Utah Sends a Message in Stillwater

That was a powerful statement that Utah made in Stillwater on Saturday. 

The Utes rolled into arguably the most challenging environment in the Big 12 at Boone Pickens Stadium and sucked the life out of the building in a 22-19 win that wasn’t nearly as close as the final score indicated. 

Oh, and they did it all with true freshman quarterback Issac Wilson filling in for seventh-year star Cam Rising—no big deal. 

Yes, we’re only one week into conference play. Yes, it’s dangerous to make sweeping assumptions this early. 

But with K-State, Oklahoma State, and Kansas, the three top contenders with Utah atop the Big 12 preseason poll, already showing major flaws, it sure feels like Utah is the class of the Big 12 in year one, even without its star quarterback. 

More on that in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly from week four in the Big 12.

The Good

Utah’s Culture

It’s pretty clear that Utah’s culture is unflappable. 

It would have been very easy for the Utes to revert to "here we go again" mode after dealing with yet another Cam Rising injury on the eve of conference play, especially after his health cast a dark shadow over their entire 2023 season. 

Instead, the Utes’ defense was as sharp as ever for three-and-a-half quarters, and playmakers on offense stepped up to get true freshman quarterback Issac Wilson the support he needed to become the first true freshman QB in Utah history to beat a top-25 team. 

The defense is a well-oiled machine. They held Oklahoma State to 48 yards rushing, and OSU quarterbacks completed just 43% of their passes while the Pokes offense went three-and-out seven (!) times. 

Offensively, running back Micah Bernard’s 182 yards spearheaded a ground game that put up nearly five yards per carry on a whopping 52 rushes. Wide receiver Dorian Singer and tight end Brant Kuithe provided the big plays in the passing game. 

All you need to see to know how this game went is Brant Kuithe’s stroll into the end zone for a touchdown that made it 22-3. 

Is there any other program in the Big 12 right now that could dominate in Stillwater with a true freshman backup quarterback? 

Utah is the Big 12 favorite until further notice.

The Colorado Hype Machine

I know this is a polarizing one. 

Many of you hate the Colorado hype, and admittedly, it can be annoying. But it has its benefits for the conference – like Fox’s Big Noon Kickoff going to the Bounce House next week for Colorado at UCF. 

I’m not sure Colorado’s miraculous win over Baylor could have fueled the hype machine any better than it did.

Quarterback Sheduer Sanders spent all night making dazzling plays while running for his life, and he capped it off with a “shades of Kordell Stewart” hail mary. 

The cherry on top was two-way phenom Travis Hunter sealing the game by jarring the ball loose from Baylor running back Dominic Richardson at the goal line. 

Fox got it all: a game filled with drama and jaw-dropping plays made by two of the biggest names in the sport. 

That’s why they’re following the Coach Prime Experience to Orlando. 

Would any other Big 12 team with Colorado’s resume be getting this treatment? Of course not, but Big 12 fans should embrace this. 

The entire system in college football right now is set up to keep the Big 12 down. It’s not a meritocracy. Brands matter above all else – including winning. TCU, Baylor, K-State, and Oklahoma State can outplay Texas for a decade and a half, and it just doesn’t matter. 

But this is one time where the current system works for the Big 12 instead of against it. A 3-1 Big 12 team whose best win is Baylor is getting treated like Alabama or Georgia by the true czars of college football: TV executives. 

If that’s what it takes to get Fox to shine a brighter light on great Big 12 stories like UCF’s elite backfield, so be it. 

BYU’s Defense

I spent the weekend in Provo, and the vibe from those I talked to around the BYU program going into the K-State game was one of very cautious optimism about the Cougars’ 3-0 start. 

After walloping the Wildcats 38-9, it’s time to throw caution to the wind. 

BYU’s defense is legit. Defensive coordinator Jay Hill’s unit forced three K-State turnovers and held the Wildcats without a touchdown for the first time in four years. 

Speaking of that, the Cougars still haven’t allowed a touchdown to a Power Four opponent all year. How much better does that performance at SMU look after the Mustangs dropped 66 on TCU in a win on Saturday?

It’s fair to wonder about the ceiling of the BYU offense. The Cougars were given short fields all night long Saturday and scored their offensive touchdowns on drives of 29, 27, and 38 yards. They simply took what K-State gave them all night long.

But a magical night filled with highlights for Cougars fans puts BYU into the Big 12 contender category right now for me. 

The Holy War on November 9th suddenly looks like one of the games of the year in the Big 12.

Cincinnati’s Bowl Chances

Cincinnati head coach Scott Satterfield has effectively rallied the troops after his team lost a three-score second-half lead against Pitt in week two. 

The Bearcats have already matched their 2023 win total in a historic dismantling of Houston 34-0, which was the first Cincinnati shutout win over a power conference opponent since 1995. 

Two weeks ago, the Miami (OH) and Houston games looked loseable, but Cincy took care of business. 

Quarterback Brendan Sorsby is a big reason why. He’s already racked up over 1,000 yards passing with eight touchdowns and zero interceptions. That’s almost half the production yardage-wise that 2023 starter Emory Jones had the entire season. 

The schedule is far from easy the rest of the way, with road trips to Texas Tech, UCF, Colorado, K-State, and Iowa State left, but the Bearcats have put themselves in position to chase bowl eligibility by winning three of the first four.

The Bad

Cam Rising’s Health

Luckily for Utah, it didn’t matter that Cam Rising couldn’t go on Saturday, but you have to feel for Rising himself. 

He patiently waited over 600 days to get back on a college football field and couldn’t even make it four full quarters before another injury put him back on the sidelines. 

"When he's ready, he'll be ready; that's all I can say," Kyle Whittingham said. "We were hoping he'd be ready this week. It was literally a game-time decision. It wasn't game day; it was game time.

It sounds like he’s close to returning, but we heard that refrain multiple times last year when Rising ultimately wound up sidelined for the entire season. 

The Utes have done more than survive without him, and KSL.com’s Josh Furlong writes this week that maybe Utah should begin to think about handing the reigns over to Issac Wilson full-time sooner rather than later. 

It would be a shame for college football if this is how it ends for a two-time Pac-12 champion quarterback. Here’s to hoping we see Rising back near 100% on Saturday against Arizona. 

Kansas Does It Again

To quote the great Jon Rothstein, that’s the epitome of brutality. 

This was yet another game that the Jayhawks seemed to be in firm control of before the wheels came off. 

The West Virginia sidelines felt lifeless after Kansas pushed its lead to 11 shortly after a two-hour lightning delay. But WVU quarterback Garrett Greene ended that with back-to-back sub-two-minute touchdown drives sandwiched around a KU three-and-out. 

Much of the blame for the Jayhawks' three-game losing streak has been directed at offensive coordinator Jeff Grimes and quarterback Jalon Daniels. 

Daniels had two more turnovers in Morgantown, and Grimes didn’t trust Daniels to throw the ball on a crucial 3rd and 4 with just over two minutes left in the game. 

Instead of Daniels, Greene got the redemption arc on Saturday, leading his head coach, Neal Brown, to drop this great one-liner after the game. 

The good news for Kansas is that they’ll get another opponent in free-fall mode this week, with TCU coming to Arrowhead fresh off of back-to-back crushing losses to UCF and SMU. 

Will this be the week Lance Leipold can finally stop the bleeding?

The Ugly

K-State’s Meltdown

Look far and wide, and you’ll struggle to find a worse six-minute stretch of football than what K-State put together under the lights in Provo.  

The Wildcats went from being up 6-3 with the football in what looked like the last possession of the first half to being down 31-6 less than five minutes into the third quarter. 

It was a masterclass in melting down. 

K-State turned it over three times and gave up two non-offensive touchdowns in that stretch, a surefire way to lose a game anywhere, let alone on the road in front of a raucous crowd. 

Head coach Chris Klieman said after the game that he wasn’t entirely sure what caused his team to come unglued the way they did. 

It’s fair to say that the Wildcats got a little bit unlucky. Running back DJ Giddens fumbled for the first time in his career, and BYU’s Parker Kingston was very fortunate to track down his fumbled punt return before running it all the way back. 

But luck or not, you have to have the maturity and leadership to stop the bleeding. Klieman will have to dig deep to bring that out of a relatively young team. 

Dave Aranda’s Job Security

Baylor head coach Dave Aranda watched Kansas blow an 11-point lead with 5:39 left in the game and said, “Hold my beer.” 

It’s already bad enough that Aranda’s defense gave up the game-tying Hail Mary with “victory cigar” being the defensive play call. 

But don’t forget that Colorado essentially pulled off back-to-back successful Hail Marys on Aranda’s defense. The previous play should have tied the game if Sanders’ pass wasn’t dropped.

Aranda took over play-calling duties for the first time in five years this season to help get this team over the hump. That makes the failure in crunch time even more damning. 

You can also argue Aranda should have been more aggressive when Baylor had 1st and ten at the Colorado 26-yard line, leading by seven with 6:20 left. Three running plays and a missed field goal later, the Buffaloes had all the life they needed. 

This is the type of loss that can quickly derail a season. 

The players aren’t dumb. They know Aranda is coaching for his job this year, and I’d imagine there’s a tendency for everybody to tighten up after dropping a game like that when you had it in the bag. 

Saturday’s home matchup with BYU is HUGE for Aranda and company. 

Sonny Dykes 

It wasn’t exactly a banner day for Sonny Dykes, either. 

His team lost a rivalry game by 24 while outgaining SMU by over 100 yards, and he wasn’t even around to see the entire thing. 

Dykes got ejected early in the third quarter after his second unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. 

This game was a comedy of errors from the Horned Frogs. They turned it over five times and gave up three non-offensive touchdowns to the Mustangs. 

SMU has struggled mightily on offense this year, but TCU graciously let the Mustangs' defense and special teams shoulder much of the scoring load. 

Since leading 28-7 in the second half against UCF in week three, TCU has been a disaster, and it’s not a great look for Dykes to get tossed while things were unraveling. 

2022 was a magic run with Max Duggan, but it’s beginning to feel more and more like that was the outlier in an otherwise subpar tenure in Ft. Worth for Dykes.

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