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There were a few big games this week in the Big 12, but they didn’t seem to be able to move the needle too much when it came to shaking out the relative strengths of the conference.
1. TCU (Last Week: 1) - Having survived an early scare against Minnesota, the Horned Frogs have laid waste to every defense that they’ve faced since. A thrilling come from behind win against Texas Tech should provide all the adrenaline they need to get through this week’s matchup with Texas.
2. Oklahoma (Last Week: 2) - With a bye last week, they couldn’t hurt themselves, and Baylor couldn’t do enough to catch them. Big test this week when West Virginia comes to town.
3. Baylor (Last Week: 3) - The big win over Rice was expected. It doesn’t really take away any doubts, instead just avoiding introducing any new ones.
4. Texas Tech (Last Week: 4) - This was probably the hardest to place. Ultimately, the offense is everything it looked like early, and the defense definitely took a step back, but that is kind of expected when playing the best team in the conference. For now they get to hold onto this spot, but West Virginia is definitely making a big push.
5. West Virginia (Last Week: 5) - Big blowout win against Maryland, who was supposed to be a decent team this year. They’ll get a good chance to get over the top this week when they play Oklahoma. They may not need a win to make the jump over the Red Raiders.
6. Oklahoma State (Last Week: 6) - I really thought long and hard about dropping the Cowboys despite the win. The fact is they should have lost that game. I’m not sure any other team (except Kansas of course) would have been capable of such a horrible collapse.
7. Kansas State (Last Week: 7) - No movement from the bye. They get a shot to move up next week by playing the team directly ahead of them. Hopefully the two weeks to prep were enough so that they could come up with a good gameplan to capitalize.
8. Iowa State (Last Week: 9) - Not sure I should move them up after the bye, but that Texas team is just so dysfunctional. They need to win this weekend against the Jayhawks to avoid dropping right back down.
9. Texas (Last Week: 8) - Winning that game would have been a huge boost to the Charlie Strong era. Instead, the Longhorn nation is left wondering how everything could be going so horribly wrong yet again.
10. Kansas (Last Week: 10) - At this rate, I may never see the road streak broken in my lifetime…