Big 12's big week: Is once-beleaguered conference finally catching up to Power 5 competition?

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Gary Patterson certainly has heard the criticisms of the Big 12 Conference.

“Everybody keeps talking about us not being very good,” Patterson said.

Well, maybe not now. Not after the Big 12 had one of its best regular-season weeks ever last week, compiling a 5-2 against Power 5 opponents and improving its nonconference record so far this season to 22-5. That winning percentage of .815 is the best among Power 5 conferences.

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“I think at times there’s been — with a couple of the major networks and other people out there — there’s been that anointing of other leagues,” said Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley. “I don’t feel it as much now, though. I think the Big 12’s had a lot of great wins the last several years.”

According to Big 12 research, last week’s five victories tied the most by any Power 5 league against peer teams since at least 1996 (the Pac-12 did it twice). Four of those five wins — Oklahoma over UCLA, TCU over Purdue, Kansas over Boston College and Kansas State over Mississippi State — were road wins.

In Week 1, the Big 12 went 10-0 for the first time since 2012.

All that to say: So far, so good for the Big 12.

“I watched a lot of the games,” said Baylor coach Matt Rhule, whose team had an open date last week. “The league looks really strong. Even the games we lost were versus other Power 5 teams and came right down to the wire. I think what you see, especially as you watch other leagues, our league is as strong as any top to bottom.”

So was last week a statement weekend?

“Boy, I hope so,” said first-year Kansas State coach Chris Klieman. “We talked about it in our league meetings and stuff, that these nonconference games are so critical to the perception of the Big 12. I thought it was a great last few weeks for our conference to get some signature wins.”

Said first-year West Virginia coach Neal Brown: “I thought there were some quality wins. I don’t know if I’d go so far as saying it was a statement weekend. This league’s played really good football. Early on I think, especially against Power 5 opponents, the Big 12 has handled themselves very well.”

K-State and WVU were both touchdown underdogs, and both took down previously undefeated teams.

But no Big 12 team quite captured the nation’s attention like Kansas last week. The perennial doormat Jayhawks, who lost a home game to Coastal Carolina just the week before, were a 20-point underdog at Boston College — but won going away, 48-24. It was KU’s first Power 5 road win since 2008 (a streak of 48 losses) and its most points scored in a Power 5 road game since 1996.

“I think that the Big 12 is making a mark,” said KU coach Les Miles, “making a point that (in the Playoff), there should be a Big 12 … team.”

Like Kansas, West Virginia was coming off a miserable showing the week before, a 38-7 loss at Missouri. Unlike Kansas, which fell behind 10-0 and 17-7, WVU scored first against N.C. State and played on an early adrenaline rush before pulling away late in Morgantown.

“We did not play very well at all against Missouri,” Brown said. “We really challenged our guys. We had more physical practices a week ago, and I thought they came out and responded. We played with more of an edge. We blocked better. We tackled better. I thought our energy was great.”

Similarly, Klieman said he knew early in the week that the Wildcats would have a good chance to win in Starkville because his players had the right mindset. Both KSU and WVU committed multiple critical errors throughout the game, but settled down and won the fourth quarter.

“I think the biggest factor in us winning the game was the belief we were going to win the game,” Klieman said. “We talked about it on Monday. We had a great week of preparation. I thought we matched up well, but we’d have an opportunity, if we played well, to win the game. And the kids believed it every day.”

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There were other common threads last week. Most notably, Big 12 teams ran the football with power and played strong defense. Kansas rushed for 329 yards, TCU rushed for 346, Oklahoma rushed for 309 and Oklahoma State rushed for 337. Defensively, Big 12 opponents averaged just 20.2 points in nine games last week. Five failed to exceed 21 points, and none scored more than 28.

What is this, 1998?

“Everybody’s saying the Big 12’s down and they don’t have very good teams and they don’t play defense,” Patterson said. “I mean, just look at the last couple years — not just this year but the last two or three — you look in the bowl games, we’ve statistically probably played better as a group than any other conference that’s played.”

Indeed, the Big 12 has had a winning record in bowl games for three straight years, something no other league has done. The Big 12’s postseason winning percentage in that span (.619) tops the ACC’s (.576), the Big Ten’s (.556), the SEC’s (.459) and the Pac-12’s (.318).

Each year since 2016, the Big 12 has improved its overall nonconference record (from 19-11 to 20-10 to 22-7 to 21-5) as well as its record against Power 5 opponents (from 3-6 to 4-6 to 8-8 to 6-4).

The harsh reality is that the Big 12 losing Texas A&M, Nebraska, Colorado and Missouri in 2010 and 2011 was a debilitating blow that nearly sent the conference to an early grave. Coveted Texas recruits have been trickling more and more to the SEC and elsewhere. Elite offensive recruits have chosen the Big 12, but the best defensive prospects have gone to the SEC, ACC and Big Ten. And even in this new age of high-octane offenses, it has been defense that still wins championships.

There’s little debate the Big 12 lost ground to the SEC and Big Ten and, for a while, the ACC. Five years into the College Football Playoff era, the Big 12 remains the only league without at least a semifinal victory. The league has run its streak to 13 years without a national championship, ahead of only the Pac-12 (14).

But in the last few years — in per-school revenue, if not in overall quality of play — the Big 12 has caught the ACC and surpassed the Pac-12.

In 2015, according to tax documents published by USA Today, the Big 12 ranked fourth in per-school revenue at $25.2 million, well behind the SEC and Big Ten and a million dollars behind the ACC (and only about $100,000 above the Pac-12).

But last year the Big 12 paid its members $34.7 million each, which ranks third behind network-driven juggernauts at the Big Ten ($54.7 million) and SEC ($43.7 million) and comfortably ahead of the ACC ($29.5 million) and Pac-12 ($29.5 million).

On the field, the Big 12 has experienced even more progress.

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In 2016, the Big 12’s nonconference winning percentage (.639) ranked fifth among Power 5 teams. In 2017 (.658), that climbed to fourth. Last year (.714) the Big 12 ranked second.

This year, with three nonconference games still to play (Iowa State-Louisiana Monroe, TCU-SMU and Baylor-Rice this weekend), the Big 12 (.815) leads the Big Ten (.794), SEC (.727), Pac-12 (.688) and ACC (.679) in nonconference winning percentage.

“There’s always been good players,” Patterson said. “I think people are getting better and better on defense because of the people we have to play week in and week out. We just have to keep doing it.

“Our biggest problem is then we have to start playing each other and then we beat each other up because everybody plays everybody. So that’s a little bit of an issue.”

Texas coach Tom Herman said he had “no idea” that the Big 12 still had detractors, but agrees with Patterson and others on the scheduling inequities.

“I think top to bottom, this is as deep a league as there is, 1 through 10,” Herman said. “You get to teams eight, nine and 10 in other conferences and for teams 1 and 2, it’s a pretty easy day at the office.

“In the Big 12, you gotta bring your A-game every week. We play each other and maybe it’s sometimes we beat up on each other because we play each other. We don’t go 7-8 years without playing a conference opponent.”

Said Riley: “We got a lot of good teams, a lot of good players, a lot of good coaches in this league. Having been through it and having won it a couple times, I know how hard it’s been, and it’s just as hard to win this league as any of them out there.”

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