Well, that was a fun weekend of college football. Okay, maybe not if you’re a fan of a Big 12 team not named Texas, Kansas State, Texas Tech, or TCU. Though the conference went 9-1 on the first big weekend of college football, it was a struggle to get there for most of the conference.
Despite playing FCS and Group of Five members, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Baylor, Iowa State, and Kansas all struggled to pick up wins in their season openers.
West Virginia was just one of two conference members to play a member of the Power Five and wasn’t able to pick up the win over Maryland. Kansas State, the other team locked in a Power Five battle beat Stanford by 17 starting the third season of the Chris Klieman era with a big win.
The only battle between ranked opponents pitted Texas vs Louisiana, and Texas was one of the few teams in the league that made their win look easy. They got up 14 to 6 by halftime and extended that lead in the third quarter to 16 points. The Texas defense held the Ragin’ Cajuns to 2.6 yards per carry and just 4 of 13 on third down. Hudson Card was solid in his debut, throwing for two touchdowns and rushing for one.
Texas Tech knocked off Houston in a matchup that sounds like it will be a conference game in the near future. Tyler Shough was efficient, completing 17 of 24 passes for 231 yards and a touchdown, but it Tahj Brooks and Erik Ezukanama who stole the show for the Red Raiders. Brooks had 134 yards on 15 carries and 2 touchdowns. Ezukanama caught seven passes for 179 yards, averaging 25.6 yards per reception.
Iowa State is probably the most surprising result of the weekend as the struggled with Northern Iowa and were actually losing in the early going of that game.
It was a weird weekend start to finish for the Big 12, but again, as a conference, they finished 9-1.
Let’s take a look at the Big 12 scoreboard from week 1.