On Saturday, the BYU Cougars and Colorado Buffaloes will face off in a battle of teams who tied for first place in the Big 12 standings but missed the Conference Championship Game due to tiebreakers.
With 7-2 records in Big 12 play, the Cougs and Buffs had just as good a resume and reason to be in Arlington as Arizona State and Iowa State, and it’s perfectly understandable for players on those teams to be upset about not getting a shot at a title. In fact, it would be a little surprising if they didn’t feel slighted.
During the BYU media session for the Alamo Bowl on Thursday, Cougars’ quarterback Jake Retzlaff even went as far as to call this all-Big 12 Alamo Bowl “the people’s Big 12 Championship.”
“I think it’s the people’s Big 12 championship, personally,” Retzlaff said.
Of course, that comment isn’t setting well with Arizona State fans, who watch their team beat BYU and then thump Iowa State a couple of weeks later to claim the Big 12 title.
Nonetheless, there’s plenty of reason to be excited about the matchup of two Top 25 teams from the Big 12 in a postseason game.
The 17th-ranked BYU Cougars (10-2, 7-2) will take on the 23rd-ranked Colorado Buffaloes (9-3, 7-2) in the 2024 Valero Alamo Bowl at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas, on Saturday, December 28. Kickoff is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. CT on ABC.
