Big 12 Football Predictions
The Big 12 has really become the league of parity and I expect that to continue this season — with the middle class of my preseason predictions being wildly different than the media day poll. It really feels like you could make an argument for close to ten teams to make the championship game this coming season so I’m putting a lot of weight into conference strength of schedule. My pre-season Big 12 predictions, in tiers:
TIER 1 - Real Contenders
1 Oklahoma
OU has two really important things coming into this bounce back season. 1. One of the easiest conference schedules & 2. An Elite QB. Venables’ back is against the wall and will now lead the defense after an embarassing year 1 campaign. The Sooners bounce back big this season and cruise to Arlington.
2 Texas
Texas stands out in this league with talent, especially at the QB spot. Ewers should really break out this season but Texas faces the 5 best pre-season teams in the Big 12 and Sarkesian has yet to hit the 10 win mark in his 9 seasons as a HC.
3 Oklahoma State
While Oklahoma State appears middle class they do have an extremely experienced OL with 91 combined career starts, this is the perfect way to bring out the best in transfer QB Alan Bowman. Gundy doesn’t seem to ever have true down years — combine that with the easiest schedule in the Big 12 and you get a 3rd place finish for the Cowboys. In addition to having 5 home games and not playing Texas, Oklahoma State also is the only team in the Big 12 that gets to play all of the 10th-14th teams in the pre-season poll.
4 Kansas State
I leaned towards Texas Tech/Baylor ahead of Kansas State here but ultimately decided on the Wildcats because of their proven commodity at QB — Will Howard should be better than Slough and Shapen. Howard is also protected by the only AP All-American 1st team offensive player in the Big 12 in OG Cooper Beebe. It’s worth noting that the Wildcats have one of the more brutal road slates you could possibly have: OSU, TTU, Texas and Kansas.
5 Baylor
Blake Shapen isn’t expected to be a star or anything like that but he is competent and the Bears get three gimmes in conference at home: Iowa State, WVU and Houston. While I don’t believe Baylor is necessarily better than Texas Tech or TCU I do believe Aranda and co. are good enough to capitalize off this schedule and finish tied with or better than them in the Big 12 standings.
6 Texas Tech
Joey McGuire is a hot name in the coaching industry right now but Slough is a huge question mark at QB. Tech is a pretty hot name in general right now with pre-season picks but between being unsure on Slough combined with the Red Raiders having to go on the road 5 times in conference I am placing them at the bottom of the contenders tier.
7 TCU
TCU had a dream season last year but lose a bunch of production and have just named sophomore Chandler Morris QB. Morris is completely unproven and even though TCU had the best transfer portal window in the Big 12 I still expect inconsistency and for them to take a big step back this season. If they stumble at all early it’ll be a real bad sign for the Horned Frogs as they will likely only be favored once in their final 5 games — all against pre-season top half Big 12 teams with 3 of them being on the road.
TIER 2 - Longshots
8 Cincinnati
Cincinnati has lost a ton of production and is the only Big 12 school to have a new coach this season, but there are a few reasons for optimism. Very favorable in conference schedule — Cincinnati only faces one top 5 Big 12 pre-season team and have 5 home games. The Bearcats are also the only Big 12 team with an AP preseason All-American 1st team defender in DL Dontay Corleone. QB Emory Jones will be looking to finish his career on a positive note with Scott Satterfield, who has quite a resume with dual-threat QBs.
9 UCF
UCF has a decent amount of pre-season hype but the Golden Knights do face 5 tough road games in conference which will make their leap up into the P5 ranks a little tougher than rival Cincinnati. John Rye Plumlee had a good year last year, but there’s not much to suggest he’s worthy of all the hype he’s been getting while going up a level. UCF is also set to travel almost 15,000 miles this season — most in the country by any Power 5 team.
10 Kansas
The Jayhawks shocked the world last year and return with a healthy Heisman candidate in QB Jadon Daniels. This is a pick I may regret because of their upside with a superstar QB, but it will be tough for Kansas to match last years results when they still are one of the least talented teams in the league. The Jayhawks also play 4 of the top 5 teams in the pre-season Big 12 poll. I also expect the league to better adjust to HC Lance Leipold and Daniels after a year of tape.
11 BYU
BYU has a talented roster and will have an easier transition experience wise to P5 than any of the other newcomers, but they face one of the toughest schedules in the conference with 5 road trips away from Provo. It’s really hard to see transfer QB Kedon Slovis being good enough to help the rest of the roster through the Big 12 gauntlet that they’ll face. BYU joins UCF in the road game frequent flyer miles issue with nearly 13,000 of their own — second most in the country by any Power 5 team.
TIER 3 - The Graveyard
12 Houston
QB Donovan Smith brings the Cougars some Big 12 experience but most of the roster is not ready for this level. Dana Holgerson is also on the hot seat entering the Big 12 to face the T-2nd toughest schedule in the conference. I expect Dana to join Neal Brown as the two Big 12 head coaches to get fired this season.
13 West Virginia
Neal Brown feels like a dead man walking in what is likely his final season in Morgantown. The Mountaineers have one of the hardest OOC schedules in the country and are going into the season without naming a QB — that QB will have games vs Pitt and @ Penn State in the near future. Once West Virginia enters Big 12 play they also have a tough slate with 5 road games to handle.
14 Iowa State
Initially I had Iowa State up around 10th to 12th but decided to put them in the basement because of a combination of the gambling scandal, an unproven underclassmen QB in Rocco Becht, and easily the hardest schedule in the Big 12. The Cyclones could very well be stumbling into conference play after playing three losable games OOC in UNI, Iowa, and @ Ohio. But in conference? Iowa State has 5 road games and their only games vs other lower ranked teams are at Cincinnati and at BYU — two tough places to play for a weak team.
I have Oklahoma vs Texas in their final season in the Big 12 with the Longhorns pulling off the win in Arlington — with 0 playoff representation from the Big 12 this season.
