A new era begins this fall for the Big 12 as the league expands to 16 teams.
With the inclusion of four former Pac-12 teams in Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah, as well as the departure of Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC, the race for the conference title in football will be unique in comparison to the first 27 years of the conference.
Who will be the contenders for a Big 12 title and a spot in the expanded 12-team College Football Playoff? Who will be the surprise underdog that resets the conference standings?
It will all play out this fall, with one of the new league members, Utah, the favorite to win it all in the Big 12′s preseason media poll.
Not every schedule is made the same, though, and this will be the first glimpse of how a 16-team schedule plays out in the league.
What are the toughest stretches for each Big 12 team during the 2024 season? Here’s a look at what is likely to be the defining set of games for each program, in order of their predicted finish in the preseason poll.
Toughest stretch
The Utes — who play five conference road games to four at home this season and never play two straight at home or on the road — will face perhaps their biggest challenges as Big 12 newcomers early in league play.
Utah opens its first season in the league with a conference opener at Oklahoma State. This will be the Utes’ first time visiting Stillwater.
The Cowboys earned 14 first-place votes in the preseason media poll released earlier this week and are third in the poll, behind favorite Utah and Kansas State.
Fellow Pac-12 departee Arizona is also expected to be a contender in the Big 12 this season.
The Utes, though, get them back in Salt Lake City after the Wildcats blitzed Utah 42-18 in Tucson last season, albeit under now-departed coach Jedd Fisch.
Toughest stretch
The Wildcats will have a lot of their Big 12 hopes determined early in league play.
Kansas State lost to Oklahoma State early in the year last year, and this season’s matchup would allow the Wildcats to get some revenge while taking an early edge in the league race.
After a couple games at Colorado at West Virginia — games that could get dicey — the Wildcats will host a Kansas team that also has high expectations heading into the year.
Toughest stretch
If Oklahoma State can beat Arkansas at home in Week 2, the Cowboys should be unbeaten going into conference action in the back half of September.
Oklahoma State draws the card of welcoming former Pac-12 power Utah into the league, and it should provide a must-see matchup in Stillwater.
What follows after that is a critical road game at Kansas State in the Cowboys’ conference road opener.
Win both, and OSU has an inside track on the league crown. Lose both, and the Cowboys have a long road to winning the conference.
Toughest stretch
While back-to-back games at West Virginia and vs. TCU in September will also be difficult, the Wildcats and Cyclones both are expected to play heavier into the conference race this season.
At this point, the Jayhawks will have shown whether or not they can contend for a league championship and a game against rival Kansas State landed at a critical time during the season.
Kansas has won its last two contests against Iowa State in a longstanding series, while the Cougars could present a trap game for the Jayhawks if Kansas is dealing heavily with injuries.
Toughest stretch
Arizona will get a crack at Kansas State in its first Big 12 season, though it will count as a nonconference game for both teams after being scheduled prior to the news Arizona was moving to the league.
The Wildcats’ first Big 12 game that counts in the conference standings comes at Utah, one year after Arizona beat the Utes by 24 in Tucson. That was under Jedd Fisch, though, not new head coach Brent Brennan.
Arizona’s first Big 12 home opener then comes against a tough Texas Tech team.
At UCF and TCU late in the season is another tough stretch, but this one helps set the tone for just how much damage the Wildcats can do under their first-year coach.
Toughest stretch
Iowa State will need to withstand a busy stretch prior to this where it plays West Virginia on the road and UCF and Texas Tech at home.
If the Cyclones are able to do so, they will have the opportunity to be conference race contenders during the season’s final month.
Road games at Kansas and Utah — with a home matchup against Cincinnati in between — will set up a season finale against Kansas State that has the makings to be important to the league race.
Toughest stretch
West Virginia will play five of the top six projected teams in the Big 12 during a five-game stretch.
The only reprieve the Mountaineers get is not facing league favorite Utah, but this is a brutal stretch that does at least have a slight edge in home matchups.
Can Neal Brown’s team surpass expectations for a second straight season? Picking up a couple wins, or more, during this stretch would go a long way toward making West Virginia factor in the league race.
Toughest stretch
Last year, UCF lost its first four games in its inaugural Big 12 season before going 3-1 in November and earning a bowl invitation — the Knights were the only conference newcomer to make the postseason in 2023.
November is also brutal for UCF this season — the Knights have two home games vs. Arizona and Utah sandwiched around visits to Arizona State and West Virginia.
This early-game stretch, though, will set the tone for what UCF could accomplish in its second Big 12 season, and it will be the first-ever matchup between the Knights and the Horned Frogs.
Toughest stretch
After hosting Arizona State and Cincinnati to start league play, the Red Raiders hit a crucial stretch over the next month.
Three of these games will be on the road, and if the Red Raiders find some success away from Lubbock, they’ll be a factor in the conference, though getting a victory over the Wildcats, Horned Frogs or Cyclones won’t be easy.
Baylor is coming off a 3-9 season that has Dave Aranda on the hot seat, lending a chance for Texas Tech to build some momentum.
Toughest stretch
While TCU will host Oklahoma State and Arizona in back-to-back games in November, with a bye week in between, this stretch will be brutal from a road standpoint.
The Horned Frogs face ACC newcomer SMU first, then travel to Kansas the week after.
Following a Friday night home game against a struggling Houston squad, TCU will make its return to Salt Lake City to face Utah after a bye week.
Toughest stretch
There are a couple of nearly equally tough three-game stretches for Colorado this season — the other includes three straight for the Buffaloes at UCF, vs. Kansas State and at Arizona earlier in the year.
Here, though, the Buffaloes play arguably the three teams with the best chances to win the Big 12 in back-to-back-to-back weeks.
While Colorado gets two of these games at home, the Buffaloes were just 2-4 in Boulder last season in their first year under Deion Sanders.
Toughest stretch
This is the first of two back-to-back road game swings for the Bears in Big 12 play — the other comes in November when Baylor visits West Virginia and Houston on consecutive November weekends.
With Aranda on the proverbial hot seat after two straight losing seasons, this tough stretch could break a Bears program that won just three games last season.
The “easiest” of these three games is the home tilt with Texas Tech, but even then, it wouldn’t be a surprise for Baylor to be the underdog in all three.
Toughest stretch
The Cougars will play each of the five teams projected to finish atop the Big 12 in the conference’s preseason poll, and four of those games happen during this stretch, with a road game at UFC also thrown in.
BYU starts off league play with a home game against Kansas State on Sept. 21, projected to finish second in the league, and then a few weeks later, this stretch begins.
BYU has also gone 1-6 in October the past two seasons, dampening the hope that the Cougars might win an unexpected game or two during the middle part of the schedule.
Four of BYU’s most difficult Big 12 games are at home at least, though that’s combined with the road game at Utah, the preseason favorite to win the conference.
By the time BYU faces two teams projected to finish below it in the conference standings — at Arizona State and vs. Houston — the Cougars’ postseason fate could well be written as a second straight season without qualifying for a bowl.
Toughest stretch
The Bearcats, like so many of their new Big 12 counterparts last season, struggled to acclimate to the competitiveness of the league in 2023.
If Cincinnati gets itself into position to make a bowl game this season heading into the year’s final month, this group of matchups will test the Bearcats. Matchups with the Cyclones and Wildcats are ill-timed, and West Virginia beat Cincinnati last year by 21.
A home game against TCU in the season finale follows after this, making November particularly challenging for the Bearcats.
Toughest stretch
While the Cougars are able to avoid Oklahoma State this season, they get the other four teams projected to finish in the top five in the league, all in consecutive weeks.
It’s advantageous that Houston will get two of these games back-to-back at home, though it’s against the top two teams in the Big 12 preseason poll.
Houston has some winnable games at the end of the season with Baylor and BYU on the schedule, but would likely need a win or two in this group to try and make the postseason, a tall task.
Toughest stretch
There are few breathers for Arizona State in the 2024 season — the Sun Devils play all five teams that received at least one first-place vote in the league preseason poll.
Hosting Kansas and Utah six days apart in early October will challenge the ASU depth and could knock a fragile program off any momentum it may have at that point.
Following a road game at Cincinnati and a bye week, though, the Sun Devils kick off November on the road against the Cowboys, hosting the dangerous Knights and playing at the Wildcats.
