Big 12 Coaches Are Fired Up

Big 12 coaches are telling it like it is this week, and I love it! Sonny Dykes, Mike Gundy, and Neal Brown all gave us memorable quotes, and that’s three more than we typically see from coaches in a given week. 

I loved what Brown and Dykes said so much that I went for a deeper dive into the content and context of what they said. One coach is fighting for his players, and the other is fighting for his league. It’s hard to fault that.

Plus, I loved your hot takes this week. Texas Tech and Baylor are flying under the radar right now, but are they about to produce two of the most memorable seasons in the league? It’s not as far-fetched as you might think.

What You Need to Know

• ESPN released a list of the top 100 players in college football, and twelve Big 12 players from seven teams made the cut. Colorado CB/WR Travis Hunter leads the way at #3 overall, with Oklahoma State RB Ollie Gordon also cracking the top ten at #8. Arizona has four selections to lead all Big 12 teams.

• You won’t find any West Virginia Mountaineers on the top 100 list, which has WVU coach Neal Brown fired up. Brown took to SEC Network to air his grievances with the ESPN writers who left QB Garrett Greene and OT Wyatt Milum off the list. 

• If a top ten list is more your style, On3 ranked the top ten most impactful players in the Big 12 – again headlined by Travis Hunter and Ollie Gordon. Iowa State and UCF get some recognition this time, though. 

• Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: OSU coach Mike Gundy gave us a great soundbite. This time, he told players’ agents to chill out during football season. Thankfully for Gundy, the focus can turn from business to football now that the season is here. 

• Sonny Dykes wasn’t afraid to point out some trade secrets that keep the SEC propaganda machine rolling. He says scheduling an easy non-conference win in week ten is pretty smart because you can’t get away with an easy win that deep into the Big 12 schedule. 

• Houston officially announced their new athletic director hire. Eddie Nuñez takes over after spending the last seven years as the AD at New Mexico, where he hired Richard Pitino and Bronco Mendenhall. Nuñez played basketball at Florida under Billy Donovan and spent 14 years working in the LSU athletic department.

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Your Hottest Big 12 Takes

Now, this is a fun one. Regardless of what you think of Dequan Finn, the Big 12 is crowded with star power at quarterback. 

Sheduer Sanders will be a first-round pick, Noah Fifita came out of nowhere to lead Arizona to its first ten-win season in nearly a decade, Jalon Daniels has drawn Heisman buzz when healthy, Cam Rising has won two Pac-12 titles, Avery Johnson is a generational talent, KJ Jefferson was a huge name in the portal, Rocco Becht made as many big plays as anybody, and Garrett Greene flashed star potential last year. 

Oh, and CBS Sports even mocked Donovan Smith in the first round. 

It won’t be easy for Finn to stand out among that group, but the ceiling might be there to do it. 

Finn was dynamic in three years at Toledo, racking up over 7,000 passing yards, 1,800+ rushing yards, and 88 touchdowns. He capped it off with a MAC MVP while leading the Rockets to their first 11-win season in six years. 

There’s a reason schools like Florida State, Washington, and Ole Miss were interested. 

I’m not sure Baylor will win enough this year for Finn to get that honor, but he’s near the top of my list of most intriguing players to watch this year. 

Texas Tech was picked ninth in the Big 12 preseason poll, so this qualifies as a hot take, but it’s not as hot as you might think. 

The last three teams to win the Big 12 title all made big jumps from seasons similar to, or worse than, Tech’s last year. 

• 2021 Baylor: From 2-7 to 12-2

• 2022 K-State: From 8-5 to 10-4

• 2023 Texas: From 8-5 to 12-2

• 2024 Texas Tech: From 7-6 to ??

There was a lot of buzz surrounding Tech and the Big 12 title last year, so maybe everyone was just a year too soon with the hype. If the Red Raiders can finally stay relatively healthy at quarterback for a season, it would go a long way toward giving them a chance. 

I mentioned last week that while I LOVE the Willie Fritz hire for Houston, it will take a year or two for them to really get rolling. 

But will Houston jump up and get somebody that surprises you this year? I think it’s more likely than not. 

Shoot, the Cougars damn near did it last year against Texas. If not for the officials screwing Houston on a 3rd and one spot on the potential game-tying drive, the Horns may not have made the playoff. 

Houston will have ample opportunity this year. Along with Oklahoma, they have five of the top six teams in the Big 12 preseason poll on the schedule. 

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The Bottom Line

There’s nothing better than a coach genuinely speaking his mind. We don’t get nearly enough of it these days. 

I sat through a decade of press conferences and can diagnose coachspeak with pinpoint accuracy, so I love it when I detect something out of the norm. 

We got exactly that this week from Sonny Dykes and Neal Brown. 

Dykes made an important point about how the SEC continues to strengthen its grip on the rest of the sport, in this case, via the schedule. 

It’s not even Dykes taking a shot at the SEC. It’s simply pointing out that they can create advantages like this in their schedule because they don’t have to squeeze every last penny out of their TV deal like the Big 12 and ACC do. 

The SEC has always been ahead of the curve by swapping out a conference game in November for a cream puff non-conference opponent, but it looks even smarter now. 

With the college football playoff expanding, seasons just got longer than ever for the true contenders. 

Yes, the SEC champion will get a bye, but there will be at least two, and more likely three or four, at-large SEC teams every year that need to win four games to win it all. And one of those at-large teams will have already added an extra game to their workload with the SEC championship game. 

Does it help to have a pseudo bye week in week ten? It sure does. 

The SEC also continues to dodge playing a ninth conference game, even though they would reportedly make an extra $2 to $5 million per school for doing so. 

It must be nice to be in the college football catbird seat and be able to pass on that money to keep the convenience and competitive advantage of playing one less league game. 

Meanwhile, the Big 12 is forced to move conference games to Ireland in week zero and contemplate playing on Wednesdays and Sundays to extract every last penny out of the TV deal. There’s no world where the Big 12 can afford to play only eight conference games. 

It’s one of the many ways the SEC leverages its place in the college football world to put even more distance between itself and virtually everybody else. The SEC has plenty of advantages beyond strictly the amount of money it brings in every year.

Kudos to Sonny Dykes for bringing attention to it. 

I also have to credit Neal Brown for calling out ESPN reporters during an appearance on the SEC Network. 

Brown felt his team was slighted because Garrett Greene and Wyatt Milum were left off ESPN’s Top 100 Players in College Football list. 

To be honest, I don’t think it’s crazy that they weren’t on the list, but I absolutely love the fight we’re seeing from Brown. 

Remember that Brown had to listen to speculation about his job all last year. He also watched his team get picked dead last in the Big 12 preseason poll. 

All he did was win nine games and bring almost every important offensive piece back from that team. His reward? Being picked behind six other Big 12 teams in the preseason poll. 

The guy clearly had enough of people looking past his team and now has a leg to stand on after what he did last season. 

And the best part? He made it all about defending his players. This wasn’t a list of the best coaches in the country. It was a list of the best players. And sticking up for your guys will play well with a locker room that already loves him – as evidenced by these incredible t-shirts. 

Even if you think the Mountaineers were simply a product of the schedule last year and are about to come back down to earth, you have to respect a coach going out swinging. 

I see you, Neal Breezy.