The Big 12 Conference has officially announced that when the Big 12 Championship Game returns next season, it will be as a matchup of the top 2 teams in the conference rather than the winners of two 5-team divisions. This announcement comes after the Conference decided in recent weeks not to expand and to remain at 10 teams playing a 9-game round-robin schedule.
#Big12FB: When the championship game returns in 2017, it will be No. 1 vs. No. 2 in the conference standings - https://t.co/F8uuSbORCV pic.twitter.com/ZFnmWSb9Np
— Big 12 Conference (@Big12Conference) October 28, 2016
Reactions to this news appear to be mixed, with some people praising the decision to stay with the round-robin schedule, which has become something of a calling card for the league versus its peers around the country, and others lamenting the fact that it almost definitely forecloses the possibility of ever having two Big 12 teams in the College Football Playoff, since those two teams would necessarily play each other the final week of the year.