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Big 12 Football 2018: TCU moves back up Week 5 power rankings

By Patrick Mayhorn

NORMAN, OK - SEPTEMBER 29: Quarterback Kyler Murray #1 of the Oklahoma Sooners speaks to the media after the game against the Baylor Bears at Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium on September 29, 2018 in Norman, Oklahoma. Oklahoma defeated Baylor 66-33. (Photo by Brett Deering/Getty Images)
NORMAN, OK - SEPTEMBER 29: Quarterback Kyler Murray #1 of the Oklahoma Sooners speaks to the media after the game against the Baylor Bears at Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium on September 29, 2018 in Norman, Oklahoma. Oklahoma defeated Baylor 66-33. (Photo by Brett Deering/Getty Images) /
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(Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images)
(Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images) /

It’s been a really rough start for an Iowa State program that had a ton of momentum coming into the season. We knew it was going to be rough for them this year, because in their first five games, they had three likely top 25 teams in Iowa, Oklahoma and TCU. They thought they’d at least be 2-3 here, but because their first week game was canceled, they sit at 1-3, which looks worse than it actually is.

Iowa State is fine. They’ll probably lose to Oklahoma State this weekend and they’ll probably lose to West Virginia next weekend. After that, the toughest team on their schedule is Texas, and number two is Texas Tech. That’s more than manageable. Pull off an upset in the next two games, and they could be looking at an 8-4 season, and that would be a great step forward.

Yet another team remains in the same spot, though I will say that I think when it’s all said and done, Baylor will probably be eighth, as Iowa State’s schedule gets easier. For this week though, the Bears are seventh, and that feels like the right place for them. They didn’t look good against Oklahoma, but very few teams do.

The good news was that their offense was pretty decent, and gave Oklahoma’s defense some issues. Denzel Mims and Jalen Hurd both looked awesome and should be playmakers for the rest of the season. The bad news was that they can’t run, they threw way too much (60 passes), and their defense is dreadful. Matt Rhule is a defensive coach, so I think it’ll improve, but Oklahoma scored 66 points and had 607 yards. Hard to win when you let a team do that.

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