Tuesday brought a few clear themes across the Big 12, and Baylor, UCF and Texas Tech each offered one of their own.
Baylor’s win over Arizona State in Tempe changed the feel around the Bears in a hurry. They may not look like a true top-tier Big 12 title contender just yet, but they might not need to be. For the first time all season, Baylor showed what it can look like when everything clicks: DJ Lagway had his best game, the ground game showed up, and the defense made stops when it had to.
The bigger reason for optimism is what comes next. Baylor has a bye this weekend, then gets TCU, Kansas and UCF. Those are three games that look very winnable, and it would not be a surprise if the Bears are sitting at 7-1 overall and undefeated in Big 12 play when the calendar turns to the final month.
UCF, meanwhile, keeps getting hit by quarterback misfortune. Since the Knights joined the Big 12, it’s hard to think of another team that has dealt with worse luck at that position. Over the last four seasons, they’ve gone through so many quarterbacks that keeping track has become a challenge.
This year has followed the same script. Alonza Barnett III already went down earlier in the season, forcing Keyone Jenkins into action.
Then Jenkins got hurt against Houston last weekend, though he did return. Still, it raises the same question again: is there some kind of curse in Orlando for quarterbacks??
It’s tough enough to win with backup quarterbacks at this level, and UCF has spent far too much time asking its depth chart to carry the load.
Texas Tech’s problem is different, but it could end up being just as damaging. The Red Raiders keep coming out flat. Against Abilene Christian, Oregon State, Houston, Sam Houston and Colorado, they have not looked sharp in the first half of any of their five games.
The numbers show some balance, but not enough to erase the concern. Texas Tech has outscored opponents 66 to 45 in first halves, which is fine on paper but not nearly dominant enough given the schedule. The second half has been a completely different story, with the Red Raiders outscoring opponents 103 to 33 after halftime.
That split tells the whole story. Multiple times this season, Texas Tech has been behind at the break because the offense needs an entire half to get rolling.
If the Red Raiders are going to be the elite team they think they can be, they have to start faster. The good news is the back end of the schedule is manageable.
The bad news is that sooner or later, those slow starts are going to put them in a hole they can’t climb out of.
In Other News...
Baylor Already Has A Five-Week Standout Fans Need To Debate
Baylors first five games have already given fans plenty to sort through, because the Bears have had more than one player make a case for being the teams early-season standout. The offense has leaned on different strengths at different points, with Gavin Freeman piling up catches at a national-best pace and Nate Bennett filling in effectively when DJ Lagway was sidelined, while Lagway has since come back and looked strong enough to keep the conversation going. Even the special teams have entered the picture, with punter Palmer Williams drawing notice for the kind of field-position work that often gets overlooked until a game turns on it.
What makes the debate interesting is that Baylors standout so far depends on what a fan values most: volume, reliability, or impact in key moments. Freemans production has been impossible to ignore, Bennetts stretch kept the offense steady through injury, Lagways return added another layer to the offense, and Williams has quietly been one of the more effective weapons on the roster. With the season still young, the Bears have already built a pretty good argument that there is no obvious answer, only a few very different ones. [Read more 🡒]
Scott Drew's Baylor Reset Is Bringing Back A Big Debate
After a 16-16 season and a run through the College Basketball Crown that ended against Oklahoma, Baylor has spent the offseason looking more like a program in transition than one standing still. Scott Drew has already seen key pieces like Cameron Carr and Tounde Yessoufou move on, but the Bears also kept Isaac Williams in place and added a new wave of transfers and recruits, including Dylan Mingo and Elijah Williams, as the roster gets reshaped around a fresh core.
That kind of reset naturally brings back the old Baylor debate: how quickly can Drew turn turnover into traction again? Andy Katz has already floated the Bears as a potential dark horse Final Four team for the 2026-27 season, which only adds to the intrigue around a group that is trying to prove last year was a detour, not a warning sign. For a program that has been here before, the question now is whether this mix can gel fast enough to make the optimism matter. [Read more 🡒]
Baylor Just Gave Fans A Real Reason To Dream Big 12 Title
Week 5 in the Big 12 only sharpened the sense that this league is wide open, and Baylor did its part by turning in the weekends most convincing statement. While Iowa State had to sweat out a 45-42 win over West Virginia, the Bears handled Arizona State in a way that stood out even in a slate filled with notable results from BYU, Texas Tech, Houston and Arizona.
For Baylor, that kind of performance matters because the conference race already feels crowded and unsettled. No team has separated itself yet, which means every strong showing carries extra weight, and the Bears now have a result fans can point to as proof they belong in the title mix rather than just the conversation. [Read more 🡒]