Former KU football coach Mark Mangino hopes Big 12 can survive loss of OU and Texas

As somebody who has coached football at Big 12 schools Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma and Iowa State, Mark Mangino has a deep-rooted interest in the conference.

“I would say I’m disappointed to see the Big 12 Conference in trouble. I’ve spent a good portion of my career in that league and really enjoyed coaching in the Big 12,” Mangino said Monday in a phone interview with The Star conducted a few hours after Texas and Oklahoma indicated they would not renew their grant of media rights with the league following the 2024-25 season.

“I hope there’s a way to keep the eight together and maybe do some additions and make it viable,” Mangino added.

Mangino, head coach at Kansas from 2002 to 2009, stressed that he had no inside information. His comments regarding what might happen to remaining league members KU, K-State, ISU, Baylor, Texas Tech, TCU, West Virginia and Oklahoma State were merely his own as a close observer of the college game.

“I don’t know what happens to the other eight teams. Are they going to be able to stick together? Are other conferences going to poach teams out of there? It’s hard to tell,” Mangino said. “I’d like to see them find at least a couple viable programs to come in there and help make the conference stronger. I don’t know who that would be,” he added.

Mangino, 64, mentioned the intriguing possibility of former Big 12 teams Nebraska (Big Ten) and Texas A&M (SEC) returning.

“There’s always speculation and it’s pure speculation if A&M would come back. Obviously they left because they wanted to play in a league without Texas,” Mangino said. The Aggies will be in a league with Texas if reports of UT and OU joining the SEC are indeed true.

“The benefits are so great in the SEC I don’t know if they would do that (return to Big 12). There’s always a bunch of people hopeful they could lure Nebraska back. I don’t know if that could happen. I think that would be great for the conference. I think it wouldn’t be quite what it was. It still would be a good conference, get Nebraska back on its old recruiting turf (and) A&M back playing in the Big 12. Those are two programs that always have the potential to explode and make playoff runs.”

Of course, Kansas could elect to apply for admittance in the Big Ten or the Pac-12 or the ACC. Or maybe a yet-to-be-determined superconference if that’s the way college athletics is headed.

“I’m sure they (KU officials) are busy talking to people and they should be,” Mangino said. “What conference wouldn’t want KU basketball? They probably all would. At the same time, you have to consider the last decade or so of the football program. If you take KU basketball you also have that. That’s a little sticking point for some conferences possibly.”

However, Mangino believes KU football fortunes are looking up.

“Let me say this … I know they’ve had a little bit of a bad run. I think this is a very good hire with (first-year coach) Lance Leipold. I think they will get back to respectability. I do,” Mangino said.

“How long (until respectability)? I don’t know that. That’s a tough question for anybody. Hiring Lance Leipold didn’t hurt anybody in realignment. I think people have a high opinion of him,” Mangino added.

Mangino noted that, “KU being a good place academically makes them attractive also. Maybe the Big Ten could be their place. I don’t. know. I have no pipeline of information. The basketball program I’m sure is catching everybody’s eye in the country. That plus the fact ADs and coaches respect Lance Leipold and realize if anybody can get that (football program) going it’ll be him.”

If KU switches conferences, the Big Ten would make the most sense from a geographic standpoint. Mangino said one of the best things about the Big Eight/Big 12 was the fact the schools were in close proximity for the most part.

“I was in a conference, the old Big Eight, it was a bus league. That’s what they called it. You got on the bus and went to games,” Mangino said. “There are a lot of good rivalries. Everybody knew each other. Players knew other players. Coaches knew coaches. Fans knew who the players and coaches were on the opposing teams.

“Fans who travel to opposing campuses know where the best restaurants are, where the cheapest gas is, where the coldest beer is. They’ve been together a long time. It’s almost like the conference is a community. I’d hate them to lose that sense of community. (So) my hope is they get a couple really good programs to leave their conference and join the Big 12.”

Mangino, however, is a realist.

“The landscape has changed drastically,” he said. “If you are a person who is sentimental, find another sport to root for or put up with today’s landscape.”

Mangino isn’t totally surprised OU and Texas would bolt the Big 12 for the SEC.

“Oklahoma … I had an opportunity to coach there,” he said of his stint from 1999 to 2001. “I had a great time and it’s a great environment with a lot of wonderful people. Certainly you are sad to see them leave but also, at Oklahoma they are proactive. They are not going to sit around and get burned.

“They understand the economics of Division I college football well there. There are smart people running the show at OU. They felt they had to do this. I understand it from an economic perspective and future as a program. At the same time I personally hate to see them leave. I had a lot of fun coaching there and coaching against them.”