Big 12 Football Media Days arrive this week in Frisco, Texas, and with them comes the first real checkpoint of the college football season. All 16 teams will spend two days talking through offseason changes, roster upgrades and what they expect when the fall kicks off. The schedule is packed, but a few storylines stand above the rest.
At the top of the list is Texas Tech, and that’s not going away anytime soon. Joey McGuire and the Red Raiders are the center of attention for plenty of reasons: they won the Big 12 last year, reached the College Football Playoff and keep recruiting at an elite level.
But the Brendan Sorsby saga, which wrapped up in the last couple of weeks, only adds more heat to the room. McGuire is going to get the toughest questions of the week, from how firmly he defends Tech’s handling of the situation to what he says about the future of sports gambling in college athletics.
How he navigates all of that will be one of the defining scenes in Frisco.
The spotlight will also be bright on the conference’s four new head coaches making their media days debut: K-State’s Collin Klein, Iowa State’s Jimmy Rogers, Oklahoma State’s Eric Morris and Utah’s Morgan Scalley. Two have already been head coaches, two have worked as top-level coordinators, but all four are stepping into a new level of scrutiny.
This is the first time they’ll face the full media crush that comes with the job, and there’s usually at least one awkward moment when a first-time podium appearance gets rolling. The bigger question is which of them will end up having the best first season on the sideline.
There’s another layer of intrigue around the coaches in Waco and Cincinnati. Dave Aranda and Scott Satterfield are sitting on what look like the two hottest seats in the league.
Aranda is back for 2026, and the Mack Rhoades resignation likely helped keep him in place. Still, both coaches need a strong season - and probably a few eye-catching upsets - if they want to feel good about their chances of being back in 2027.
That pressure will be obvious this week, especially in The Star.
Quarterback buzz is always a major part of media days, and this year’s group of returning passers should be worth watching closely. BYU’s Bear Bachmeier, Colorado’s Julian Lewis, Houston’s Conner Weigman, Arizona’s Noah Fifita, K-State’s Avery Johnson and Utah’s Devon Dampier are all set to be in Frisco.
Some are established veterans, including Dampier, Weigman and Fifita, while others like Bachmeier and Lewis are still building off their freshman seasons. The way they carry themselves, and the way they look physically and emotionally, can tell you plenty about what might be coming this fall.
Then there’s Brett Yormark, who steps into the middle of one of the most unsettled stretches in college sports history. The Big 12 commissioner is expected to address the Protect College Sports Act pending in Congress, the NCAA’s power, the future of college sports on television, the NCAA Tournament’s upcoming expansion and the ongoing debate over whether the College Football Playoff should grow to 16 or 24 teams.
He’ll also have to deal with the Brendan Sorsby drama. Whatever Yormark says in Frisco could shape conversations around college sports for weeks.
In Other News...
How Iowa State Went From Big 12 Newcomer To Rare Constant
A decade can make a conference look like a different sport, and Iowa State has had a front-row seat to the change. When Matt Campbell arrived for his first Big 12 Media Days in 2016, he was the rookie face of a league that still felt stable and familiar. By the time Jimmy Rogers took the same stage in 2024, the backdrop had shifted so much that the comparison said as much about the Big 12 as it did about the Cyclones.
None of the head coaches who were there in 2016 are still in the league, a reminder of how quickly college football now turns over even the people in charge. The Big 12 itself has gone from a 10-team round robin to a 16-team league stretched across four time zones, with NIL and the transfer portal helping remake the job description along the way. For Iowa State, the unusual part is no longer being the newcomer. It is being one of the constants. [Read more 🡒]
Iowa State Freshman Buzz Just Took A Brutal Turn Before Fall Practices
The Big 12 is kicking off its media days with commissioner Brett Yormark set to spend part of the week answering broader league questions, and Iowa State has its own subplot worth watching on the basketball side as fall practices approach. Christian Wiggins arrived with the kind of freshman buzz that can matter on a veteran roster, the sort of young perimeter piece who might have found a way into the rotation sooner rather than later.
Instead, his early momentum has been interrupted before preseason work even gets rolling, leaving the Cyclones to adjust their backcourt plans and wait on a player they were hoping could help stretch the floor and bring some two-way value off the bench. For a program that tends to lean on depth and development, the timing is especially rough, and it adds another layer of uncertainty to a month that was already going to be full of league-wide storylines. [Read more 🡒]
Iowa State Earns Top 12 Respect Despite Major Roster Turnover
Iowa State is still earning national respect heading into the new season, landing 12th in CBS Sports latest college basketball power rankings even as the roster around it changes. The Cyclones are coming off a strong run and will look different this time around, but coach T.J. Otzelberger has enough returning pieces to keep the program in the mix.
Killyan Toure and Jamarion Batemon give Iowa State some continuity in the backcourt, and that matters for a team trying to reload without sliding backward. Otzelbergers group has already shown it can adapt, and the bigger question now is how quickly the new pieces settle in around the players who already know what it takes to win in Ames. [Read more 🡒]