Five Big 12 Games We Will Miss in 2023
With the addition of BYU, Cincinnati, Houston, and UCF, the Big 12 will have 14 teams in the conference for the 2023 season.
With that many teams, the Big 12 will no longer be able to implement the round-robin schedule that we’ve gotten used to, meaning your team will dodge four teams in conference play.
There will still be protected rivalries in the Big 12 going forward, meaning that some teams will play every year. However, there are some games that we’ve gotten used to seeing or were looking forward to that we won’t have a chance to watch in 2023.
Here are the top five games that we will miss in Big 12 play in 2023.
Oklahoma State vs. Texas
Texas may lead the all-time series, but Oklahoma State has owned the Longhorns since 2010, going 9-4 against Texas in that span. Oklahoma State has won the last two meetings in what has become one of the many fun secondary rivalries in the Big 12, but Texas scraped together two one-score wins in 2019 and 2020. Seven of the last eight meetings between these two has been a one-score contest and things have gotten heated between them at times, most notably when Mike Gundy and Tom Herman got into a heated exchange which led to an “are you not entertained?” moment from the Cowboys’ head coach. Good times.
West Virginia vs. Texas
The Mountaineers and Longhorns have met a total of 12 times in their history and have split the series 6-6 and it seems like every time these two get together we are in for a treat. Texas handled West Virginia in Austin last season, but it was the Mountaineers in Morgantown who prevailed in 2021. West Virginia wide receiver David Sills made headlines in 2018 when throwing the “Horns Down” gesture after scoring a touchdown in WVU’s 42-41 win over the Longhorns, and it cost him 15 yards. The gesture has been heavily penalized since that game, but we won’t get the chance to see a Mountaineer do it this year.
Kansas State vs. Oklahoma
Kansas State has won three of the last four games against the Sooners and four of the last nine. Five of the last six games in this series have been decided by one score and it seems as if both fan bases really get up for this game. In 2022, Adrian Martinez and the Wildcats came into Norman and handed the Sooners their first of seven L’s on the year, 41-34. Secretly, I would bet that most Oklahoma fans are very happy to dodge the Wildcats in 2023, but we will miss the game.-
TCU vs. Oklahoma State
Last year’s matchup between these two teams was one of the best games of the 2022 season, with TCU outlasting Oklahoma State for a 43-40 overtime victory. The all-time record is in favor of Oklahoma State, with a 17-14-2 record, but TCU has won four of the last six games in this series. Oklahoma State’s largest margin of victory in the series came in 2021, with a 63-17 shellacking of the Horned Frogs on their way to a 12-2 season. This year’s win under Sonny Dykes was a little payback, but we won’t get a chance to see Dykes and Gundy go at it for a second time in 2023, unfortunately.
Oklahoma State vs. Texas Tech
Perhaps the biggest casualty of the 2023 Big 12 football schedule is the loss of the Texas Tech vs. Oklahoma State game. The all-time series in this game is in Oklahoma State’s favor by the slightest margin, 24-23-3. The Pokes have won three of the last five contests, but this feels like a real rivalry. Voted by Twitter as the “Red Dirt Rivalry,” Pokes and Red Raiders fans really get up for this game and have a lot of things in common. As the gun-toting cowboys and raiders of the Big 12, this rivalry has an old-western feel that we’ve gotten really used to seeing, and will certainly miss in 2023.
