In all the talk Sunday surrounding the BYU Cougars’ wild win over the rival Utah Utes Saturday and the drama that unfolded following the game, there wasn’t a whole lot of discussion about the race for the Big 12 Conference title.
Nevertheless, BYU remained atop the conference standings as the only team in the league to have a perfect record, and nearly entered Sunday with a two-game lead on every other squad.
As it stands, though, BYU is 6-0 in Big 12 play with three games remaining, with the Colorado Buffaloes close behind at 5-1 and four teams at 4-2, including an Iowa State Cyclones squad that entered Saturday with just one loss but dropped their second consecutive game.
Colorado, which played the Texas Tech Red Raiders on Saturday afternoon, trailed 20-17 nearly halfway through the third quarter and it looked like the Cougars might enter their game against the Utes with a two-game lead on everyone.
In a span of less than seven minutes, however, the Buffaloes scored two touchdowns to grab a 31-20 lead. Later, with the score 34-27 in favor of Colorado, Texas Tech got the ball with 1:03 left but had to go 94 yards for a touchdown.
After an incomplete pass on the first play of the drive, Colorado’s Arden Walker forced a fumble from Texas Tech quarterback Behren Morton and Walker’s teammate Shilo Sanders scooped it up and ran it into the end zone to make the score 41-27 for the Buffaloes with 51 seconds to go, much too big of a hole for the Red Raiders to dig out of.
The Cyclones, meanwhile, trailed a bad Kansas Jayhawks team 31-13 at halftime Saturday and lost 45-36, moving from a squad that was ranked No. 11 in the country at the beginning of the month to one that is on the outside looking in at playing in the Big 12 title game on Dec. 7.
As it stands, if BYU and Colorado both win out, they would face each other in the conference championship game with the winner getting a spot in the College Football Playoff, which starts on Dec. 20.
That certainly would be the cleanest way for things to work out. If some combination of BYU and/or Colorado loses before then, a whole slew of complicated scenarios for who plays in the title game and has a chance for a CFP berth could end up on the table.
Here’s a look at the full conference standings. Team records are for Big 12 games only.
- BYU, 6-0.
- Colorado, 5-1.
- Iowa State, 4-2.
- Kansas State, 4-2.
- Arizona State, 4-2.
- West Virginia, 4-2.
- TCU, 4-3.
- Texas Tech, 4-3.
- Cincinnati, 3-3.
- Baylor, 3-3.
- Houston, 3-3.
- Kansas, 2-4.
- UCF, 2-5.
- Arizona, 1-5.
- Utah, 1-5.
- Oklahoma State, 0-7.