Week 5 in the Big 12 has a little bit of everything: a heavyweight test, a road challenge, a matchup that could turn into a rock fight, and a pair of teams trying to sort out where they really belong in the league picture.
After the chaos of Week 4, the conference gets another slate with plenty on the line and only one nonconference game. The questions are getting sharper now.
Who’s real? Who’s still searching?
And who can handle the moment when the schedule starts asking harder things?
Ames might be the place where the pace drops and the pounding starts. Iowa State and West Virginia both want to live on the ground, and both have shown they can make it work.
Michael Hawkins Jr. and Cam Cook form what is arguably one of the best rushing duos in the conference, while Jaylon Raynor and Aiden Floria have also done their damage on the ground for Iowa State. With neither passing attack likely to light up the scoreboard, this one feels like it could be decided by which team can control the run game and dictate the tempo.
Don’t be shocked if the first team to score ends up owning the rest of the afternoon. This has the feel of old-school football.
TCU, meanwhile, is staring at a much different kind of test. Last week’s loss to UCF left the Horned Frogs with few positives, and the concerns are piling up fast.
The offense has been the worst I have seen under Sonny Dykes, and the shortage of playmakers compared to past TCU teams is a real issue. The penalties only make things messier.
Now the Horned Frogs get a huge chance to reset at home against a Top 10 BYU team. That’s a tall order, especially against a strong defense, but it also gives TCU an opening to show something better.
Can the Horned Frogs make it competitive, or does this one get out of hand in Fort Worth?
Texas Tech is dealing with a different problem: slow starts that keep showing up week after week. Against Abilene Christian, Oregon State, Houston and Sam Houston, the Red Raiders have had trouble getting rolling early.
They’ve mostly recovered and won comfortably, but the pattern is there. Now comes a tougher stage, with a trip to Boulder for a primetime road game against Colorado.
Joey McGuire has already said his team needs to start faster. The question now is whether the Red Raiders can actually do it away from Lubbock and in a tougher environment.
Then there’s the Baylor-Arizona State game, which sits in that tricky middle ground where both teams are 1-0 in conference play but still have plenty to prove. Neither program looks like a true top-tier Big 12 team right now, and that’s what makes this one so interesting.
Dave Aranda is still under pressure, and new quarterback DJ Lagway has been uneven outside of a few flashes. Arizona State has had its own offensive issues, too.
I believe Arizona State’s offense with Cutter Boley is better than Baylor’s, but that still leaves a lot unresolved. One of these teams can take a step toward being a respectable mid-tier Big 12 club.
The other could start drifting toward the bottom.
And then there’s Cincinnati, which has gone from intriguing to impossible to ignore. Before the Bearcats beat Kansas State, they had my curiosity.
After that physically dominant win, they have my full attention. Nip at Night is real, and Cincinnati’s home atmosphere has already shown itself to be one of the best in the Big 12.
The next test is different, though. The Bearcats have to prove they can take that same edge on the road, heading west across a pair of time zones to face Arizona.
Cincinnati wants to run the football, and it has been one of the conference’s best teams at doing it. Arizona, though, brings one of the league’s better run defenses.
If the Bearcats can go on the road and win in primetime, then it’s time to start talking seriously about where they fit in the Big 12 race.
In Other News...
Cincinnati Just Lost A Backcourt Piece It Was Counting On
Cincinnatis backcourt planning took a hit when a court ruled that guard MJ Collins will be ineligible to play in the 2026-27 season as part of the Filip Borovacanin vs. NCAA case in Ohio. Collins had transferred from Utah State after earlier stops at Virginia Tech and Vanderbilt, and his case was tied to seeking eligibility relief connected to the NCAAs 5-for-5 policy.
For a Bearcats team that was counting on Collins as part of its guard rotation, the ruling arrives with real roster implications ahead of the upcoming season. The decision came after the NCAA appealed, and it leaves Cincinnati to sort through another layer of uncertainty in a backcourt it expected to lean on. [Read more 🡒]