To the casual fan, the Big 12 slate in Week 9 might lack the allure that previous weeks had provided, but anyone who has been following this league in 2024 knows that chaos is sure to strike yet again.
While Iowa State and Arizona State have the week off, there are seven Big 12 games on the docket this weekend. With no weekday games or even 11:00 a.m. kickoffs, the entire slate is jam-packed into the afternoon and evening windows of Saturday night.
According to Kelley Ford (@KFordRatings), some of the best games of the week will be found in Big 12 towns and cities across the country.
KFord’s weekly “Watchability” score helps determine which games in a given window you should absolutely tune in for, while others are probably safe to box score watch. The scores are based on KFord’s projected quality of teams and level of competitiveness, and the Big 12 has several games that are worth watching.
The highest-rated Big 12 game of the week comes in the afternoon slate, with No. 11 BYU taking on UCF in Orlando. Given a score of 8.7, it is the fourth-most watchable game of the weekend behind LSU at Texas A&M (9.7), Penn State at Wisconsin (9.5), and Boise State at UNLV (8.9).
Next on the list is Cincinnati at Colorado — easily the most intriguing Big 12 game of the week for my money — with a score of 8.6, the same as Missouri at Alabama.
Kansas at Kansas State has a score of 8.3, followed by Oklahoma State at Baylor (8.0), and Texas Tech at TCU (7.9). Further down the list are the two remaining Big 12 games, with West Virginia at Arizona (7.5) and the “worst” Big 12 game of the week: Utah at Houston (7.0).
The title for worst game of the weekend goes to UTEP at Louisiana Tech, which has a score of 2.9.
