Will Colorado or BYU Slip Up?

This is a rare week in the Big 12 where we have three games with one team favored by more than a possession, but don’t let your guard down. It could be a wild week. 

BYU should be very leery of a Kansas team that finally found its sea legs. Is K-State vulnerable to back-to-back losses, especially if Arizona State running back Cam Skattebo is back? Utah’s offense is in major trouble, but they do have a defense capable of slowing down Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter. 

Here’s everything you need to know about the weekend.

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Week Twelve Primer

I’ll be previewing games every week based on a scale of one to five Yormarks. Five Yormarks is the most entertaining and enticing game possible, while one Yormark is a snooze-fest. 

Here’s your week twelve primer! All times listed are Central Time (CST)

Five Yormarks

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4 Yormarks

Arizona State (7-2, 4-2) at #16 K-State (7-2, 4-2) – 6:00 ESPN Line: K-State -8

Arizona State’s rebuild is already miles ahead of where anybody outside of Tempe imagined it would be, but the Sun Devils can fast-track it even further with a win at K-State on Saturday. 

ASU has avoided the top six teams in the Big 12 during its 7-2 start. That will change quickly, though, with K-State and BYU on the schedule over the next two weeks. 

The key storyline for the Sun Devils in Manhattan is the health of running back Cam Skattebo. The Big 12’s all-purpose yardage (per game) leader missed last week’s win over UCF with a shoulder injury. Things do seem to be on track for Skattebo to return on Saturday. 

K-State’s front seven will be the toughest test Skattebo has had all season. The Wildcats lead the Big 12 in run defense by a wide margin, only allowing 99 yards per game.

Where will the Wildcats’ heads be after a bye week following a brutal loss at Houston? K-State is still alive for a Big 12 championship game appearance, but they need help. If Colorado loses a game and the Wildcats win out, they will likely be in. 

Moving up to #16 in this week’s College Football Playoff rankings also cracked the door open ever so slightly for an at-large bid to the playoff. Many dominoes would have to fall in place, but it’s not out of the question. 

K-State has been generally in control at home, winning their four games at Bill Snyder Family Stadium by an average of 21 points per game. Will that trend continue, or was the performance at Houston the start of a late-season slide?

Kansas (3-6, 2-4) at #6 BYU (9-0, 6-0) – 9:15 ESPN
Line: BYU -2.5

It’s been quite a week for BYU. The Cougars miraculously pulled out a controversial (to some) win at Utah and moved up three spots in the College Football Playoff rankings to #6. 

The latter spawned another wave of attacks from national pundits on the merits of the Cougars staying comfortably in front of teams like Georgia and Ole Miss. Yes, the SEC propaganda machine is hard at work tearing down the Cougars’ accomplishments. 

BYU and Utah fans have spent most of the week re-litigating the holding call that gave the Cougars the spark they needed to finish the comeback in Salt Lake City. Amazingly, some Ute fans are still dug in, even after seeing this definitive angle of the play. 

I’m now four paragraphs into this preview without mentioning Kansas once, and that’s mostly by design. There has to be a temptation for BYU to get too sucked into the hype and noise surrounding this dream season and everything that happened last week. 

If that happens, the Cougars will get beat. 

Kansas is more than talented enough, and the Jayhawks are playing their best football of the season. In the last three weeks, they’ve thumped Iowa State and Houston at Arrowhead and lost on a 51-yard field goal at K-State.

KU quarterback Jalon Daniels finally looks like what everybody expected him to be. He torched one of the best defensive coordinators in the league last week in Iowa State’s Jon Heacock. 

There also seems to be more cohesion with offensive coordinator Jeff Grimes, who will return to Provo after two different coaching stints with the Cougars. 

The combination of the situation and opponent makes BYU only a 2.5-point home favorite on Saturday. We could be in for another Cardiac Cougs moment in the early hours of Sunday morning.

3 Yormarks

Utah (4-5, 1-5) at #17 Colorado (7-2, 5-1) – 11:00 Fox
Line: Colorado -11.5

On the other side of the Holy War, this week’s theme has been “When it rains, it pours.” 

The Utes were already dealing with the fallout from a loss and AD Mark Harlan’s podium tantrum, during which he asserted that the BYU game was stolen from his team by the officials and maybe the Big 12 conference. 

Now come injuries and transfers. Quarterback Brandon Rose, who started the BYU game last week, is out for the year with a brutal injury. 

With Cam Rising already on the shelf, freshman Issac Wilson and walk-on Luke Bottari are the only healthy quarterbacks on the roster.

Whoever is under center won’t have star tight end Brant Kuithe to throw to, either. Kuithe’s injury suffered against the Cougars is also season-ending. 

This is a good summation of where things are at. 

The Utes still have the Big 12’s best scoring defense, but moving the ball against a Buffaloes defense that is suddenly one of the best in the Big 12 will be a chore. 

Coach Prime’s team should be plenty motivated. Colorado still controls its own Big 12 championship and College Football Playoff destiny, and the Buffaloes moved up three spots to #17 in the playoff rankings this week. That’s great news for a team finishing with three games against teams that are a combined 3-16 in conference play this year.

The Buffs don’t have the greatest resume in the league. Because of unbalanced scheduling, they will only play two of the top seven teams in the Big 12 standings this year. But I’d argue the eye test says they look like the best team in the league right now. 

We’ll see if that continues on Saturday morning in Boulder. 

Cincinnati (5-4, 3-3) at Iowa State (7-2, 4-2) – 7:00 Fox
Line: ISU -10

Iowa State and Cincinnati’s seasons have taken turns for the worse over the last few weeks. 

The Bearcats had legitimate hopes of contending for a Big 12 title before losses to Colorado and West Virginia. Iowa State had its sights set on a 12-0 regular season, or at least the first ten-win season in school history. The latter can still happen for the Cyclones, but only if head coach Matt Campbell and defensive coordinator Jon Heacock can fix an injury-riddled defense. 

The good news for Iowa State is that, on paper, handling Cincinnati’s offense should be manageable. In conference play, the Bearcats are 12th in scoring offense. Cincy quarterback Brendan Sorsby is coming off of a three-turnover game against WVU, the worst of which was a game-changing pick-six that set up 24 unanswered points for the Mountaineers. 

Cincy defensive coordinator Tyson Veidt had a head start on his Iowa State prep this week – he spent the last eight seasons on Campbell’s staff in Ames.  

Big 12 title dreams are long gone for the Bearcats, but getting to a bowl in head coach Scott Satterfield’s second season would be a significant step forward. It won’t be easy with K-State and TCU coming up after the Cyclones. 

A road win in Ames as a double-digit underdog to lock up bowl eligibility would easily be the high-water mark for Cincinnati football since Luke Fickell walked out the door. 

Meanwhile, Iowa State can still make it to Arlington if they get enough help, but they need to take care of their business and win out to have a chance.

Baylor (5-4, 3-3) at West Virginia (5-4, 4-2) – 3:00 ESPN2
Line: Baylor -2.5

West Virginia doesn’t have a win over a team over .500 in Big 12 play, and three of its four conference wins are against the bottom five in the league. The Mountaineers aren’t even bowl-eligible, but they can still make it to the College Football Playoff. 

All it takes is for WVU to win out and Colorado to lose a game. That would put West Virginia in the Big 12 title game with a shot at the Big 12’s auto bid to the playoff. 

You can have fun with the Big 12 tiebreakers here if you’re looking to check my work. 

A red-hot Baylor team is the next obstacle standing in the way of the Neal Brown redemption tour. The Bears are well-rested off a bye week that followed three straight wins in which they averaged 45 points per game. 

Quarterback Sawyer Robertson has quietly become one of the best signal callers in the league. Over the winning streak, he’s thrown eight touchdowns to just one interception and is averaging 5.4 yards per carry. He should be licking his chops at a WVU pass defense that allows over 14 yards per completion. 

The Mountaineers have also given their season new life with back-to-back road wins at Arizona and Cincinnati. Quarterback Nicco Marchiol started both games while Garrett Greene was out with an upper-body injury. It appears Greene will be cleared to play, but will Brown ditch the hot hand?

We know one thing for sure: the winner of this game will get bowl-eligible, something that didn’t seem likely for either team just three weeks ago.

2 Yormarks

Houston (4-5, 3-3) at Arizona (3-6, 1-5) – 9:15 FS1 (Friday)
Line: Arizona -1

These two programs are heading in opposite directions. 

Houston has won three of four since inserting Zeon Chriss into the starting lineup at quarterback. Head coach Willie Fritz’s coaching chops are unsurprisingly shining through as we get deeper into the season. 

A bowl isn’t totally out of the question, but with Baylor and BYU left on the schedule, a game at 1-5 Arizona feels like a must-win to make it happen. 

The excitement for the home stretch of Arizona head coach Brent Brennan’s first year in Tucson is palpable. 

Okay, maybe not so much.

Not only are fans checked out on Brennan’s Wildcats after a five-game losing streak, but the 9th-ranked Arizona men’s basketball team will be in the middle of a key non-con game at Wisconsin when this game kicks off. That’s not exactly a recipe for a charged-up atmosphere. 

I’m not a gambler, but you might want to take the under here. Houston and Arizona have the league's two lowest-scoring offenses.

1 Yormark

None

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