CFB South: Intro the West
The 2025-26 college football season is upon us!
It’s been far from an inactive offseason for one of America’s most unstable but beloved pastimes. Still, it feels like there haven’t been really big headlines.
That’s partly because there’s just a ton of other topics that CFB has to duke it out with in order to break into our regular thoughts/headlines. Another factor at play is that we’re all really burned out from last season’s marathon and accompanying theatrics. The inaugural run of the 12-team College Football Playoff format drug the season out in a way that few of us could’ve anticipated. And for me it’s been a struggle to figure out how to organize thoughts around what to expect this season.
I started the CFB Multiverse project with the real big picture in mind. And that lens helped baseline just crazy this sport can be, in the macro/national sense. But to be honest, it got to be a beast to keep a handle on. So we’re going to do some significant specialization for this next phase of the project.
The 2025-26 focus will hone in on college football trends and shenanigans in the South. A lot of the same topics, data and context. Just centered on the CFB programs that call America’s Southern states home. To be clear, this shift isn’t a slight to the teams located in the country’s other regions.
The Midwest has some truly amazing programs and talent.
The Northeast and West field teams.
But the South is home to the most heralded programs and players. So let’s spend this season chronicling them as they chart their ways through the continuing Realignment Wars and radical reshaping of the sport.
The Geography
The Census Bureau groups 17 states** into the South. And within that big group, there are three regions: The West, The Core and the East. For my purposes, I focus on The West and The Core.
Geography and Dollars
College football in the U.S. will forever be a primarily regional sport. A big focus of the Multiverse’s first phase emphasized baselining that and so will this phase. And when it comes to the regional context of CFB in 2025, we’re really talking primarily about Dollars and TV Households. So with that in mind, let’s do some baselining about the South’s CFB regions.
The West
General Context
Our journey will begin in The West. There are four states located in the South’s West region. Louisiana is “technically” the oldest of the group. Louisiana was ratified as a state in 1812, followed by Arkansas in 1836, Texas in 1845 and finally Oklahoma in 1907.
And although it was a little bit late to the West region’s statehood party, Texas is is the undisputed juggernaut of the area today. The Lonestar state’s top 7 TV markets are estimated to command the attention of a total of 9,421,030 TV households. Within the West region those households account for 70% of those in major markets. Compared with all of the South’s top TV markets, Texas accounts for 22%. The median number of households among the seven Texas markets hovers around 1,029,800.
Oklahoma and Louisiana account for the #2 and #3 slots in The West, respectively. The Oklahoma City (762,700) and Tulsa (757,780) markets put Oklahoma’s total count at 1,520,480 TV households.
Louisiana has three major TV markets but the state’s cumulative total sits around 1,403,580 households. New Orleans is estimated to have 672,790 households while the Baton Rouge and Shreveport markets are around 355,000 and 375,000, respectively.
Arkansas has an estimated 943,390 TV households in its two major markets. Little Rock-Pine Bluff has the slight edge with around 590,000 households and Fort Smith-Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers has close to 352,000 households.
College Football Context
The South’s West region is currently home to 11 Power 4 football programs. Those programs account for close to 32% of the South’s total Power 4 programs.
And seven of those teams call Texas home.
Note: To keep in line with the “Realignment Wars” theme I refer to college football conferences as factions.
The Big 12 is the dominating faction within Texas. Four programs are Big 12 members: Baylor, Houston, TCU and Texas Tech. SMU has recently retaken its place on CFB’s big stage and is currently a member of the ACC while Texas and Texas A&M’s faction home is the SEC.
TCU and SMU split access to one of the nation’s most significant TV markets, Dallas-Fort Worth. The market is estimated to have a total of 3,264,490 TV households. The University of Houston is in closest proximity to the Houston market, giving it access to an estimated 2,7974,20 households. The University of Texas is in closest proximity to the Austin market, giving it access to an estimated 1,029,800 households in the state’s capital. Baylor sits pretty squarely in the Waco-Temple-Bryan market which has 419,600 TV households. Texas Tech is located in Lubbock far away from any major TV markets. Texas A&M is located in College Station, which is kind of in between Austin and Houston but still a TV household desert.
The University of Oklahoma is headquartered in Norman and Oklahoma State is located in Stillwater to the north. They split the Oklahoma City TV market which has 762,700 households. Oklahoma State’s current faction card is stamped by the Big 12, while Oklahoma’s faction is the SEC.
LSU is Louisiana’s only Power 4 football program and anchored in the state’s #3 TV market. The Baton Rouge market has an estimated 355,760. The Tigers are currently members of the SEC faction.
The University of Arkansas is the state’s only Power 4 football team. The university is located in the Fort Smith-Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers TV market, which has 352,410 households. The Razorbacks’ faction allegiances lie with the SEC.
