Tag: Big 12 Conference

Big 12 has five teams in AP Top 25 poll following Week 2

The Big 12 Conference sees five teams in the Top 25 of the Associated Press Poll following Week 2.

The latest AP poll is out following Week Two of the College Football season. Once again, the Big 12 has five teams from the conference in the poll. This time, there is a new team in the rankings.

Out went the Kansas Jayhawks. Following their road loss at Illinois, the Jayhawks dropped out, along with Iowa, Georgia Tech, and North Carolina State.

Into the Top 25 is the Iowa State Cyclones. The Cyclones went to Iowa City and knocked out rival Iowa in the annual CyHawk game. The Cyclones are now 21st in the rankings, ahead of Clemson, Nebraska, Boston College, and Northern Illinois.

The Big 12 sees a trio of teams in a row. The first Big 12 team in the rankings is the Utah Utes at No. 12, followed by Oklahoma State and Kansas State. The final team from the Big 12 is the Arizona Wildcats. They come in at 20th, just ahead of Iowa State.

At the top of the poll are the Georgia Bulldogs, Texas Longhorns, Ohio State Buckeyes, Alabama Crimson Tide, and Ole Miss Rebels.

One of the big games in the Big 12 this week features Kansas State hosting Arizona. This will be a battle between a pair of top 20 teams in the poll.

The SEC has the most teams in the poll, with eight, while the Big Ten has six inside the top 25.

Shedeur Sanders, Travis Hunter among Heisman candidates in Big 12

Take a look at the nine Heisman Trophy Candidates that play in the Big 12 Conference.

After the first week of college football, the race for the 2024 Heisman saw players move up and down regarding their stock to win the award.

The Big 12 conference has nine players looking to take home the most prestigious award in the sport.

Here is how those nine fared in Week 1, and what they are up against in Week 2:

Travis Hunter, Wide Receiver/Defensive Back, Colorado Buffaloes

Hunter played nearly the entire game for the Colorado Buffaloes. They picked up a win at home over North Dakota State. When he was not on the field for offense, he was playing defensive back for the Buffs.

Hunter made some incredible catches in the game, which resulted in 132 yards and three touchdowns. His teammate Jimmy Horn Jr. went for just under 200 in the game and a touchdown. It will be interesting to see how the Buffaloes come out in Week 2, as they take on a tough Nebraska squad.

Cam Rising, Quarterback, Utah Utes

The Utah Utes missed Rising last season. There is no doubt about that. He came back in Week 1 and looked great against Southern Utah.

He is likely going to get more than 15 attempts going forward, but against the Thunderbirds Rising was strong, with nearly 17 yards per completed pass. That is second in the country to Washington State’s John Mateer.

Utah will play a fun one this week, as they host the Baylor Bears.

Shedeur Sanders, Quarterback, Colorado Buffaloes

The Colorado signal caller tossed for 445 yards and four touchdowns in the team’s season-opening win over North Dakota State. He did have a turnover in the game but was only sacked once.

Coach Prime and his staff are hoping to keep him more upright this season and give him opportunities to create. The Buffaloes will face a tough task in Week 2 as they take on the Nebraska Cornhuskers.

Avery Johnson, Quarterback, Kansas State Wildcats

The athletic quarterback was 14 of 21 passing for 153 yards, with two touchdowns and an interception in Week 1 against UT-Martin. Johnson did not get a ton of chances to use his legs, but when he did, he averaged 12.3 yards per game carry.

Will Howard left for Ohio State, but many around Manhattan feel Johnson’s skill set is better served for the 2024 squad. Kansas State will go on the road in Week 2 and take on the Tulane Green Wave.

Noah Fifita, Quarterback, Arizona Wildcats

Fifita heads into Week 2 with four touchdown passes already under his belt from the team’s Week 1 win over New Mexico. The signal-caller found his connection right away with receiver Tetairoa McMillan and went to him early and often.

Fifita should be able to put up pretty strong numbers all season with the style of play Arizona would like to play. The Wildcats have Northern Arizona this weekend and will face their toughest test in Week 3 at Kansas State.

Jalon Daniels, Quarterback, Kansas Jayhawks

Daniels was back and looked healthy in Week 1 when the Jayhawks took down Lindenwood, 48-3. Kansas will need him to be if they want to contend in the Big 12 standings. Daniels was 9 of 15 passing for 148 yards and a touchdown in the game. Daniels is also a big-time threat with his legs. He will use that weapon when he needs to. That time may come this weekend and the Jayhawks are on the road at Illinois is a Big Ten / Big 12 clash.

Tetairoa McMillan, Wide Receiver, Arizona Wildcats

McMillan went for over 300 yards in Arizona’s win over New Mexico. His statistics were the best of any receiver in College Football for Week 1. His stock rose after the first week of the season. His issue will be, if he is catching the football over and over, Noah Fifita, another Heisman candidate will be getting it to him. McMillan had so many yards in the first game, he is already 74 yards ahead of second place in the country.

Arizona will take on Northern Arizona on Saturday.

KJ Jefferson, Quarterback, Central Florida Knights

Jefferson put up numbers similar to what Jalon Daniels did. The signal caller needed just 14 passing attempts to get 165 yards and two touchdowns. He did throw an interception in the blowout win.

The Knights are going to get another game that should not challenge them too much in Week 2. Central Florida is at home against Sam Houston State.

Ollie Gordon, Running Back, Oklahoma State Cowboys

The best chance for a running back to win this award is Ollie Gordon from Oklahoma State. His Week 1 numbers were good, but finished 19th in College Football in rushing yards with 126. He also scored three touchdowns in the game.

His biggest running back competition may come from Ashton Jeanty of Boise State, who scored six touchdowns in Week 1. Oklahoma State will need to get Gordon the ball early and often, as they host Arkansas this weekend.

Big 12 dangled the carrot for UConn, just like they did with Gonzaga

The Big 12 paused conference expansion talk with UConn, just like they did one year ago with the Gonzaga Bulldogs.

The UConn Huskies and Big 12 mutually agreed to pause conversations about having the back-to-back men’s basketball national champions join the conference, according to a press release from commissioner Brett Yormark.

As commissioner, it is my responsibility to explore a variety of value-creating opportunities on behalf of the Big 12. Following detailed discussions with my conference colleagues alongside UConn leadership, we have jointly decided to pause our conversations at this time. We will instead focus our attention and resources to ushering in this new era of college athletics.

UConn athletic director David Benedict released a statement as well, seeming to contradict the idea that the decision was mutual:

“Undoubtedly, many of you have followed recent media reports about the Big 12’s renewed interest in UConn as a conference member. It is always our objective to put UConn in the very best position for future success, so we did engage in exploratory dialogue with the Big 12. Ultimately, the Big 12 determined that it will pause on conversations about membership expansion.”

If this story looks familiar, it is because the sequence of events is eerily similar to what happened almost exactly one year ago between the Big 12 and the Gonzaga Bulldogs out of the WCC.

Gonzaga and the Big 12 engaged in conversation, Yormark publicly made it clear he believes Gonzaga is a value add to the conference, the talks seemed to progress quickly, and then ultimately fell apart with enough backlash from voting parties who wanted to first focus on integrating the eight new programs added over the past two years before adding again.

Does this mean the Big 12 will never accept UConn, or Gonzaga? Not necessarily, but there are enough dissenters within the conference presidents and athletic directors to keep this from happening in the short term.

Yormark tried and failed to make Gonzaga a member in 2023, getting feedback that the timing was too soon, and tried again a year later hoping an even bigger brand – in a more appealing market coming off back-to-back national titles and with a football program, albeit a bad one – would generate the necessary votes to expand.

No go once again, and now the wait continues for both the Zags and Huskies.

Big 12 lands 13 players on Bednarik Award watch list

13 players from the Big 12 conference were named to the Bednarik Award watch list as college football’s best defensive player.

The Chuck Bednarik watch list was announced earlier this week, and 13 members of the Big 12 were named to the list. This award is given to the best defensive player in college football.

The Bednarik Award is named after Chuck Bednarik, who was a 2x NFL Champion and 10x 1st Team All-Pro Linebacker for the Philadelphia Eagles from 1949-1962. Chuck was the last player in NFL history to play both ways of the ball full-time. Bednarik is also a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame and the College Football Hall of Fame.  This award was established in 1995.

The five most recent winners of the award are Payton Wilson (NC State), Will Anderson Jr (Alabama), Jordan Davis (Georgia), Zaven Collins (Tulsa), and Chase Young (Ohio State).

The Big 12 members that were nominated to the list this season are:

  • CB Tacario Davis, Arizona
  • DE Tyler Batty, BYU
  • DT Dontay Corleone, Cincinnati
  • EDGE B.J. Green, Colorado
  • CB Travis Hunter, Colorado
  • S Jeremiah Cooper, Iowa State
  • CB Cobee Bryant, Kansas
  • LB Austin Moore, Kansas State
  • LB Nick Martin, Oklahoma State
  • LB Collin Oliver, Oklahoma State
  • LB Namdi Obiazor, TCU
  • DT Lee Hunter, UCF
  • DT Junior Tafuna, Utah

Tad Boyle disrespected in On3 ranking of top Big 12 men’s basketball coaches

How do you feel about Tad Boyle being left off this list?

Not long after watching three of his players enter the NBA, longtime Colorado leader Tad Boyle was disrespected by On3 in an updated ranking of the Big 12’s top 10 men’s basketball coaches.

The Buffs’ all-time wins leader was not featured among the conference’s top 10 coaches, selected by On3 associate editor James Fletcher III. Joining Boyle on the outside were Arizona State’s Bobby Hurley, Oklahoma State’s Steve Lutz, TCU’s Jamie Dixon, UCF’s Johnny Dawkins and Utah’s Craig Smith.

Boyle proponents point to his 10 NBA draft picks, six NCAA Tournament appearances and 10 seasons with 20-plus wins since coming to Boulder in 2010. Detractors often mention Colorado hasn’t reached a Sweet 16 under Boyle’s leadership.

This past season, the Buffs won a program-record 26 games, including two in the NCAA Tournament. CU products KJ Simpson (Charlotte Hornets), Tristan da Silva (Orlando Magic) and Cody Williams (Utah Jazz) were then drafted in June.

BYU’s Kevin Young, a former Phoenix Suns assistant who’s preparing for his first season as a college head coach, took the No. 10 spot on On3’s ranking.

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247Sports’ Josh Pate doesn’t believe there’s a gap between OU and Texas

Is there a sizable gap between the Sooners and the Longhorns? Josh Pate of 247Sports thinks there isn’t.

The Oklahoma Sooners and the Texas Longhorns are officially members of the [autotag]Southeastern Conference[/autotag]. After nearly three years of waiting, Monday marked the official move of OU and UT from the [autotag]Big 12[/autotag] to the [autotag]SEC[/autotag].

With both football programs making the move at the same time, naturally the question is posed by fans and analysts alike: Which team is ahead of the other heading to the SEC?

Most national analysts believe Texas is ahead of Oklahoma going into 2024. After all, the Longhorns are entering Year 4 under head coach [autotag]Steve Sarkisian[/autotag], while the Sooners are only in Year 3 of the [autotag]Brent Venables[/autotag] era. Both coaches inherited programs that weren’t trending in the right direction, but Sarkisian has had a year longer to build his team. Both earned contract extensions this offseason.

Texas won the [autotag]Big 12 Conference[/autotag] and made the [autotag]College Football Playoff[/autotag] in 2023, finishing 12-2. Oklahoma went 10-3, narrowly missing the conference title game and settled for a berth in the [autotag]Valero Alamo Bowl[/autotag].

One national analyst, however, doesn’t think there’s a gap between the SEC’s newest teams. 247Sports’ Josh Pate outlined both programs’ standing going into 2024 on his show “The Late Kick With Josh Pate.”

“Oklahoma is 7-3 in the last 10 against Texas. They are 11-4 in their last 15 against Texas,” Pate said. “Oklahoma’s got a 14-4 lead in conference titles since 1996, that was in the Big 12, now they’re coming to the SEC. … The last five years, Texas has averaged a ([autotag]recruiting[/autotag]) class ranked 7.4, Oklahoma’s has averaged being ranked ninth. Not a huge gap in recruiting. What about the portal, Texas has done good there, Oklahoma has done better. So they’ve got the head-to-head, they’ve got history on their side, both recently and more long-term. Recruiting has been pretty comparable, portal has been edge Oklahoma, so where in the world is the perceived gap coming from?”

Pate went on to outline three reasons Texas is seen as a step in front of OU at this stage.

“I think three things are at play. There’s bias toward Texas that I think’s undeniable,” Pate said. “No. 2, I think there’s a lot of recency bias, and what they do is they don’t think back to the [autotag]Red River Shootout[/autotag] last year. If they did that, they’d know Oklahoma won the game. More recent than that, we saw Texas make the playoff … finally Texas made some folks look smart and they love them for it. Oklahoma won double digits games last year as well and there were a couple of one-possession losses that stood between them and maybe doing a whole lot more than just a nice solid bowl game.”

But Pate’s third and final reason is the one that stands out as the most likely reason for the gap some perceive to exist.

“For some reason, the stink of Brent Venables’ first year and his record being 6-7 still lingers much more so than Sark going 5-7 his first year,” Pate said. “That was a year prior to Brent Venables’ first year, but also, Texas has a playoff appearance … whether it should or not it just washes everyone’s memory clean. Because Oklahoma had a nice year last year .. wasn’t a playoff appearance though.”

Certainly, the standard in Norman is to make the CFP once again, especially with the expansion to 12 teams. And certainly, Texas made it to where OU wanted to be last year. But, as Josh Pate suggests, the gap between the two schools isn’t nearly as big as folks in Austin and all over the country believe it to be.

In fact, there may not be a gap at all.

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CU men’s basketball returning little scoring production compared to Big 12 counterparts

Tad Boyle’s 2024-25 team has something in common with his 2011 Pac-12 Tournament-winning group

After boasting the highest returning scoring percentage in the Pac-12 heading into last season, the Colorado Buffaloes are among the bottom three in the Big 12 Conference ahead of the 2024-2025 men’s basketball season.

The returning scoring percentages of each team were solidified after the 2024 NBA draft concluded last week. With the Buffs’ top three leading scorers getting selected, and three of their next four leading scorers transferring, they’ll enter the Big 12 returning only 12.5% of their scoring from last season. Only TCU (4.8%) and West Virginia (2.8%) have a lower percentage.

Senior point guard Julian Hammond II, the longest-tenured Buff, owns the highest scoring average from last season at 7.4 points per game. He is one of six returning players who scored a basket last season.

At 12.5%, that mark is the lowest returning scoring percentage Tad Boyle has experienced since taking over as head coach before the 2010-2011 season. The only time Boyle had a returning scoring percentage lower than 25% was before the 2011-2012 season (24.7%), which happened to be the last time a Boyle-led Colorado team joined a new conference. The black and gold won the Pac-12 Tournament that year, so maybe another magical, wildly over-performing season is in the works for the 2024-2025 Buffs.

The three highest returning scoring percentages in the Big 12 are owned by Houston (80%), Cincinnati (75.6%) and Iowa State (71.4%).

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Big 12 announces home and away pairings for upcoming men’s basketball season

Check out which Big 12 opponents Colorado will face at home, on the road or in a home-and-home series

Amid Thursday’s NBA draft festivities, the Big 12 announced its home and away conference schedule pairings for the 2024-25 men’s basketball season.

In Colorado’s first year back in the Big 12, which now holds 16 teams, the Buffs will play five teams twice (home and away) during conference play: Arizona State, Iowa State, Kansas, TCU and UCF. Colorado will only play the other 10 schools once, totaling 20 conference games.

The black and gold will welcome BYU, Baylor, Cincinnati, Houston and West Virginia to the CU Events Center. They will travel to Arizona, Utah, Kansas State, Oklahoma State and Texas Tech.

The home-and-home series were chosen based on geography, history between programs and a poll of the coaches based on travel and competitiveness.

This will be a switch from the 12-team conference format the Buffs became used to in the Pac-12, where they got to play every team twice except for two. Last season, the only teams CU saw once were the UCLA Bruins and Stanford Cardinal, playing the former on the road and the latter at home.

Dates, times and television networks will be revealed at a later date.

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College football fans had so many jokes about the Big 12 potentially selling the conference’s naming rights

Nobody is going to call it that.

College sports has long been a multi-billion-dollar, money-making industry even before NIL changed the landscape of the NCAA. But just in case you thought we already reached the peak in college sports commercialization, the Big 12 may be reminding us all that it can always get worse.

While it’s the norm for bowl games and stadiums to have their names connected to a corporate sponsor, we have yet to see an actual conference go as far as to put its own brand on the sponsorship market. That will likely change with the Big 12.

According to a report from Brett McMurphy, the Big 12 — having just lost its two flagship football programs to the SEC — is in discussions with insurance giant Allstate to come to a naming rights agreement on the actual conference name.

The deal, which could be worth upwards of $50 million per year, would have Allstate’s brand essentially taking over the conference’s name. Think something like the “Big Allstate 12.” And, of course, there’s something hilarious about the Big 12 wanting to include the numeric “12” in the name of a 16-school conference all while being totally fine with slapping a corporate sponsor onto the name.

But let’s be honest: The potential deal won’t really impact what fans call the conference. When Barclays briefly took over Premier League naming rights, fans still called it the Premier League,  EPL or PL. Nobody in Los Angeles is referring to the former Staples Center as “Crypto.com Arena.” I imagine that fans will continue to call the conference the Big 12 regardless of what Allstate pays for it to be named.

Also, what happens when Allstate’s contract expires? We’re just going to rename a conference every few years. That’s not exactly great for a brand identity that has to compete with legacy conferences like the Big Ten and SEC.

Still, the report inspired plenty of jokes from fans because it’s such a silly idea just to make money.

This was how Twitter/X reacted

Looking ahead to Colorado’s first-ever meeting with Central Florida

History will be made in Orlando this fall

Our first deep dive into the Colorado Buffaloes’ return to the Big 12 Conference brought us a familiar face, but even a return home can feature new furniture in this age of college football realignment. On Sept. 28, the Buffs will travel to Orlando, Florida, to face the UCF Knights for the first time in program history.

UCF joined the Big 12 in 2023, expanding the conference’s footprint into Florida for the first time. The Knights had spent the previous 10 seasons dominating the American Athletic Conference, posting eight winning seasons, including four seasons with at least 10 wins. Their run reached its peak in 2017 when UCF went 13-0 with a win over the Auburn Tigers in the Peach Bowl. UCF had an up-and-down first season in the Big 12, going 6-7 and making a bowl game before losing to Georgia Tech, 30-17.

Colorado and UCF have each reloaded this offseason with impressive overall recruiting classes (transfers and high school signees included). In 247Sports’ overall recruiting class rankings, CU is currently No. 1 in the Big 12 and the Knights are close behind at No. 3.

Colorado’s first trip to Orlando should be a memorable one as both teams will be looking to make noise in the new-look Big 12.

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