The 2017 season is nearly upon us for all Big 12 football teams, so we will take a look at the first edition of our power rankings.
The Saturday Blitz staff makes projections for every Power 5 conference prior to the season, giving us our starting point for these rankings. You can find our predictions for all conferences here, but let’s dig deeper into the Big 12.
Things fell into three separate tiers: the contenders, the pretenders, and the bottom-feeders. There weren’t many surprises, and the usual suspects landed at No. 1.
The votes projected the Kansas Jayhawks to finish 10th, the Iowa State Cyclones ninth, the Texas Tech Red Raiders eighth, and the Baylor Bears seventh. Replacing all-time players is a task for some, while others on this tier are building and rebuilding their respective programs.
The middle tier included everyone you’d expect it to: TCU Horned Frogs are projected to finish sixth, followed by the Kansas State Wildcats fifth, the Texas Longhorns fourth and the West Virginia Mountaineers third. All these programs have exceptional players, but the coaching and traditions are just as important.
Standing together atop the Big 12 are the two schools from Oklahoma. The Cowboys received seven first place votes, but the Sooners edged them out with eight; the Longhorns received one vote as well.