If the Big 12 is a fraternity, this year’s new pledges — BYU, Houston, Cincinnati and UCF — all have yet to escape the hazing period.
Not only were the conference’s four additions held winless in each of their first league matchups, but each squad was handily defeated by at least two scores. The Big 12’s upperclassmen don’t seem too threatened by the freshmen.
Sure, there were positive takeaways from each inaugural loss, but moral victories aren’t worth anything in the Power Five realm, no matter how recently you were promoted from AAC or independence obscurity.
Luckily for everyone, at least one of the new Big 12 schools is guaranteed to win this week. Thank you, conference cannibalism!
The victor of Friday night’s BYU-Cincinnati showdown in Provo will be the first expansion program to prevail in league play. Such a feat comes with bragging rights, but more importantly, the pride of being the answer to an obscure future trivia question. It just means more.
The brawl of the Bearcats and Cougars is as unpredictable as it is intriguing. Oddsmakers originally pegged BYU a three-point favorite, only for the line to swing back in favor of Cincinnati by two at the time of this writing. The Cougars haven’t been a home underdog since Week 3 in 2021. The Bearcats haven’t traveled this far west since their last visit to Provo in 2015. Something’s gotta give.
Cincinnati ranks 14th nationally in total offense, while the Bearcat defense holds opponents to just 3.48 yards per attempt on the ground. Following a horrific rushing performance against Kansas where the Cougars averaged just over 14 inches per carry, BYU would kill to octuple that number to finish closer to Cincinnati’s allowed average.
A Bearcats win would likely cement Scott Satterfield’s squad as favorites for their next three contests, paving a plausible road forward to clinch bowl eligibility before Halloween. For the Cougars, injuries are already piling up after four weeks, making every possible victory all the more valuable as the program’s depth is tested to the extreme. Defeating Cincinnati would seal a 4-1 September for Kalani Sitake’s crew, providing a bit more breathing room in the quest for December bowling.
Thankfully, if BYU does end up falling short Friday night, general conference this weekend will help soothe the local broken hearts.
Austin, anarchy and Applebee’s
Does anyone remember what happened the last time Texas hosted Kansas? I find it impossible to forget.
On Nov. 13, 2021, the downtrodden Jayhawks stumbled into Austin as 31-point underdogs. They hadn’t defeated a Big 12 foe in their previous 18 tries and had lost a whopping 56 straight conference road contests. To call Kansas the nation’s FBS doormat at the time would have been too generous — this team was horrific. The night should have been over before it even started.
So, naturally, an all-time classic ensued, because of course it did.
The Jayhawks scored two early touchdowns, led by 21 in the second half, caught the attention of the entire sports world, suddenly choked down the stretch and then surrendered a game-tying Longhorns touchdown in the final seconds of regulation that tied the game and forced overtime.
Big, bad Texas quickly scored to open the bonus period and took its first lead of the night. The ragtag Jayhawks — Texas’ polar opposite in terms of recruiting prowess, program prestige and booster support — responded with a score of their own, following which Kansas quarterback Jalon Daniels scrambled frantically out of a broken design to find walk-on fullback Jared Casey for the game-winning two-point conversion.
Ballgame. Kansas 57, Texas 56. Anarchy in Austin.
The only thing more incredible than the chaotic finish was Casey quickly parlaying his heroics into immortality as the star of an Applebee’s commercial just days later. We will never see another NIL deal so important in our lives. Long live fullbacks!
Two years later, the historic upset has proven to be a turning point for both programs. Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian said the loss to Kansas ”exposed some warts” in his program that were necessary to remove in order to move forward, as the Longhorns now sit atop the Big 12 as the No. 3 team in the country. The Jayhawks’ young core of Daniels, running back Devin Neal and others — under the direction of head coach Lance Leipold — used the win as a launching pad from the cellar into relevancy, earning the school’s first bowl appearance since 2008 last year and are now ranked No. 24 after a 4-0 start to 2023.
Much has changed for both squads since their last meeting in Austin. Saturday’s showdown at Darrell K. Royal Memorial Stadium could be an early preview of the Big 12 title game later this fall. Texas is looking to end its conference tenure with a bang. Kansas hopes to establish itself as a league power going forward. Both teams can score like crazy. This should play out as one of the best conference games of the year.
Saturday’s eventual hero probably won’t receive the Applebee’s treatment, but a Big 12 championship trophy might taste better. Whatever happens in Austin this weekend will surely help decide who has the chance to taste that trophy.
EmBEARassing
What’s going on in Waco?
Baylor wasn’t necessarily expected to be in the mix for the Big 12 crown this year, but what the Bears have shown thus far has been shockingly putrid.
Baylor is 1-3 after humiliating itself in a season-opening loss to Texas State (how?), falling apart late against Utah and getting steamrolled by Texas. The Bears have lost seven straight against FBS opponents dating back to last November, with five of those losses coming by double digits.
It’s a really strange team. Baylor ranks 61st in total offense, yet 114th in scoring. The Bears place in the upper third nationally for third-down defense but in the bottom 15 when defending in the red zone. The quarterback play has been sloppy, the tackling is weak and they can’t stop the run. It’s honestly a miracle that Baylor’s season point differential is only -27. It feels closer to -200.
This would be unacceptable for any coach in the fourth year of their tenure, but for Dave Aranda — who finished 18-9 over the past two seasons with a conference title in 2021 — this kind of performance in his fourth year is nearly criminal. Baylor is unlikely to fire him, but the collapse of Aranda’s program into a worse position than when he arrived doesn’t offer much encouragement going forward. It’s just depressing.
There’s still two months left for Aranda to get things back on track, but with Baylor set to face UCF, Cincinnati, Kansas State and TCU all on the road, this season may already be dead, unless RGIII somehow has some eligibility left over.
Hypnotoads and ‘country roads’
There may not be a friskier team around the conference than West Virginia.
The Mountaineers are mastering the art of the ugly win. They’ve averaged a meager 233.5 total yards per contest the past two weeks, yet have allowed just 19 points over the same span. Their passing offense is practically nonexistent, but they’re averaging more than four yards per carry despite their predictability of running twice as often as they throw. It’s a model more similar to the classic SEC than the Big 12, yet here West Virginia stands at 3-1 after being projected to finish dead last in 2023.
But is the ugliness sustainable?
We’ll find out Saturday in Fort Worth, where the Mountaineers will travel to face an elite TCU offense putting up nearly 40 points per game.
The Horned Frogs have rebounded nicely following a Week 1 loss to Coach Prime, averaging around 300 yards passing and 200 rushing each week with dual-threat quarterback Chandler Morris leading the charge. After giving up 45 points to Colorado, TCU has allowed 36 total points since, showing some sneakily stellar defense that could end up playing spoiler for Texas and Oklahoma down the stretch.
The two offenses may be light-years apart from one another, but it’s the defensive side of the ball that will determine everything in this matchup. Horned Frogs coach Sonny Dykes even went so far as to say that he couldn’t identify a single weakness within the Mountaineers defense — quite the praise to receive from such an astute offensive mind.
If TCU comes out swinging from the start, the Horned Frogs can bury West Virginia early. If the Mountaineers can create some first-half frustration and entropy defensively, they’ll earn the advantage of forcing TCU to play their own ugly type of game.
Additionally, an impressive output against the staunch Mountaineers defense would prove TCU capable of keeping up with the highly potent Texas and Oklahoma squads. If West Virginia can smother the Horned Frogs defensively, it could potentially do the same in stopping the Longhorns and Sooners.
Does everything in the Big 12 really come back to Texas and Oklahoma? Of course it does. Until either of the juggernauts are toppled, it’s just the reality of this conference. The majority of these matchups will essentially serve as auditions for who might challenge the Longhorns and Sooners, and this week West Virginia-TCU seems to hold the necessary magnitude for a leaguewide ripple effect.
This is the conference of chaos, after all. The road to Jerryworld for the championship will always be bumpy.
Jackson Payne is the sports editor for BYU’s Daily Universe and a Deseret News contributor. Follow him on Twitter @jackson5payne.