Heartland Sports: Texas finishes second, but wins the Big 12 title game

Heartland Sports predicts Texas to go 9-3 but win Big 12 championship game.

It appears Heartland Sports is hedging on its Texas doubt. The publication has the Longhorns winning the Big 12 championship game despite a 9-3 regular season prediction.

Interestingly enough, Heartland has Texas and Oklahoma representing the league in the New Years Six despite Kansas State finishing first in their regular season standings. Heartland Sports’ Brian Clinton predicts that the Big 12 winning Longhorns will travel to Arizona to face UTSA in the VRBO Fiesta Bowl.

The interesting tiering of teams has Oklahoma going to the Goodyear Cotton Bowl to face off with its former head coach Lincoln Riley and quarterback Caleb Williams of USC. That potential matchup would particularly be must-see TV.

Let’s look at how Heartland Sports sees the Big 12 season unfolding.

Oklahoma Sooners trap game on the 2023 schedule per Heartland Sports

Each year there’s always one “trap game” teams have to look out for, the one for Oklahoma could surprise some people.

Each and every year, there are certain games teams look over because of a bigger matchup the following week. These are called “[autotag]trap games[/autotag].”

The best teams know how to be prepared for any game but at the end of the day, these are college kids. It’s natural to look at other teams on their schedule as games they are more excited about.

Heartland Sports identified one trap game for each [autotag]Big 12 [/autotag] team, who did they select for the [autotag]Sooners[/autotag]? That is the[autotag]Kansas Jayhawks[/autotag].

Oklahoma narrowly escaped an offensive shootout with Kansas in 2022, winning 52-42 in Norman. However, that was without Jalon Daniels on the field. If Daniels can stay healthy in 2023, the Jayhawks’ offense should be even more potent than it was a season ago.[autotag]Dillon Gabriel[/autotag] faces his former team with UCF coming to town in Week 8, while the last-ever Bedlam game is scheduled for Week 10. Brent Venables had better have his guys ready for a trip to Lawrence, because KU will certainly be ready to give the Sooners their best. – Bryan Clinton Heartland Sports

As I mentioned in my season preview, Kansas could be a problem. The Jayhawks have a high-powered offense and return just about everyone on both sides of the ball. They could have won the matchup a year ago if not for the injury suffered by [autotag]Jalon Daniels[/autotag].

That game is sandwiched between two emotional games for the Sooners. One versus Gabriel’s old team, the UCF Knights. The other is the final [autotag]Bedlam[/autotag] matchup for the foreseeable future. Don’t be fooled. This isn’t the Kansas of old. [autotag]Lance Leipold[/autotag] is doing a great job of building something there.

Their defense isn’t great, but as Sooner fans know, if you have an elite offense, you can compete with anyone. If the Sooners aren’t ready to play and overlook that game, the Jayhawks will gladly send them to the SEC with a loss.

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Heartland Sports: Big 12 media is wrong to pick Texas to win conference

Heartland Sports blasts the Big 12 media’s pick of Texas as conference champions.

Heartland Sports is not buying Texas in 2023. Outside of Oklahoma media, they are about the only outlet that isn’t believing in the Longhorns. Continue reading “Heartland Sports: Big 12 media is wrong to pick Texas to win conference”