the smart thing the BigXII did was schedule the last week of BigXII games on the same weekend as the Conference championship games. That will help with appearances, and reduce the effect of playing one less game than other teams.
Actually, the "smarter" thing they did was kept the Kansas-K-State game off of the final week of the season. Any gains by having K-State play the same week as the CCGs would have been nullified by playing that train wreck of a team.