The Big 12 is, at the moment, the third-best conference in college football. This is rather rote fact this year, but it bears some establishing, so we’re going to establish it.
In Movelor, our college football model’s rating system, the median Big 12 team would be the fifth-best in the Pac-12, the third-best in the ACC, and ahead of even the median SEC and Big Ten teams, though the presence of Ohio State, Georgia, Michigan, and Alabama (and Tennessee?) at the top of those leagues keeps us from trying to make a dumb point. It’s not just Movelor, either. Movelor’s not even particularly high on the Big 12 relative to the field. In Bill Connelly’s SP+, the median Big 12 team would rank third-best in the Pac-12, second-best in the ACC, and again better than both the Big Ten and SEC medians. In ESPN’s FPI, it’s narrow between the SEC median and the Big 12 median, but the Big Ten median is widely in the rearview and the median Big 12 team would line up fourth in both the Pac-12 and the ACC.
Top to bottom, the Big 12 is better than the ACC and the Pac-12. Top to bottom, though, the Big 12’s playoff chances are a fraction of those of their institutional rivals. Clemson alone is four times likelier than the entire Big 12 to be selected as one of the four playoff teams. The Pac-12 has three teams likelier to make the playoff than the Big 12’s likeliest. These teams are comparable in quality to the Big 12’s best (Movelor has Utah and Clemson ahead of Oklahoma State and Texas, SP+ and FPI have Texas ahead of all Pac-12 and ACC schools), but their competition is not. The Big 12 is a slog this year, and barring chaos elsewhere, that’s going to prohibit the Big 12 from playoff competition.
This isn’t a complaint. No Big 12 team would be expected to play within a score of the Big Ten and SEC’s best, just as Clemson and [insert hypothetical Pac-12 champion] won’t be expected to play within a score of the Big Ten and SEC’s best should they make the field. It’s happened—Texas came within a point of knocking off Alabama—but Texas keeping it within a score on their home field against a team that is not the SEC’s best team is a fairly weak endorsement. Four-team playoff, twelve-team playoff, 128-team playoff, whatever the size: The best teams in it would be from the Big Ten and the SEC, and that is irrelevant to tomorrow’s action. We’re not complaining about the Big 12 being a really fun league with a bunch of good teams locked in an engaging championship race.
We’re celebrating that.
The Big Ones
The Big 12 headlines the list this weekend, or is at least expected to. In tomorrow’s afternoon slot, the Longhorns head to Stillwater, the loser exiting the contest saddled with two losses and lacking the head-to-head advantage against perhaps their primary competition for a conference title game bid. In tomorrow’s primetime game, Kansas State goes down to Fort Worth, the loser there saddled with its first conference loss while the winner sits undefeated in league play.
Of these four teams, the playoff path is most believable for Oklahoma State, at least to our model. Their loss came to TCU in two overtimes on the road, making it very much the respectable-enough loss you need if you’re going to be a 12-1 Power Five champion hoping to make the cut, as opposed to a 13-0 Power Five champion above the cutline by default. Oklahoma State probably won’t get to 12-1, but if they do, they’ve got the best chance. Texas may have a case—the committee could choose to forgive their losses to some extent as each came largely without Quinn Ewers—but if the Longhorns’ performance against Iowa State last weekend is an indicator, they aren’t going to be rolling through teams from here to December, and some rolling of teams is likely required even with that potential benefit coming their way. TCU remains undefeated, but they’re the least likely of the four to finish with even just one loss, if Movelor is to be believed, and to be entirely transparent, this is a case where Movelor is an outlier. It has the Frogs seventh in their own league, hardly above Texas Tech, while SP+ and FPI have the team third and second, respectively. Still, nobody who’s approaching this rationally views TCU as the best team in the league. So the point still mostly stands. Kansas State, meanwhile, has a loss to Tulane that would look fine were Tulane not the bearer themselves of a terrible loss to Southern Miss. The K-State loss came early enough in the year and Tulane is decent enough that Kansas State won’t be prohibited from playoff participation, but of every hypothetical one or two-loss Big 12 champion, they need the most help.
Still, what a race! Four regional rivals, largely different as schools in nature (Oklahoma State is more similar to Iowa State than Kansas State, I’d personally offer, though the Cats and Pokes are definitely cousins), and it’s not like Baylor’s entirely out of things yet themselves, getting to play both Kansas State and TCU at home and Texas on Black Friday, when a lot of kids in Austin will have gone home. It’s not something that needs an expanded playoff to give it stakes. The stakes are there. They’re a league title, something that means a whole heck of a lot.
The Pac-12, if you’re curious, is also better than the ACC. Each has some terrible teams, but the Pac-12’s upper half is superior to that of its Atlantic-aligned existential foe. With that, tomorrow afternoon’s game in Eugene is significant as well. One-loss Oregon (whose loss was gigantic in margin but entirely understandable in opponent and location) hosts undefeated UCLA, an undefeated UCLA team who made a lot of believers two weeks ago when they punched Utah in the face. For UCLA, a win would be about as close to a Pac-12 Championship appearance guarantee as a win at this stage can be, with only USC remaining on the schedule among the Pac-12’s significant threats. For Oregon, the same is true, though Utah’s the opponent and the head-to-head risk there is riskier. Unlike the Big 12, no one is lurking behind the top four in the Pac-12, and unlike the Big 12, at least two of the four Pac-12 contenders have believable playoff cases (combined, they’re comparable to Clemson’s chance while Clemson runs unopposed in the ACC), and it’s possible the number is three and that the committee would take Oregon under some duress.
So, the biggest three games? Pac-12 and Big 12 wrestling matches, championship berths not fully up for grabs but very much at stake.
The Important One
Behind those, there’s a lot of attention on Syracuse’s visit to Clemson, and while it’s misplaced, we’ll still give the game its due. Syracuse’s schedule doesn’t stack up against some Californian and Texan high school slates, but it’s won every game, and to some extent, that’s all you can ask. The betting markets have this a 14-point game. Movelor has the line at 17. SP+ has it at ten. FPI has it at 13. No matter who you ask, Clemson should win without too much trouble, and while the Tigers’ path is such that this is one of the more notable games remaining, the only really interesting question here is whether Clemson can continue to be unimpressive enough to somehow miss the playoff with a 13-0 record.
The Good Ones
Better games to watch? We’ll give you two:
Mississippi remains undefeated, but they’re a narrow underdog on the road against LSU. Lane Kiffin’s team has taken care of every test they’ve faced so far, but they allowed at least 27 points to all three of Tulsa, Vanderbilt, and Auburn, and their offense is not on the level of, say, the Robert Griffin III offense at Baylor. They’ve played with a lot of fire, they’ve failed to put opponents away, this and next week’s trip to College Station are all that stand between them and a blockbuster in Tuscaloosa on November 12th, and the strong odds are that they will not get to November 12th unbeaten.
The flip side of that script is that because LSU and Texas A&M are good teams with mediocre records (partially due to early-season flops, partially due to tough schedules) these eight days could go down as a proving ground for Mississippi, and the state’s best team ever could be on its way to reshaping the SEC West power dynamic. That’s probably not happening, but it’s possible! And it’s more possible that they’ll win tomorrow and make next week’s game just as interesting.
Penn State and Minnesota each lost their pants to schoolyard bullies last Saturday, with Bret Bielema continuing his reign of terror in the Big Ten West while Jim Harbaugh gave James Franklin the biggest noogie the Rust Belt has ever seen. Despite all that, this is a top-twenty matchup in State College, and it’s hard to do better than that when it comes to fun college football.
The Obligatory Ones
Among as-yet-unmentioned playoff favorites, contenders, and factors, in order of playoff probability:
- Georgia (87.1%) is idle.
- Ohio State (83.1%) hosts Iowa.
- Michigan (59.4%) is idle.
- Alabama (49.7%) is a three-touchdown favorite against just-as-good-as-LSU-and-A&M Mississippi State.
- Tennessee (35.1%) is home against Tennessee-Martin.
- USC (8.0%) is idle.
- Wake Forest (3.4%) plays Boston College at home.
- Utah (1.7%) is idle.
The Interesting Ones
The AAC race isn’t a bad one, and both Cincinnati’s visit to SMU and Memphis’s trip to Tulane could have an impact on the playoff race depending how the Big 12 shakes out. It’s unlikely SMU will do enough to constitute a needle-moving victory for TCU, but it’s possible. It’s unlikely Tulane will go down as a solid loss for Kansas State, but it’s similarly possible.
In the Big Ten West, Purdue and Illinois are in what I would at least call a hilarious race for the division crown, but the Boilers have to go to Wisconsin this weekend, and while we haven’t seen Wisconsin pull off the first half of their traditional Jekyll/Hyde act this year, betting markets evidently think it’s still in there, having the Badgers favored.
Finally, Texas A&M goes to South Carolina, and there’s buzz around the Gamecocks. Their only good win so far came against a quarterback-less Kentucky, but it was on the road, and it was a game recent South Carolina teams would have lost, and we’ll let them have their fun. There’s some good desperation in this, too. A&M’s in danger of missing a bowl.
The Deep Cuts
Want to get sick? Indiana and Rutgers show down in Piscataway, the winner’s bowl dreams surviving for another week. Vanderbilt and Mizzou are similarly at it in Columbia, with Vandy specifically lined up to climb back to .500. In better football, Air Force hosts Boise State, and I don’t know when or how Air Force got two conference losses over there but each team is capable of being good, even if they are presently kind of bad. Toledo and Buffalo are each undefeated in MAC play and in first place in their divisions, making their matchup a conference championship preview. UTSA and North Texas are also undefeated in conference play, and they play one another in what could be defined as a regional rivalry were we to get a little liberal with our terminology here. One of the nice things about this time of year, when we don’t have to worry about missing Maryland sneakily being good, is that we can give Toledo and North Texas their due. Also, Washington and Cal play in one of the late games. That’s our best nightcap.
**
To sum it up: We’ve got three big games. We’ve got one important game. We’ve got two good games. We’ve got four obligatory games. We’ve got four interesting games. And if you’re looking for deep cuts, we have six of those. Happy Week 8. We’ll see you on the other side, with a much clearer Big 12 and Pac-12 picture.
