The college football season is in full swing and the Big 12 Conference had eight games on the schedule on Saturday in Week 4. For the Big 12, it was the start of conference play for the majority of the league, other than TCU (vs. SMU) and Iowa State (vs. Arkansas State).
There were several match ups that were one-score games heading into the fourth quarter, which we expect plenty more of heading into the rest of the Big 12 schedule.
Here are the Top 5 takeaways from Week 3 of the Big 12 football season.
Hello, Hail Mary
The finish in Boulder was quintessential Big 12. Colorado was down one touchdown and down to the final play of the game, when Shedeur Sanders found Lajohntay Wester in the left corner of the end zone for a touchdown to force overtime. The Buffaloes scored first in OT and then forced a turnover by punching the ball out vs. Dominic Richardson at the goal line to win the game 38-37.
Shedeur Sanders was clearly the star of the night for CU, which struggled to protect him once again (eight sacks), but that didn’t matter in crunch time. Sanders finished 23/39 for 329 yards and two touchdowns, while rushing for 18 yards and one touchdown on the night. For all the criticism some want to levy his way, Sanders was great in this game, and clutch.
Colorado erasing a 14-point first half deficit to win their first game back in the Big 12, while also winning their first Power conference game since October 7th of 2023 could not have come at a better time for the Buffaloes. There are still things for this team to improve on, but for now, celebrating a wild win like that is well deserved for Deion Sanders and his program.
Neal Brown Needed That
West Virginia came back to beat Kansas 32-28 on Saturday in a game that saw WVU trailing by 11 points in the final quarter and included a 90-minute rain delay. But WVU came back to win the game in dramatic fashion. Had Neal Brown fallen to 1-3 on the seat, the “Neal Brown Hot Seat” talk would have really heated up. Fair or not, that’s college football in today’s game. But with this comeback win, the Mountaineers are 1-0 in Big 12 play after a tough 1-2 start to the season.
Granted, the schedule doesn’t get easier from here, with a road trip to Stillwater, followed by a home game against Iowa State. But for one week, the heat deserves to be off Neal Brown as his Mountaineers fought back from a double-digit deficit with five minutes left (one week after blowing a double-digit lead) to come back and win a game in front of the Mountaineer faithful in Morgantown.
Utah Football Establishes Itself Atop the Big 12, For Now
Going to Stillwater is no easy task, but Utah made it look as easy as any team has in quite some time. The Cowboys entered the game 25-3 at home since the beginning of the 2020 season, matching the second-highest home win total in the FBS, behind only Alabama. The final score looks close (22-19), and OSU technically had a chance late in the game, but it was a dominant performance by the Utes for most of the afternoon.
Also, in one of the toughest environments for a college football true freshman, Isaac Wilson handled himself like a seasoned veteran. Wilson did not get rattled after throwing an interception on his second drive of the game. He turned around and let the Utes on a 12-play, 62-yard field goal drive to tie the game at three. That drive was followed up by a touchdown drive to put Utah up 10-3. His second-half touchdown to Brant Kuithe was a thing of beauty as well, which put the Utes up 22-3 in the fourth quarter.
Meantime, Oklahoma State has questioned that still need to be answered in the running game, at quarterback, and also along the offensive line.
BYU Football, How Do You Do?
BYU Football had been one of the surprises of the early season in the Big 12, and now, we can officially call them the surprise team of the 2024 Big 12 football season.
The BYU Cougars demolished Kansas State 38-9 on Saturday night and did it behind great defensive play, in which the Cougars forced three turnovers, along with excellent special teams plays, including a 90-yard punt return for a touchdown. The Cougars are in the Top 20 in the country in points allowed per game (12.8), and the resume looks even more impressive after what they did vs. Avery Johnson & Co. on Saturday night, along with how they kept an SMU team in check who put up 66 vs. TCU on Saturday.
For a BYU team that struggled in Year 1 in the Big 12, going 5-7 overall and 2-7 in league play, to start off 4-0 overall and 1-0 in conference play is a massive step in the right direction. And now, the Cougars have back-to-back winnable games vs. Baylor and Arizona, that could have BYU bowl eligible (and 6-0!) by mid-October. Who predicted that?
The Dykes Disaster
Things are getting ugly fast in Fort Worth.
One week after blowing a three-touchdown lead at home against UCF to open Big 12 play, the Horned Frogs were embarrassed in Dallas by their cross-town rivals SMU in a 66-42 loss. Sonny Dykes had to watch most of the second half from the locker room because he was ejected for arguing with the officials.
Sonny Dykes isn’t going anywhere, unless TCU totally collapses to something like a 3-9 finish, but there are certainly plenty of questions and criticism after a brutal two-week stretch that follows up a 5-7 season, which makes the 2022 National Championship run feel like a lifetime ago.
But now, we turn to next week, when TCU travels to play Kansas in a game that both teams desperately need to win to feel significantly better about their season.
