Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark made a bold statement on Friday at a conference, one that took a dig at all the other conferences in college football — Power Four and Group of Five conferences alike.
“In football, I think we are the deepest conference in America,” Yormark said, as reported by On3.
This immediately follows SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey's comments on how he believes his conference is the best in NCAA football. He claimed that when looking at the league as a whole, the SEC is the most competitive all around.
This was also in response to why the SEC has fallen behind in regards to national championships in the past three years. Michigan, Ohio State, and Indiana — all Big Ten programs — reigned supreme and took home the national title. Georgia was the last SEC team to win a national championship, which was before the Big Ten overtake.
“In a competitive environment, the margins are going to be thin,” Sankey said at spring meetings. “We’ve come up on the short end. I can assure you everyone in this league is trying to figure out how to come up on the top end of that in the future.
"But I think, from a big-picture [perspective], the breadth, the depth of this league, this league stands alone. In fact, we saw metrics out of the College Football Playoff presentation where there’s no doubt we’re the strongest league."
In 2025, the SEC had five representatives from its conference in the CFP: Georgia (No. 3), Ole Miss (No. 6), Texas A&M (No. 7), Oklahoma (No. 8), and Alabama (No. 9). The Big Ten had Indiana (No. 1), Ohio State (No. 2), and Oregon (No. 5) in the CFP; and the Big 12 had Texas Tech (No. 4). Miami (No. 10), Tulane (No. 11), and James Madison (No. 12) represented the ACC, AAC, and Sun Belt Conference, respectively.
In addition to the lack of Big 12 representation, it is the only Power Four conference that has not won a national championship. The rest have at least two titles, and the SEC leads with six. The Ducks also knocked the Red Raiders out of the playoffs this past season and shut them out as well in a 23-0 victory.
In the non-playoff bowl games, the Big 12 went 4-4. Kansas State and Iowa State were eligible for a bowl game, but turned down the invitations. The Big 10 went 8-1 in 2025, including Penn State's 22-10 win over Clemson; the ACC finished 6-4 in non-playoff bowl games; and the SEC went 2-7.
Looking at the most recent college football season and NCAA football history holistically, claiming the Big 12 is the deepest conference in the league is extremely bold.
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