Big 12 releases 14-team sked for 2023

IRVING, Texas — The Big 12 released its long-awaited 14-team football schedule on Tuesday, which includes its four new members for 2023 along with Oklahoma and Texas ahead of their eventual departure for the Southeastern Conference.

Houston will be the first of the new teams to play a conference game in Week 3 when the Cougars host former Southwest Conference rivals and TCU runners-up in the only league game on Sept. 16. The other newcomers play their Big 12 openers The following week, when BYU plays Kansas, Central Florida takes on defending champions Kansas State and Cincinnati hosts Oklahoma.

Having played a round-robin schedule as a 10-team league since 2011, the Big 12 will continue to have a nine-game conference schedule with no divisions. But there will now be four league teams that each school will not play during the regular season. The top two place finishers in the conference standings will play in the Big 12 title game.

First-year Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark had said ahead of the Dec. 3 Big 12 championship game that he expected the schedule to be released in mid-December. It finally came out on the last day of January.

“I want to thank our fans for their patience waiting for this historic schedule,” Yormark said. “Given its importance, the complexity of weaving in four new schools, the addition of a third time zone and consultation with key stakeholders, we took great care in its development.”

Oklahoma and Texas will move to the SEC no later than the 2025 season, although it’s still uncertain if that could happen by 2024. The Sooners and Longhorns play their annual Red River rivalry game on October 7 at the State Fair of Texas. Each has four home conference games and four away road games.

BYU is the only one of the four new teams that will play in both Texas and Oklahoma this season, head to Austin on Oct. 28 and host the Sooners on Nov. 18, a Friday night Sept. 29 game.

Cincinnati is the only one of the new quartet that will play each of the other three teams. Along with the BYU game, the Bearcats host UCF and then travel to Houston on the first two Saturdays in November.

Texas, heading to Alabama on Sept. 9, plays in Houston on Oct. 21 in the first meeting between the former SWC rivals since 2002. The Longhorns host BYU the week after. They don’t play in conference games against UCF, Cincinnati, Oklahoma State, or West Virginia.

In addition to his trip to Cincinnati in Week 4, Oklahoma plays BYU on November 18th. The Big 12 teams the Sooners don’t play against are Baylor, Houston, Kansas State and Texas Tech.