The Big 12 doesn’t ease into Week 7. It comes at you with a ranked showdown, a rivalry game in Kansas, and another one in Texas, and a handful of teams that have to answer real questions before the weekend is over. BYU hosts Notre Dame, Oklahoma State heads to Houston, and the conference’s pressure points are easy to spot.
Oklahoma State is one of them. The Cowboys have been one of the season’s biggest surprises, and Drew Mestemaker has been central to that rise.
But the next step is proving that hot start is real Big 12 contention, not just a nice run through the opening stretch. Houston is the perfect test because the Cougars are also being talked about as title hopefuls.
The difference is that Houston was supposed to be here. Oklahoma State wasn’t.
That makes this one pretty straightforward for the Cowboys. Win, and the path opens up.
Their next three games are favorable enough that they could be 6-0 heading into the Nov. 14 matchup with Texas Tech. Lose, and they slip back into the big crowd of teams with no room for error the rest of the way.
Kansas State has a different kind of proving ground: survival. The Wildcats meet Kansas in the Sunflower Showdown, and after dropping their first two Big 12 games to Cincinnati and Houston, the concern isn’t just about a bad stretch.
It’s about whether this thing starts sliding fast. Losing to your rival is always a shot.
Losing to Kansas this year would land differently. The Jayhawks have a losing record, Lance Leipold may be on the hot seat, and Kansas State has not dropped this rivalry game in 16 years.
If the Wildcats lose now, the conversation turns from disappointment to something much worse.
Baylor and TCU are bundled together here because they’re meeting each other, and because both have a lot riding on the same game. And credit to both schools for leaning into “Revivalry” on social media.
That’s the one we’ll use. “Bluebonnet Battle” is not it.
For Baylor, the assignment is clean. The Bears are undefeated in Big 12 play, they’re coming off a bye, and they have a chance to get through the first third of conference play without a loss.
That would keep them right where they want to be: in the hunt for a spot in the Big 12 Championship game. A stumble in a rivalry game would complicate all of that in a hurry.
TCU’s pressure is harsher. The Horned Frogs are also coming off a bye, but they still haven’t won a Big 12 game.
They’ve already lost to UCF and BYU, and another defeat here would basically shut the door on their Big 12 title hopes. It would also leave their bowl picture in a dangerous place.
There’s even the bigger question hanging over Sonny Dykes, but as the source makes clear, the game itself comes first.
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The next few weeks carry far more weight than the early schedule ever did, with Houston and Texas Tech looming as the games that could define whether the Cowboys stay positioned for a run at Arlington and beyond. Tulsas three-game skid has only sharpened the contrast with Oklahoma States recovery, but the committee will still have to weigh a blemish from the opener against a rsum that is likely to be judged as much by what happens in this brutal stretch as by anything already in the books. [Read more 🡒]