The #Pac12 didn’t lose on Saturday, while 3 #Big12 teams favored by 14 or more all lost. You can’t make this stuff up.
Baylor was favored by nearly four touchdowns against Texas State at home. TCU was favored by 20 points against Colorado at home. Texas Tech was favored by two touchdowns over Wyoming on the road. Each of those three Big 12 teams lost outright on Saturday, part of an absolutely miserable day on the field for the Big 12.
Texas struggled for much of the first half against Rice before pulling away in the second half. West Virginia’s offense once again looked bad in a loss to Penn State.
New Big 12 members BYU and Houston looked terrible on offense in sluggish, uncomfortable wins against opponents they should have beaten by larger margins. Neither BYU nor Houston were able to score as many as 18 points (let alone 30 or 35 or 40).
The Big 12 was bad in Week 1 of the college football season. There wasn’t a single notable win from the conference. Oklahoma did, in fairness, look great, but that was against a cupcake opponent, Arkansas State. The Big 12 didn’t score a win over a high-quality team. Not one.
Meanwhile, the Pac-12 did not lose a game this week and has not yet lost a game this season. USC scored 66 points in a 52-point win. Oregon scored 81. Washington absolutely thumped Boise State. Stanford scored an impressive win at Hawaii. Cal scored 58 in a blowout of North Texas. Utah thrashed Florida on Thursday in a high-profile game. Last but certainly not least, Deion Sanders and Colorado stunned TCU, the team which made the national championship game last year.
The Pac-12 was supposed to be good at the top of the conference, with USC, Oregon, Washington, and Utah forming a fabulous four. However, with Colorado being much better than expected and the Bay Area schools looking far better than anyone anticipated, this conference looks like an absolute sausage grinder in which nearly every game will be tough. It is the best the Pac-12 has looked from top to bottom in a very long time.
Yet, the conference is basically dead, all while the Big 12 is safe and sound because of the Grand Canyon-sized gulf in leadership and savvy from executives and administrators. It’s all very bizarre, and it has to be infuriating for Pac-12 fans who know that this high level of football won’t continue into 2024 … because there won’t be a Pac-12 Conference by then.
Pac-12 fans couldn’t really laugh at the Big 12 because their conference is about to die. It’s one of the strangest things we’ve seen in college sports, but it played out on social media on Saturday:
