Week two brought a little of everything for the Big 12: a few statement wins, a few ugly misses, and more than enough chaos to reshuffle the league’s early-season stock report.
The conference’s biggest movers came in the games that mattered most against power opponents. Oklahoma State, Utah and BYU all came out looking better for it.
UCF, meanwhile, walked away with the kind of loss that can linger. Kansas also let one slip, and Texas Tech’s win came with enough warning signs to keep it in the middle for now.
Oklahoma State was the biggest surprise of the weekend. After a 90-minute lightning delay, Drew Mestemaker broke loose for a 75-yard run on the Cowboys’ first offensive snap, and from there the game tilted hard in their favor.
The result was not just a win, but control from start to finish. Head coach Eric Morris said afterward that he liked how his players responded in practice that week, and this was one of those rare times when that kind of buildup actually showed up on game day.
Utah also delivered in a big way. A lot of people around the SEC, including Arkansas fans, seemed to think a trip to Salt Lake City would be manageable.
Instead, the Utes buried the Razorbacks with a 22-point second quarter and never let the game swing back. Of the three Big 12-SEC matchups, this was the only one the league won, and Utah made sure it wasn’t close.
BYU did its part too, opening Big 12 play with a steady 28-17 win over Arizona. The Cougars scored a touchdown in every quarter, kept applying pressure and gradually pulled away.
Arizona came in trying to make a point, and for most of the afternoon it played like it. But BYU quarterback Bear Bachmeier - who our Pete Mundo believes is the best quarterback in the conference - answered with a performance that suggested he might be that dude.
UCF is headed in the opposite direction. The Knights went to Pitt with a chance to make a statement and instead got dragged into a low-scoring game that looked better on paper than it played out.
Pitt led 12-0, UCF didn’t score until the fourth quarter, and the Knights’ run game never found much of a rhythm. To make matters worse, UCF will be without quarterback Alonza Barnett III for a few weeks because of a hamstring injury, per the Orlando Sentinel’s Matt Murschel.
That makes the road to a winning season much steeper.
Kansas also came up short after hanging around for three quarters in a 38-21 loss to Missouri. Isaiah Marshall had a rough day throwing the ball, finishing 13-for-30 with two interceptions, and the ground game couldn’t provide much support.
Eventually, the defense wore down and the Jayhawks let a chance to knock off a Top 25 team slip away. And no, the pregame hype video did not help.
Texas Tech belongs in the hold category after a 35-24 win at Oregon State. The Red Raiders got the job done, but the defense gave up 413 passing yards, which is not what Joey McGuire and his staff want to see.
The offense did enough to balance things out and carry Tech through. There are still plenty of moving parts there - a new starting quarterback, new pieces on defense, new talent on offense and the pressure that comes with being the defending champion.
Even so, Texas Tech still looks like a real title contender. Friday night should tell us a little more.
The TV situation around the Oklahoma State-Oregon game was its own mess. ESPN had its hands full with the Houston-Oregon State game, then had to juggle the women’s singles championship at the U.S.
Open as well. Add in the lightning delay in Stillwater, and viewers ended up stuck with Skycam, no score bug and very few replays at one point.
The network has to do better than that.
In Other News...
UCF Faces Another Brutal QB Test As Scott Frost Adjusts Again
UCFs quarterback room has been tested the hard way more than once in recent seasons, and the latest setback arrived in the kind of moment every coach dreads. Scott Frost has spent plenty of time adjusting on the fly because of injuries under center, a pattern that has made stability a moving target and left the Knights repeatedly searching for continuity when they need it most.
The latest blow came late in the loss to Pittsburgh, when Alonza Barnett III went down with a hamstring injury. He is expected to miss multiple weeks, and that leaves Frost once again in the position of reshaping the offense around a backup. It is the same sort of disruption UCF has already lived through with Dillon Gabriel, John Rhys-Plumlee and Cam Fancher, and the bigger question now is how long the Knights can keep absorbing those hits without it showing up in the results. [Read more 🡒]
Former UCF Star Keyshawn Hall Is Stuck In A Career Crossroads
Keyshawn Halls path since leaving UCF has taken a sharp turn, and the former Knights standout now finds himself fighting for another chance at the college level. After entering the NBA Draft and spending preseason with the Miami Heat, Hall has been trying to secure an additional season in school, a route that would have placed him in Rick Pitinos St. Johns program and kept his development on a different track than the pro game.
For now, though, the paperwork and the legal side of the process are standing in the way of any immediate return. Halls eligibility fight has become the latest hurdle in a career that seemed headed toward the next step, but instead has landed at a crossroads where his basketball future depends on a resolution he has not yet gotten. [Read more 🡒]
UCFs Slow Start Exposed One Concern Fans Cant Ignore
UCFs opening loss to Pittsburgh offered an immediate reminder that a season can turn messy fast when the offense is forced to absorb early change. The Knights fell 12-7 in their first game of 2026, and the issues were plain enough: the starting quarterback went down, the running game never found much room, and Pittsburghs defensive front made the day feel long for everyone up front.
There were some encouraging signs elsewhere, especially with the defense holding up in the kind of favorable conditions it could build on. But the bigger concern is the same one that tends to follow a sluggish opener anywhere: how quickly the offense can settle after the personnel shuffling, particularly with the line still trying to find its footing and the EDGE group adjusting to departures that have changed the shape of the unit. [Read more 🡒]