MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Popular Tulsa World sports columnist Berry Tramel is bullish on the newly reconstituted Big 12, although he admits it's a mistake to think of the conference the way it once was.
 
Tramel, who grew up in Norman, Oklahoma, has watched Big Eight and Southwest Conference football for many years, and reported on the SWC-Big Eight merger back in 1994.
 
Former SWC schools Baylor, Texas, Texas A&M and Texas Tech joined forces with the entire former Big Eight, consisting of Colorado, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State, to create the Big 12 Conference.
 
In 2012, in response to losing Texas A&M and Missouri to the SEC, Nebraska to the Big Ten and Colorado to the Pac-12, the Big 12 reconstituted itself with the additions of West Virginia and TCU.
 
More change came in 2021 when it became known that Texas and Oklahoma were leaving the Big 12 for the SEC. Eventually, the conference settled on BYU, Central Florida, Cincinnati and Houston as replacements.
 
Then last year, when the Big Ten raided the Pac-12 and took its most valuable programs, the Big 12 finished off the conference by adding the so-called four corner schools, Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah, to increase its membership to 16, spanning Utah to Florida.
 
"It's a new conference," Tramel admitted earlier this month in Las Vegas during Big 12 media days. "Six of the 16 members were in this league in 2011. Eight of the members were not in this league in 2022. That's two years ago.
 
"It's not the Big 12, but I actually think it's sort of a cool league," he explained. "The travel is going to be problematic, and I'm in the middle of it (living in Oklahoma) so it's not a big deal, but if you are on the edges I can understand it. Outside of that, it's pretty cool. What I like about it: one, for the first time with the schools I'm most familiar with – and the first time in their history – they are on a level playing field with everybody. There is no Texas with its $200 million athletic budget or OU with $175 million."
 
Because everyone in the league now has similar resources, Tramel buys into the notion put forth by commissioner Brett Yormark that the Big 12 is the most competitive football power conference in the country, top to bottom. 
 
"Anybody can win," Tramel noted. "Aside from that, we've had this unbelievable parity the last four or five years anyway. We've had four different champions the last four years. We've had seven schools in the last four Big 12 title games. We've had teams come from way back in the pack to make it to Arlington (Texas) or win. In (2021), we had the No. 5 and the No. 7 teams picked in the media poll there. 
 
"Last year, OSU was terrible in September, and all of a sudden, they're in Arlington. West Virginia was picked last – shouldn't have been and Neal (Brown) adequately told us why they were not – and then they go 9-4, so it's sort of the frontier days in the conference. It's open range," he said.
 
Which now includes such faraway places such as Arizona, Utah and Colorado.
 
However, the nucleus of this conference remains the old Big Eight and Southwest Conference remnants, which signed off on Yormark's desire to hold media days in Las Vegas instead of the traditional location in Dallas.
 
Yormark's desire to go big and bold actually sits well with the folks in the Heartland, according to Tramel.
 
"Let me tell you what people from Kansas, Iowa and Oklahoma have been doing for generations - coming to Vegas," he laughed. "Maybe not as much as in the past because we've got a casino on every corner in Oklahoma, but I think they are OK with it. 
 
"One thing I've detected among those schools, they all believe in Brett Yormark. They love his aggression, his passion and his marketing. I think they loved Bob Bowlsby, too; the leadership before that not so much, but for the first time literally in forever, there is this flood of ideas and this 'we don't have to sit here and take it anymore.' We'll do all kinds of things and see what happens," he said.
 
"Now, they don't always comprehend all of (Yormark's) ideas, but they are trusting him and at least they think they have someone advocating on our side that's outside of academia and traditionalism."
 
Yormark is getting a reputation for being a disrupter in college sports, which he doesn't seem to mind, and the league's old-guard schools are willing to follow along if he can strengthen the conference and continue to generate more revenue to close the growing gap between the SEC and the Big Ten.
 
Yormark also opened some eyes in Las Vegas by drawing comparisons between the SEC and Big Ten and claiming the new Big 12 is now clearly No. 2 behind those two, much to the chagrin of the Atlantic Coast Conference.
 
"This is not the glory days of the Big 12," Tramel pointed out. "Twenty years ago, it was the best conference, or at least the equal to the SEC. It's not that anymore. People in the know, know that. But that doesn't mean you can't fight back, or you can't build up. This idea that the Big 12 is now No. 3, I think that appeals to the people in the Big 12 because for the last 10 years they've been told they are No. 5. 'You are going to fall apart' and blah, blah, blah.
 
"Now they realize, 'Hey, we've got some stability. We've survived one conference, and we might survive another one.' The ACC. I think there is a sense of optimism," Tramel said.
 
The veteran columnist says the backbone of Big 12 remains its passionate football fan bases in places like Stillwater, Oklahoma, Ames, Iowa, Manhattan, Kansas, Lubbock, Texas, and Morgantown, West Virginia.
 
It will be important for the newer teams in the conference to maintain that passion and enthusiasm. 
 
It's clear Utah and BYU have it, but the question is - can the others get there and sustain it?
 
"OSU played at Arizona State last year and it was unbelievably hot for a night game. They reduced Arizona State's stadium (capacity) to 53,000 and it was half full," Tramel remarked. "That's not good for the Big 12 with Arizona State coming in, but it reminds you that Iowa State can be 3-8 and Jack Trice Stadium is not half full.
 
"You go to Boone Pickens Stadium in a bad year and it's still a crazy place to go. The people care. Manhattan? It doesn't matter what they've been doing, it's a wonderful place to go because there are all kinds of things going on and the fans are always in it," he said. "There are loyal fans in Tech too. That's one thing the (conference) needs to focus on is not what you lost, but what you've retained. It's a good core, and I think they can build on it, plus the playoff makes it a cool time to come and hopefully get at least two teams in, we'll see."
 
Tramel admits if he was calling the shots in the Big 12, he would take a closer look at scheduling in the coming years.
 
"I would schedule differently," he said. "For instance, I would make sure West Virginia and Cincinnati and Central Florida play each other every year. The schools out here play each other every year. There is no reason to take equitable scheduling off the plate when you are dealing with that much travel. My only quibble would be building more regional rivalries and regional scheduling.
 
"I sort of like what the Big Ten is doing," he continued. "They say, 'Well, this team has four big rivals so let them play. This team has zero so there is no reason to invent some.' OSU ought to be playing Iowa State every year. They've been playing every year for 60-some years."
 
Since the Pac-12's collapse last year, Tramel has written extensively about his disdain for what happened to the historic conference that dates to 1915 as the Pacific Coast Conference. It became the Athletic Association of Western Universities in 1959, then the Pacific-8 in 1968, the Pac-10 in 1978 and the Pac-12 in 2011.
 
Now, all that's left are Oregon State and Washington State, two traditional West Coast athletic programs with lots of history and no place to call home.
 
"It's to the Big 12's benefit, but it's sad," Tramel said. "It didn't have to be, I don't think, and it could have been the other way. Without some Pac-12 arrogance, it would have been the other way. It happened twice, as late as 2021, when OU and Texas announced they were leaving, all the Pac-12 had to do was say, 'Let's go get four.' It doesn't matter which four. Some of the Pac-12 schools didn't want to be in a league with Lubbock, Texas, Ames, Iowa, or Stillwater, Oklahoma. Now they get to be in a league with North Carolina State, Florida State and Boston College.
 
"I don't know if the Big 12 was ever the victims of bad leadership like that," he added. "I never really blamed the leadership in the Big 12. The arrogance from the schools at the top – Texas, Texas A&M, Nebraska and Oklahoma – those four were the problem at the start. They got off on the wrong foot, but the Pac-12 just had bad leadership. Sometimes you can't overcome that."
 
Tramel said he can envision even more movement coming at some point before the decade's close.
 
"We actually never have been done." he explained. "We've had conference realignment forever. We've had speculated conference realignment that didn't come. Oklahoma was involved in talks in 1960 for this thing called the "Airplane Conference." (Former OU basketball coach) Billy Tubbs advocated going to the Southwest Conference in the early 1980s because he got tired of the Big Eight.
 
"We've always had that spirit, so it's not going to go away, but it's whatever the (TV) networks want is what's going to happen," he said.
 
What will be the identity of this new league with the four Pac-12 additions? Tramel admits he isn't sure.
 
"It's a new league so we don't know – with a commissioner from New York City," he laughed. "Maybe I'll get to cover Oklahoma State-Houston in Monterey.
 
"I think it's fun league," he added. "I don't know what's going to happen, but I think every game is going to be fun. The standings are going to be jumbled. In the SEC, I'll tell you what's going to happen, and you can ask me in August, March or February: Georgia is going to play Alabama (in the SEC championship game) and if a Joe Burrow is around, maybe LSU gets to go. To me, that's not fun. It's fun when I don't have any idea what's going to happen."
 
In the final analysis, Tramel believes the Big 12 has the right leadership and the pieces in place to prosper and thrive.
 
"Basketball is going to be great, and I'm hopeful for football," he said. "I think getting two teams in the playoffs would be great. Three is probably too much to ask. The idea would be, I don't know, a highly ranked team going into the title game. 
 
"Let's say West Virginia is 11-1, ranked fifth, and loses in Arlington to a 10-2 Kansas State. Well, K-State gets to go to the playoff, but maybe West Virginia not only stays in the playoff but gets to host. How about that? A playoff game in Morgantown? 
 
"That would be pretty cool," he concluded.
 
Indeed, it would!
 
West Virginia begins its preseason work on Wednesday morning with a closed practice on the Steve Antoline Family Practice Facility.
 
Neal Brown is scheduled to meet with media early Wednesday afternoon following practice. The team will have an open workout with media present on Thursday and will continue drills on Friday and Saturday.
 
The annual Fan Day on the stadium concourse is scheduled to get underway at 9:30 a.m. Saturday morning followed by a team practice at 11:45 a.m. Coordinators Jordan Lesley and Chad Scott will visit with the media afterward.
 
Season tickets and mini-packages for the 2024 season remain on sale and can be purchased through the Mountaineer Ticket Office by logging on to WVUGAME.com.