again, here's what I think the Big 12 will actually look like come 2017:

This probably makes a lot more sense. It still looks like the south division holds a slight edge in overall power, but the addition of OU to the north division balances the divisions to where the north and south are at least competitive with each other.

Throwing in talk of expansion completely changes the dynamic here. If the Big 12 were to expand, and the addition of a conference championship game leads me to think they will, then the conference must decide how to split up the divisions. For kicks and giggles, let's just say the Big 12 adds Colorado State, Cincinnati, UCONN, and Memphis. Take a look at my projected expansion divisions:

By expanding the conference boundaries to the east coast, and the Rocky Mountains, it wouldn't make much sense for the Big 12 to go to north and south divisions. By dividing the teams into east and west divisions, the conference could embrace the newly expanded conference boundaries, and evenly split up the expansion teams.

Give me your thoughts below. What would you like to see the Big 12 do?