Split the conference into four pods.

POD A: Arizona, Arizona St, Utah, BYU
POD B: Colorado, K State, Kansas, Iowa State
POD C: Oklahoma St, West Virginia, Cincinnati, UCF
POD D: Baylor, Houston, TCU, Texas Tech

You always play your pod every year. And then rotate which pod you play for the other four games. So Pod A and B play one year, then A and C the next, then A and D, and then back to A and B. This ensures you make your way around the conference every few years and play everyone somewhat evenly—other than your pod which helps with geography and rivalries.

Then there are a few ways to go. With three OOC games, three in your home pod, and four from your assigned pod that’s ten games. The options are:

—Option A. My preferred choice but logistically harder. Play an additional conference game at random from the other pods. Week 12 games are the start of the CCG playoffs. The best team from Pods A&C plays a home game against the second best from Pods B&D. And the best from Pods B&D plays a home game against the second best from Pods A&C. The winners of these games play for the CCG in week 13 in Dallas (or rotating between Dallas, Vegas, and KC?). The winners are determined by the seven in-pod games only. In other words, it won’t negatively impact a team who happens to play a really tough team from outside their pod grouping in week 11.

All other teams get matched in week 12 with another team they haven’t played yet with the higher ranking teams from one pod group playing the lower ranking teams from the other in home games. This way the conference maximizes the chances they aren’t beating up on each other and getting lower rankings by having all their best teams beat each other up in week 12.

There are some complications here in that home games are dependent on standings, so weaker teams will perpetually get one less home game. But every team gets four guaranteed home games in conference every year and five if they earn it.

—Option B. Easier logistically. Play an additional two conference games randomly chosen from the other pods in weeks 11 and 12. The CCG is made up of the two champions from the Pod Groupings based only on the records of those pod games so nobody is unfairly impacted by playing two top teams in their non-pod pairing games.

There will still be tiebreakers in these scenarios, not sure how you ever avoid them. But at least every team will have played every other team in their pod groups. And under option A there are two teams that make it from each grouping.