The Big 12 trophy

The Big 12 trophy

The Big 12 Conference’s ability to implement a full round-robin schedule distinguishes it from the other four power conferences, all of which boast more than 10 teams. It is that unique characteristic that led the league to its slogan: one true champion.

In football, every program faces all of its conference foes once each season. There is no dodging powerhouses, as sometimes occurred back when the Big 12 split its teams into North and South divisions. The one true champion, the league wants the public to know, is determined on the field of play. The Big 12 even created a website, onetruechampion.org, to hammer home its motto.

None of that fooled Kansas University senior wide receiver Nick Harwell. The transfer from Miami (Ohio) might be new to the conference, but he knows how the system actually works.

“What I do not like about the setup is there’s a chance to tie for the championship,” Harwell said at Big 12 media days.

But don’t one and true mean … one and true?

Apparently not. The explanation is right there in the conference’s football media guide: “The Big 12 Conference champion is the team that finishes the regular season with the highest winning percentage in conference games. If more than one team has the same winning percentage, the tied teams are declared co-champions.”

That stipulation, Harwell declared, is the only facet the receiver would change about the league he now calls home. His first three seasons of college football, he played in the two-division Mid-American Conference, which has an annual championship game.

“I like there being a definite winner and loser,” said Harwell, who caught five passes in Miami’s 2010 MAC title-game win over Northern Illinois, as a freshman. “I don’t like to share something with somebody else.”

In the case of co-champions, at least, the on-field winner won’t get hosed in the postseason. A head-to-head tie-breaker decides which of two co-champs earns the more desirable bowl destination.

In the less likely case of three or more teams finishing with the same record, a series of three tie-breakers that involve conference records and College Football Playoff rankings is implemented before the last resort: a coin flip.

Even if the Big 12 doesn’t end up producing a bona fide champion each season, Harwell and senior teammates Ben Heeney, Jimmay Mundine and Cassius Sendish all enjoy the chance to clash with the entire league.

Heeney, a linebacker from Hutchinson, grew up a KU football fan, so he knows the schedule used to look quite different before the modern age of conference realignment began.

“I think the year we won the Orange Bowl (the 2007 regular season), we didn’t play Texas or Oklahoma,” he correctly recalled. “When you play everyone, you really get to see who the best team in the conference is, and I think that’s good for the conference.”

Indeed, even if two teams tie atop the standings, everyone knows who won the head-to-head meeting, despite the multiple trophies that would get handed out.

Sendish, a safety, expects the regular-season gauntlet to challenge even the most talented teams in the Big 12 this fall.

“I think the league is wide-open,” he said. “So anyone can go in there at any given time and win the league.”

Mundine doesn’t care for championship games, because a lesser team could have four extraordinary quarters and knock off a program that accomplished more in its season.

The tight end said the Jayhawks, picked last in the league’s media preseason poll, will try to be that one true champion, just like all of their Big 12 foes.

“Obviously right now nobody expects that out of us,” Mundine said. “Secretly, in our room, we expect to win.”