With five weeks left, the Big 12 still feels like a race with a dozen moving parts. Utah is perched alone at 4-0 in league play, but BYU, Texas Tech, Arizona and Oklahoma State are all one game back, and Houston is hanging around just a half-game behind that group at 3-2. The standings are crowded enough already; the schedule breakpoints could make things even messier.
The cleanest path belongs to Houston, at least on paper. The Cougars have a bye this weekend, then a run that ESPN Analytics labels heavily in their favor: Cincinnati on Nov. 7, at Colorado on Nov. 13, at West Virginia on Nov. 21 and Baylor on Nov.
- Houston’s two league losses have come by a combined 10 points, against Texas Tech and Utah, and in both games the Cougars had double-digit leads.
If three or more teams end up tied for second at 7-2, including Houston, the Cougars also have some favorable tiebreakers in play for the Big 12 title game.
Oklahoma State’s closing stretch is trickier, mostly because of the road mileage. The Cowboys are 5-2 overall and 3-1 in the league, with their only conference loss coming by three points at Houston.
They still have five games left, and three of them are away from home: at Iowa State, at Kansas State and at Arizona State, with home dates against Texas Tech and Kansas in between. Even so, ESPN Analytics has Oklahoma State favored in every remaining game.
The heavyweight matchup lands on Nov. 14, when Texas Tech comes to Stillwater in a game that should shape the conference race.
BYU’s last five games are front-loaded with opportunity, and the biggest one is obvious. The Cougars are 6-1 overall and 3-1 in Big 12 play, and three of their final five are at LaVell Edwards Stadium.
ESPN’s numbers have BYU favored in all three home games, plus the road trip to Kansas. But the Nov. 7 trip to Utah is the one that could decide everything.
BYU vs. Utah at Rice-Eccles Stadium is shaping up as not only the top Big 12 game of the year, but one of the best matchups in college football this season, with the winner likely to make the championship game.
Texas Tech has to prove it can handle a tougher second half after a relatively soft first one. The Red Raiders played only one ranked team through the opening half of the season, and that was a two-point win over Houston in September.
Now they’re staring at two ranked opponents in the final five weeks, starting Saturday at home against Arizona and then a mid-November trip to Oklahoma State. Texas Tech also has West Virginia at home, Baylor on the road and TCU at home to close it out.
The question hanging over that stretch is simple: can the Red Raiders generate enough offense to get through both ranked tests?
Arizona’s road is just as demanding, and maybe more so because of where the key games fall. The Wildcats are 6-1 overall and 3-1 in conference play, and they’re about to open with a trip to No.
13 Texas Tech. After that comes TCU at home, then No.
6 Utah at home in mid-November, followed by road games at Kansas State and a final home date with Arizona State. Arizona and Texas Tech are the only teams in this group with two remaining games against ranked opponents.
The Wildcats haven’t lost since falling at BYU in their conference opener, a game in which they led at halftime and had a chance to take the lead in the fourth quarter. And while Arizona gets three of its last five at home, it still has to deal with Utah when both teams could be chasing the same championship-game spot.
The hardest path of all belongs to Utah. The Utes are 7-0 overall and 4-0 in the Big 12, and while ESPN Analytics still sees them as favorites in every remaining game, the next stretch is the one that stands out.
Utah goes to Cincinnati this weekend, hosts No. 8 BYU the next week, then travels to No.
22 Arizona. Three of the next four are on the road, and that run will go a long way toward determining how meaningful the final two games become in the Big 12 race.
Morgan Scalley’s team has handled every challenge so far in 2026, but this is the stretch that will test just how real that unbeaten start is.
There are also four other teams sitting at 2-2 in Big 12 play - Arizona State, Baylor, Cincinnati and UCF - and both Cincinnati and UCF are worth watching closely after upsetting top-10 teams last weekend. UCF, which knocked off then-No.
2 BYU, is favored in four of its last five games and no longer has any ranked opponents left. That doesn’t necessarily put the Knights in direct control of the race, but they could matter a lot in tiebreaker scenarios.
Cincinnati, on the other hand, may have the wildest remaining slate of anyone in the league. The Bearcats have No.
6 Utah at home this week, then road games at No. 18 Houston and No.
8 BYU still ahead. If they keep playing spoiler the way they did in last week’s 37-24 win over Texas Tech, Cincinnati could end up swinging the Big 12 race in a major way.
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For Utah, the news matters because the next phase of league business will unfold under different leadership, even as the conference continues to navigate a changing college sports landscape. Yormark will stay on for now, but his planned move to a new role outside of college sports leaves a vacancy at the top and adds another layer of uncertainty to a league that has already seen plenty of transition. [Read more 🡒]