Five predictions are one thing. This Big 12 season is another.
By the time the league hits the stretch run, the conversation around the conference may look very different than it did a couple weeks ago. Back then, plenty of national voices were acting like the Big 12 would be lucky to get one College Football Playoff bid. Then BYU went out and beat Notre Dame, and now the mood has shifted fast.
That kind of swing is exactly why the league is suddenly getting the chest-thumping treatment. If BYU, Texas Tech and Utah keep stacking wins over the back half of the regular season, the Big 12 may force the CFP committee into choices it probably didn’t see coming when the year began.
The conference has never sent more than one team to the playoff, whether it was the four-team setup or the 12-team version. The only Big 12 teams besides Oklahoma to make the CFP have been Texas Tech last season, Arizona State in 2025 and TCU, which reached the 2022 title game.
And yes, the league’s last national champion, Texas in 2005, is gone from the conference now.
That makes the current bragging rights easy to understand, even if history still hangs over the whole thing. The Big 12 also carries a 1-8 CFP record, which is part of the reason respect has been so hard to come by.
But heading into the weekend, it stands alone as the only power conference with three unbeaten teams. The SEC has none.
The Big Ten has none. The ACC has none.
If the season ended today, the Big 12 could plausibly land at least two teams in the CFP field. That’s why the remaining schedule matters so much, because the league’s three unbeatens still have plenty of chances to stumble.
BYU still has UCF, Arizona State, Utah on the road, Baylor, Kansas and Cincinnati left.
Texas Tech still has Cincinnati, Arizona, West Virginia, Oklahoma State, Baylor and TCU.
Utah still has Houston, Cincinnati, BYU at home, Arizona, TCU and West Virginia.
If one of those teams makes it all the way to 12-0, the Big 12 could be positioned for two playoff spots if a once-beaten team beats an unbeaten in the conference title game. That kind of finish would fit the chaos of this league perfectly.
Against that backdrop, here are five predictions to chew on as the Big 12 heads into the back side of the football season.
Iowa State gets to five wins before its final game against Kansas State at Jack Trice Stadium, and that total does not include Saturday at Arizona. The Cyclones do pick up late-season wins against Cincinnati and UCF.
At some point after Saturday, Jared Rogers’ team finds a way to generate some creative offensive success.
An unbeaten BYU falls to one-loss Utah in the Big 12 championship game, which creates the likelihood of two Big 12 teams reaching the CFP.
And this ends up being the last Big 12 championship football game as we know it, once college football moves to a 24-team playoff.
RAND-O thought: Wondering if Big 12 football devotees will still be patting themselves on the back when the final College Football Playoff ratings come out on Dec. 6?
You betcha they will - as long as BYU, Texas Tech and Utah play well enough during the final half of the regular season to keep this well-deserved back-slapping going at warp back-slapping speed.
Continue winning, and the CFP committee doesn’t necessarily go into panic mode, but it’ll be forced into decisions it likely never envisioned when the season began - when the college football world was sleeping on the Big 12.
The league’s sudden rise has been easy to see. A few weeks ago, the assumption was one playoff team.
Now the buzz is that the Big 12 might get two. That would be quite a turn for a conference that has spent a lot of time fighting for respect.
A couple other Big 12 calls for the weekend: Iowa State loses at Arizona, Texas Tech beats Cincinnati, TCU keeps West Virginia reeling, Baylor hands Kansas its third straight loss, BYU rolls UCF, Kansas State wins at Arizona State and Oklahoma State hands Colorado a fifth consecutive defeat.
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