Iowa State Football: Cyclones stun Frogs, grab Big 12 lead

2. The Big 12 can kiss the Playoff good bye

There is a lot of time left in the 2017 season. One loss doesn’t eliminate anyone from the College Football Playoff. But. With four weeks of regular season play remaining the Big 12 conference is in trouble. All of their teams already have one loss and they have the conference title game, one more hurdle for a prospective champion to make.

Bedlam is scheduled for Week 10. TCU still has to play Oklahoma. Texas is starting to look somewhat dangerous. It’s starting to look more and more likely that every team in the conference is going to have two losses before the regular season is through. The parity exhibited through the first nine weeks of the season makes it hard to believe that any one team is significantly better than the rest of their conference mates.

And then there’s a team like Notre Dame. The Irish have no conference affiliation but continue to pick up Top 25 victories. The loser of a SEC Championship game between undefeated Alabama and undefeated Georgia would have a strong case for the Playoff too.

The iterations will  continue to change over the next several weeks. Yet however you slice it, the  Big 12 is always going to be on the outside looking in.