Big 12 Football Power Rankings, 9.15.2022

Having followed KU football for many years I believe in and place value on moral victories. In my lifetime with the exception of the Glen Mason and Mark Mangino years, moral victories were all too often the only victories seen in Lawrence. I say this in the preamble to this week’s ratings because after ranking the teams, I noticed I gave a pass to two teams with losses. One I left where they were last week, Baylor, and the other, Texas, I moved up two places. The other bias I noticed is I do not give bonus credit to teams beating up on bad teams as they should, see OU and K-State not moving and OSU falling. Like the moral victory bias, this one is probably rooted in watching KU football for so long. Besides moral victories, I do believe in reevaluating previous weeks' games. See TCU’s precipitous fall. After a week one win over Colorado, I used the “no extra credit beating a bad team” philosophy to not really change their ranking. Looking back on it now after seeing Air Force destroy the Buffs, TCU’s week one win looks decidedly anemic, so they suffered, as a result, this week. I did move KU out of the cellar, and deservedly so, but resisted moving the Jayhawks further. Burned by too many bad seasons, I want to see what happens this coming weekend. A win by the Jayhawks will put significant upward pressure on their ranking and should see them leapfrog several teams.

The schedule for the upcoming weekend has no conference games, but there are three games of note in addition to KU at Houston. UTSA plays at Texas, Texas Tech is at NC State and OU is at Nebraska. Is OU playing the Nebraksa still a game of note? This week I say it is, but understand the opposing point of view. Enough with the preamble, below are my rankings as we head into week 3, how do yours differ?

1. Baylor (1): A close loss to BYU at altitude in Provo is not enough to drop them down.
2. OU (2): Venables keeps the Sooners winning, but the eye test holds them back.
3. Texas (5): Yes they lost, but they played #1 Alabama to the wire.
4. OSU(3): They beat a failing ASU program as they should.
5. Texas Tech (8): Nice win over Houston. Let’s see if it looks that way in a few weeks.
6. K-State (6): Nice victory over a Mizzou team that apparently has no quarterback.
7. Iowa St (7): The ‘Clones benefit from my lack of respect for what TCU has done.
8. TCU (4): Easy win week 2. Win over Buffs looking more anemic after Air Force bombing.
9. KU (10): They are 2-0 with a victory on the road over new cellar dweller West Virginia.
10. West Virginia (9): 0-2 for the first time since 1979.