Big 12 Roundup and Recap: The Big 12 Runs Through Austin, Texas

Texas Tech Red Raiders (4-2, 2-1) 17, TCU Horned Frogs (3-3, 1-2) 14

It’s become clear that Kliff Kingsbury is coming into his own, and we’ve got ourselves a football team. The first half was about as terrible as we’ve seen as Tech fans, but we dialed it up once again in the second half. David Gibbs deserves a ton of credit because Shawn Robinson was under constant pressure and never could find a rhythm. Meanwhile, the Frogs couldn’t manage to keep our offense under wraps for a full 60 minutes and a balanced attack did the trick.

TCU still couldn’t put its turnover problem to rest — the Frogs now inching closer and closer to the cellar of the FBS in turnover margin. The offense still couldn’t break 20 points, wasting what would otherwise be a phenomenal 17 point defensive outing against one of the most consistently prolific offenses college football has to offer. And when the dust settled, TCU’s eight game win streak had reached its conclusion — the Frogs exiting their home turf on a somber note for the first time since December 2016.

Kansas State Wildcats (3-4, 1-3) 31, Oklahoma State Cowboys (4-3, 1-3) 12

When all seems lost, revert to w hat you’ve always done best: run the ball and play defense.K-State (3-4, 1-3) did both of those things in spades this afternoon, rushing for 291 yards and holding a powerful Oklahoma State offense to a mere 311 yards as they pulled away in the second half for a satisfying 31-12 Homecoming victory at Bill Snyder Family Stadium.

In a game that was just all around ugly, with no touchdown until a few minutes into the third quarter, Oklahoma State just couldn’t get anything going. Both sides of the ball shot themselves in the foot with six penalties for 55 yards at the end of the third. On top of that the defense just wasn’t able to stop Skyler Thompson’s running ability.

#9 Texas Longhorns (6-1, 4-0) 23, Baylor Bears (4-3, 2-2)

Continuing a disturbing trend, though, the offense wasn’t able to produce any scores in the second half, forcing the defense to come through at the end of the game. The game certainly wasn’t pretty, but Texas was able to win with its backup quarterback. Now offensive line coach Herb Hand will challenge his group to create more displacement at the line of scrimmage while the overall offensive braintrust works on finding some answers. Defensive coordinator Todd Orlando will challenge his defense to tackle better and get off the field more often on third downs.

Baylor had three chances to take the lead in the fourth quarter but couldn’t get anything going on offense. The Bears lost to the Longhorns 23-17. Baylor is now 4-3 and will next play at 6:00 on October 25th in Morgantown. Baylor had two final shots at the Texas 17. Brewer threw incomplete, and Baylor had one second left. He faced pressure and fired it off just out of the end zone. Close but not quite for the Bears.

The good news is now we can start talking about conference games and how to win the conference. Texas controls its own destiny. It can afford a loss to West Virginia in the November 3rd showdown because of its win over Oklahoma. Assuming Texas wins every game but the one against the Mountaineers, it will be in Jerry World.

The Mountaineers also control their own destiny, despite the loss to Iowa State. If the Mountaineers can regroup and win out, they would be the second team in the Big 12 Championship Game. They still have games against Texas and Oklahoma and would actually be the 1-seed (owning the tiebreaker over Texas in that scenario).

Oklahoma controls its destiny if it can win out. Beating the Mountaineers on Black Friday and winning out would give it only one conference loss and saddle the Mountaineers with two.

All other teams are now hoping for chaos or playing for bowls.