There’s so much to learn about the four new Big 12 schools beyond the nuances of their football and men’s basketball programs. While there will certainly be no shortage of commentary in the months and years to come about how BYU, Cincinnati, Central Florida and Houston match up against Kansas in those two ways — on the gridiron and on the court — they will in reality be taking on the Jayhawks in eight times as many sports.
With that in mind, here are some choice tidbits on those four programs and the remainder of their athletic offerings.
Kenneth Rooks crosses the finish line at the NCAA Track and Field Outdoor Championships in Mike A. Myers Stadium at the University of Texas at Austin on June 9, 2023.
BYU
• Women’s basketball forward Lauren Gustin broke the Cougars’ single-season rebounding record last season with 552 for the year. She tallied double-digit boards in 32 of 33 games, including a 27-rebound performance against San Francisco on March 4.
• The Cougars’ powerhouse men’s cross-country and track and field teams recently received the John McDonnell NCAA Division I Men’s Program of the Year award, edging Arkansas by half a point for the honor, aided by junior Kenneth Rooks’ first-place finish in the steeplechase at last month’s track nationals. Rooks, a returned missionary, said that serving in Uganda helped prepare him for the Texas heat.
• BYU becomes the only school in the Big 12 with a men’s volleyball program. (Because the sport is not sponsored by the conference, the team, which won three national championships around the new millennium, will continue to compete in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation.)
• BYU baseball hasn’t played against Kansas since a three-game series in 2016, but the Cougars have been to Hoglund Ballpark much more recently. KU lent Creighton its facility for a pair of weekend games last March; the Bluejays’ series with BYU had to be abbreviated and moved due to inclement weather in Omaha.
Central Florida catcher Jada Cody throws back to the mound during an NCAA softball game against Villanova, Friday, May 20, 2022, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)
Central Florida
• UCF softball star Jada Cody, who has batted above .300 each of her four seasons, made first-team all-conference this past season splitting time between catcher and third base. She will now represent the United States for the third time as she competes with a team of college players in the Japan All-Star Series in Fukushima, Iwakuni and Yokohama next month.
• TennisRecruiting.net assessed UCF’s women’s tennis recruiting class of 2023, consisting of Grace Levelston, Olivia Lincer and Mihaela Tsoneva, as the second-best in the nation, just behind Stanford.
• The Knights will enter the Big 12 with a new rowing coach after the school hired Mara Allen on June 21. Allen has a proven record of success, winning two national championships as an athlete at California and two more as an assistant coach at Texas. She replaces Becky Cramer, who resigned midseason following a leave of absence.
• UCF men’s soccer alumnus Nick Taylor, originally from Coppell, Texas, who spent a season with the Knights after beginning his career at SMU and New Mexico, represents Cambodia at the international level. He told the Cambodian media company Kiripost last year that his mother left the country fleeing the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s, and that a manager of the national team contacted him after a news report came out that he was half Cambodian.
Central Michigan head coach Jordan Bischel, now at Cincinnati, during warm-ups before an NCAA regional championship baseball game against Florida on Friday, June 3, 2022 in Gainesville, Fla. (AP Photo/Gary McCullough)
Cincinnati
• Jordan Bischel is taking over the Cincinnati baseball team after leading Central Michigan to its best three-year stretch since the 1980s, one that featured back-to-back-to-back NCAA bids after the Chippewas had been absent from the tournament for 24 years.
• Senior runner Maddie Walker, who earned conference cross-country athlete of the week honors twice in a row last season, worked full-time at Mercy Clermont Hospital while balancing her workout responsibilities.
• As with BYU and men’s volleyball, so too with Cincinnati and lacrosse. The Bearcats have a varsity women’s team in the distinctly northeastern sport, and went 11-7 (3-3 AAC) in the spring. While the team retweeted the athletic department’s June 30 post about joining the Big 12, the Big 12 does not sponsor lacrosse, so it’s not clear whether this particular squad will be staying in the American Athletic Conference indefinitely or moving elsewhere. (Incidentally, Cincinnati is also the only new addition to the Big 12 that does not have a softball team.)
• Last year, Cincinnati renamed its annual August volleyball tournament the “Tribute to No. 10” after the late Stephanie Meinig-Rosfeld, a former Bearcat student-athlete and coach who died unexpectedly of a cardiac arrest at age 25 in 2004.
Oklahoma’s Hope Trautwein pitches against Texas during the first inning of the first game of the NCAA Women’s College World Series softball championship series Wednesday, June 8, 2022, in Oklahoma City. Trautwein is now an assistant coach for the Houston softball team. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)
Houston
• Houston softball is already picking up the talent required to succeed in the Big 12, as head coach Kristin Vesely added a familiar face in former Oklahoma pitcher Hope Trautwein as an assistant coach Monday. Trautwein pitched her way to a 0.77 ERA in 126 ⅔ innings as part of the 2022 Sooners team that won the Women’s College World Series. She served as a graduate assistant for Oklahoma as it again won the WCWS this past season.
• The Cougars found a potential future star in Bonn, Germany, in pitcher Paul Schmitz. The 6-foot-8, 242-pound right-hander earned second-team freshman All-American honors after posting a 3.70 ERA in 12 appearances on the year. Schmitz played for the Bonn Capitals baseball team, of which his father, Udo, is the longtime chairman, and brother, Max, was the head coach until January. (Max stepped down to focus on his biochemistry doctorate.)
• Yokubaitis Field, the Cougars’ soccer stadium, under the guidance of Assistant Athletics Director for Grounds, Facilities and Events Brad Finn, earned the 2022 College Soccer Field of the Year honor from the Sports Field Management Association. According to Houston’s press release, “The awards committee places an emphasis on limiting pesticides, maximizing resources and being environmentally friendly.”
• The Houston volleyball team went viral during its 2022 NCAA Tournament run when then-junior libero Kate Georgiades dove over a table placed behind the volleyball court to help keep a point alive in the Cougars’ five-set first-round victory over South Dakota.
BYU Photo
