There are 16 teams in the Big 12, but the difference between the No. 1 team and the No. 16 team in the standings isn’t much.
In fact, heading into Week 10, the top team in the league is BYU (8-0), and the bottom team is Oklahoma State (3-5). In case you’ve forgotten, the Cougars needed a go-ahead touchdown with 10 seconds left to beat the Pokes in a 38-35 thriller in Week 8.
When analyzing the Big 12 as a whole, there really isn’t an easy game on the schedule anywhere. On any given Saturday, the Big 12 upset machine can chew you up and spit you out. That’s the nature of a league that is filled to the brim with one-score contests.
Winning one-score games is vital to success in this league, and with such a small margin for error, it’s easy to forget just how different things would be if some teams had gotten the inch they needed or made the field goal attempt that went just wide of the uprights.
Kelley Ford, creator of the KFord Ratings, releases an interesting metric that shows just how different things might look if those one-score games had gone the other direction.
If every overtime and one-possession game had the opposite result of what has happened to this point, there are two Big 12 teams that would have vastly different outlooks on the final month of the season.
The first, and most obvious team, is Kansas. In reality, the Jayhawks are 2-6 and one loss away from being locked out of the postseason. However, if things had broke the other direction, we’d be looking at a 7-1 team that would be in control of its own destiny in Big 12 play.
The other team is Dave Aranda’s Baylor Bears, who are 4-4 on the year and appear to have some things pointed in the right direction. However, had they been a little more fortunate in the nail-biters, the Bears would be 6-2 and in the thick of the Big 12 Championship race.
No, this isn’t how things actually work, but it is a good reminder of how small the margin of error is in a league like the Big 12 — just ask the Jayhawks and the Bears.
