Hold on to your seats, Big 12 fans.
UCF’s stunning upset of second-ranked BYU in double overtime followed Cincinnati’s impressive win over previously undefeated eighth-ranked Texas Tech. the conference’s College Football Playoff hopes in a blender at the end of week 8.
The Bearcats ended the Red Raiders’ nine-game Big 12 winning streak dating back to last season just hours before Scott Frost and the Knights held off the Cougars, a week after BYU beat Notre Dame to move up to No. 2 in the AP poll.
With five top 25 teams entering Week 8, attention now turns to the prime-time battle between 14th-ranked Houston and No. 10 Utah, with the winner having a leg up on the rest alongside second-ranked BYU at the top of the conference.
Behind four touchdown passes from JC French and a career-high 173 rushing yards from Cole Tabb, the Bearcats ended a two-game skid with a victory and took advantage of Texas Tech’s season-long lapses in the passing game.
The offensive struggles ultimately came back to haunt the Red Raiders, who turned things around three times and never recovered from Cincinnati’s 21-point second-quarter surge.
The ranked victory was only Scott Satterfield’s second at Cincinnati in four seasons.
It was personal for the Bearcats, who saw last season’s starting quarterback, Brendan Sorsby, leave this offseason with Texas Tech out of the transfer portal — although he never downplayed the Red Raiders. Sorsby suspended following gambling investigation before parting ways with Texas Tech in June.
Now, Will Hammond and the Red Raiders offense likely need to prevail — with Arizona looming, among others — to have a chance to repeat as Big 12 champions and earn an automatic berth in the CFP.
At the top of the Big 12 rankings
No. 10 | Utah | 6-0 | 3-0 |
No. 2 | BYU | 6-1 | 3-1 |
No. 8 | Texas Technology | 6-1 | 3-1 |
No. 14 | Houston | 6-1 | 3-1 |
No. 25 | Arizona | 5-1 | 2-1 |
*Houston-Utah plays Saturday’s late game while Arizona hosts Iowa State.
It’s imperative that the Big 12’s best not kill each other in the second half of the season if that the league wants several teams in the CFPespecially after BYU’s shocking loss at UCF. The selection committee’s new conference strength metric helps contextualize league schedules, including disparities between teams playing slates of varying difficulty.
However, only one of the league’s five ranked teams in Week 8 has a solid schedule ranked in the top 35 nationally, and that will be part of the discussion when the CFP selection committee meets next weekend. Before Saturday’s loss, BYU ranked No. 1 in record strength and No. 7 in play controls, metrics that will come in handy if Kalani Sitake’s team is able to rebound as a league favorite.
Utah has similar numbers, but the Utes’ strength of schedule at No. 99 is the worst in the conference. That will change if Utah leaves Week 8 as the league’s only undefeated team.
No. 14 from Houston to the importance of No. 10 from Utah
Saturday night’s late game at Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City provides another look at the league title race at the end of Week 8, especially if the Utes can remain undefeated against the Cougars. Houston has won four straight games since an early-season loss to Texas Tech and would find itself in a multi-team tie for second place in the conference behind second-place BYU with a win.
A Utah win gives the Utes the edge in the Big 12 conversation heading into next week’s showdown in Cincinnati ahead of the Nov. 7 showdown with BYU. From Texas Tech’s perspective, the best the Red Raiders can finish is 11-1 overall, and from there the CFP situation gets interesting for Joey McGuire’s team.
They will hold the head-to-head advantage over Houston in case the Cougars end up with just one conference loss, but the league will fight a tiebreaker with common opponents if Utah or BYU are the teams tied with Texas Tech at the end of the regular season. Cincinnati plays Utah and Houston in back-to-back weeks coming up, so the Bearcats will have a say.
As you can see, the unpredictable Big 12 and its quest for production multiple This season’s playoff teams will be decided over the next few weekends, and the combination of Texas Tech and BYU’s losses on Saturday significantly threatens any chance of getting three teams into the final bracket.
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