For a few weeks, it was easy to treat the Big 12 like background noise while the Big Ten and SEC soaked up the oxygen. That changed in a hurry in Week 7, when the league’s top end and its deeper middle all landed punches that were hard to ignore.
BYU delivered the headline grabber, taking down a Notre Dame team that had won 16 straight games by double digits. The Cougars’ win came in controversial fashion, but it still pushed them to their highest AP Top 25 ranking since 1984 and put them in the conversation as a real title contender.
Texas Tech followed with its most convincing win of the season and stayed unbeaten in conference play. Houston handled a crucial league game against Oklahoma State.
Utah survived a furious push from unranked Colorado and climbed into the sport’s top 10.
That kind of weekend doesn’t just move rankings. It changes the way a conference gets talked about.
As many as five Big 12 teams are now in the AP Top 25, with three in the top 10. Half of the nation’s remaining unbeaten teams come from the league.
For a conference long viewed as the Big Ten and SEC’s little brother, that is a pretty loud rebuttal.
The reputation didn’t come from nowhere. The last national champion from the Big 12 was the 2005 Texas Longhorns, and when the conference finally got back to the title game with TCU in 2023, Georgia rolled to a 65-7 win - the most lopsided title game ever. That history has lingered, even as the league has kept finding its way into the playoff picture.
This year’s nonconference record against the Power 4 sits at 6-7. That’s better than the Big Ten’s 4-10 mark, though nowhere near the SEC’s 10-2.
Even so, the Big 12 remains a serious player in the race for the sport’s most valuable prize: a second College Football Playoff bid. In each of the last two seasons, the conference got only its automatic spot in the soon-to-be-extinct 12-team bracket.
If the CFP were set today, Texas Tech and BYU would both project into the field.
And yet, for all that momentum, there was still a sense entering 2026 that the league might be missing a true heavyweight. Texas Tech was the favorite, but the quarterback situation after the Brendan Sorsby saga was a real question.
BYU had back-to-back double-digit win seasons on its résumé, but conference slipups in both years and concerns at receiver invited doubt. Utah had the benefit of returning key Kyle Whittingham starters in the offensive backfield, though first-year coach Morgan Scalley brought uncertainty.
Oklahoma State carried its own unknowns with a transfer-heavy roster, while Houston and the newly minted 25th-ranked Arizona Wildcats looked more like sleepers than proven contenders.
Now the league looks very different. The Big 12 has three undefeated teams, three one-loss teams in conference play, and a real foothold in the CFP conversation. The next few weeks should only sharpen the picture as the conference starts beating up on itself: Houston-Utah in Week 8, Arizona-Texas Tech in Week 9 and BYU against Utah in the Holy War in Week 10.
Those games will sort out the pecking order. They’ll also keep proving the point Week 7 already made clear: the Big 12 is no longer a league to glance past.
In Other News...
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The bigger picture is just as important for Texas Tech, which now finds itself with a better view of the national race and a clearer foothold in the Big 12 conversation. Other league results, along with the ongoing stumble of Texas and the backdrop of Steve Sarkisian's earlier comments, only sharpen the sense that the Red Raiders are in a much more favorable spot than they were a week ago, even if the playoff road still has plenty left to sort out. [Read more 🡒]
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At the center of the uncertainty is JT Toppin, who is working back from a knee injury, along with three fifth-year seniors whose status depends on ongoing court rulings tied to NCAA eligibility extensions. Those decisions could shape Texas Techs depth and rotation well into the season, leaving the Red Raiders in a wait-and-see stretch even before the games start to count. [Read more 🡒]
Houston Is Still Right In The Big 12 Title Fight
The Big 12 opened the 2026-27 season with some familiar weight near the top of the AP Preseason Top 25, and Houston is right in the middle of that conversation at No. 10. The league has six ranked teams in all, with Arizona leading the way at No. 5, followed by Kansas, Iowa State, Texas Tech and BYU, while TCU sits just outside the poll after receiving votes.
For Texas Tech, the placement is another reminder of how crowded the conference race already looks before a game has been played. The Red Raiders are tucked into a group of ranked Big 12 teams that should spend the season trading blows, and Houston's spot near the top only sharpens the sense that the path to a league title may run through more than one national-caliber contender. [Read more 🡒]