With the path officially cleared this morning for West Virginia’s departure from the Big East, the Mountaineers’ new conference was finally able to reveal its oft-delayed slate for the upcoming season.
The Big 12 wasted no time in releasing the 2012 schedule, either, issuing a press release less than an hour after it was announced that new member WVU and the Big East had reached a settlement agreement in its civil litigation. The two new additions to the conference offsets the loss of Missouri and Texas A&M to the SEC, meaning the 10-member conference will again play a nine-game slate in 2012.
The conference schedule will officially kick-off the third weekend of the season, with TCU, the other new member of the conference along with WVU, traveling to Kansas to take on the Jayhawks Sept. 15. Iowa State and Texas Tech are the only two schools that will not play the final weekend of the regular season. Those schools are also the only two in the Big 12 that will play nine straight conference with no byes or non-conference games mixed in.
The official release also confirmed that TCU will travel to Texas on Thanksgiving, one of four matchups that holiday weekend. The premier matchup over the holiday, though, will likely be Oklahoma-Oklahoma State, with the Bedlam game officially moved up from its regular slot the past several years as the season finale for the in-state rivals.
The Bedlam game is part of a tough closing third of the conference season; the home game against the Cowboys is sandwiched between road trips to WVU and TCU.
Speaking of tough stretches, the Big 12 schedule makers did WVU no favors in the month of November in its inaugural season in the league. The game against OU Nov. 17 concludes a three-game stretch that opens with a home game vs. TCU and then a trip to Stillwater to take on OSU.
Below is the complete 2012 Big 12 conference schedule:
