There’s not a league in college football quite like the Big 12. On any given Saturday, the top team in the league could play the cellar-dweller of the conference and you just might have yourself an upset.
Some conferences claim to have depth or parity unlike anything fans will find anywhere else, but the Big 12 has the data to back up the claims: this league is drunk every single weekend.
Heading into Week 8 of the 2024 season, we’ve seen a total of 24 conference games, and very rarely have we seen a line hit double digits.
Utah (4-2, 1-2) and Oklahoma State (3-3, 0-3) — two of the top three teams in the Big 12 Preseason Media Poll — are a combined 1-5 in league play and already appear to be on the outside looking in when it comes to the conference title race.
Meanwhile, BYU (6-0, 3-0) and Arizona (5-1, 2-1) — who were picked to finish 13th and 16th in the preseason — have a combined 5-1 record in Big 12 play and are either at or near the top of the Big 12 standings.
They started off the year as underdogs, but as Vegas has caught on, the Cougars and Sun Devils have slowly lost their element of surprise. In most leagues, that might not matter, but in the Big 12, it’s almost better to be an underdog than a favorite. After taking a look at the data through the first few weeks of conference play, the data actually suggests that is the case, too.
In 24 conference games, Big 12 underdogs are a combined 14-10 against the spread and an astonishing 12-12 straight up.
Here’s a look at every upset so far, as well as how many points each underdog was getting.
- UCF 35, TCU 34 | TCU (-2.5)
- UTAH 22, OSU 19 | OSU (-1.0)
- BYU 38, KSU 9 | KSU (-7.5)
- AZ 23, UTAH 10 | UTAH (-9.5)
- BYU 34, BAY 28 | BAY (-3.5)
- TCU 38, KU 27 | KU (-1.5)
- CU 48, UCF 21 | UCF (-15)
- UH 30, TCU 19 | TCU (-16.5)
- WVU 38, OSU 14 | OSU (-2.5)
- TTU 28, AZ 22 | AZ (-5.5)
- ASU 27, UTAH 19 | UTAH (-5.5)
- CIN 19, UCF 13 | UCF (-2.5)
We’ve seen multiple upsets in this league in every week through conference play, and that’s showing no signs of stopping either.
There are eight games on the docket this weekend, and if the data remains consistent, we should see four outright upsets and five of the eight underdogs to cover the line.
That would sound ridiculous in any other league, but not in the Big 12 — that’s just how it is in this league, and we love it that way.
