Big 12 Football: Texas surges back in Week 4 power rankings

It took a little longer than we expected coming into the year, but Iowa State is officially in the win column. It wasn’t easy, as they held just a 17-13 lead against a pretty good Akron team heading into the final frame, but nine fourth quarter points and some lockdown defense were enough to ice the game and grab their first win of the season.

I have lots of concerns about this offense, regardless of who takes snaps at quarterback, but as of right now, Iowa State still looks pretty solid. Their defense is excellent, as is Hakeem Butler. That may ultimately be enough to win seven games. However, because we know so little about this team, they stay at eighth for now. We’ll know more after their upcoming stretch against TCU, Oklahoma State and West Virginia.

I don’t think there’s really a ton that can be taken from beating Kansas, because as I established earlier, Kansas is a bad football team. What can be taken away from that win is that Baylor is 3-1, which is better than each of the three teams behind them in this list, and was enough to make me seriously consider ranking them ahead of a 2-2 TCU team.

I’m not quite there yet though. Baylor looks like a pretty decent team, but I’m not willing to buy in fully yet. I don’t think we’ll have a real answer on this team this weekend either, because maybe two teams in this league could compete with Oklahoma, and I don’t think Baylor is one of them. I’m far more interested in seeing them compete against KSU in two weeks, or Texas in three.