Three Easiest Big 12 Football Schedules for the 2025 Season
The 2025 Big 12 football schedule has been unveiled, giving fans the chance to start planning their routes for the football season next fall.
Not all routes are created equally, though, as the path to Arlington is undoubtedly more manageable for some than it is for others.
Today, we’ll take a look at the three easiest 2025 football schedules in the Big 12.
How Strength of Schedule Was Determined
Earlier this month, we released a Way-Too-Early Big 12 Football Power Rankings for 2025.
After some adjustments (home-field advantage, Vegas odds, etc.) I ranked each team’s schedule based on the average ranking of their Big 12 opponents and the average power ranking of the teams they’ll face on the road.
Every team’s schedule has been scored for difficulty, and the score represents the average rank that a selected team will face in Big 12 play. For example, Utah has the hardest Big 12 schedule of any team in the league, with a score of 6.445. That means the average of Utah’s Big 12 opponents is 6th in our projected power ranking.
Think of it as a scale of 1.000 to 16.000. The closer a team’s schedule is to 1.0, the more difficult it is, and the closer to 16.0, the more manageable.
Easiest Big 12 Football Schedules in 2025
#1 BYU Cougars
Big 12 Schedule Score: 9.945
Big 12 Home Games: West Virginia, Utah, TCU, UCF
Big 12 Road Games: Colorado, Arizona, Iowa State, Texas Tech, Cincinnati
Nonconference: Portland State, Stanford, at East Carolina
No Big 12 schedule is a cakewalk, but if there’s a case to be made for one fitting that description, it would have to be BYU’s. The nonconference is a breeze, and BYU avoids both Kansas State and Arizona State and gets four of the projected five bottom teams in the league next year.
Road games at Iowa State and Texas Tech will be tricky, but aside from those two contests, the Cougars should be favored in every game.
#2 Baylor Bears
Big 12 Schedule Score: 9.725
Big 12 Home Games: Arizona State, Kansas State, UCF, Utah, Houston
Big 12 Road Games: Oklahoma State, TCU, Cincinnati, Arizona
Nonconference: Auburn, at SMU, Samford
Baylor’s overall schedule is daunting from a 10,000-foot perspective. Playing Auburn, SMU, Arizona State, and Kansas State in the span of six games seems like a nightmare situation, right?
Well, the Bears get three of those games at home, including both ASU and K-State and their schedule after the first week in October is the most manageable of any team in the Power Four. Eight of the 12 teams on Baylor’s schedule missed a bowl game last season, and the combined record of their opponents after October 4 was 18-36 in Big 12 play this season.
#3 Kansas Jayhawks
Big 12 Schedule Score: 9.500
Big 12 Home Games: West Virginia, Cincinnati, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, Utah
Big 12 Road Games: UCF, Texas Tech, Arizona, Iowa State
Nonconference: Fresno State, Wagner, @ Missouri
Last year, Kansas had the “easiest” schedule of any team in the Big 12, but started the year with five straight losses to FBS programs and ended up missing a bowl game. They get another favorable draw in 2025, though, with just five bowl teams from a season ago on their schedule.
Texas Tech and Iowa State present stiff challenges on the road—as does the Border War at Missouri—but KU won’t have any excuses if they miss a bowl game with this schedule.
