The Big 12’s title race looked like it might open the door to a bigger College Football Playoff path last weekend. Then Texas Tech lost at Cincinnati, BYU dropped a double-overtime game at UCF, and the picture tightened fast.
Now the league’s next three weeks feel loaded with consequences. Five teams sit at the top of the standings, and they’re about to collide four times in a stretch that could sort out the Big 12 title game field.
No. 22 Arizona heads to No.
13 Texas Tech on Saturday. A week later, the Holy War arrives on Nov. 7, with No.
6 Utah and No. 8 BYU meeting.
Then Week 11 brings two more key matchups as Arizona hosts Utah and Texas Tech goes to No. 24 Oklahoma State.
Utah is the only unbeaten team left in Big 12 play, sitting alone in first at 4-0. Arizona, BYU, Oklahoma State and Texas Tech all have one conference loss. The top two finishers will square off Dec. 4 in Arlington, Texas, for the conference championship.
That’s where tiebreakers may end up doing a lot of the heavy lifting. Among the top five teams, the only head-to-head result so far came in Week 2, when BYU beat Arizona in Provo.
For Arizona, that means the path is tricky. The Wildcats would need to finish with a better league record than BYU to avoid falling behind in a tiebreaker.
Going undefeated from here would not lock up a spot in the Big 12 title game on its own, because the rest of the league’s contenders would still matter. Another loss wouldn’t knock Arizona out, but it would leave the Wildcats needing plenty of help.
The league has seen this kind of sorting-out before. No tiebreakers were necessary in 2025, when BYU and Texas Tech both finished 8-1. In 2024, four teams wound up tied at 7-2, and ASU and Iowa State got the championship berth while BYU and Colorado were left out.
Scheduling quirks are part of the backdrop too. Arizona has three of its final five games at home, and BYU and Texas Tech do as well.
Utah, which faces upset-minded Cincinnati this week, and Oklahoma State have only two home games apiece. The Cowboys also have to play their next two on the road, at Iowa State and Kansas State, before they get Texas Tech at home.
The odd wrinkle is that every one of these teams finishes the regular season at home. Arizona gets the Territorial Cup, BYU hosts Cincinnati, Oklahoma State hosts Kansas, Texas Tech hosts TCU on Thanksgiving, and Utah closes against West Virginia on the Friday after Turkey Day.
Arizona’s draw is the roughest of the bunch. The Wildcats will end up playing three of the other four contenders, which helps explain why FanDuel Sportsbook has their +700 odds to win the Big 12 as the longest among the group. BYU, Texas Tech and Utah each get two of the four, while Oklahoma State avoids all but Tech and could end up benefiting from a schedule that was set three years ago.
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The broader backdrop makes the reflection even more interesting for Arizona fans. Kerrs current contract with the Golden State Warriors runs through next season, and that timeline lands alongside potential contract changes for key players, which only adds to the sense that another major pivot could be coming. Even in a different chapter of his career, Kerrs stop in Phoenix underscored how much of his basketball identity still traces back to Tucson and the men who helped define it. [Read more 🡒]