As the week wraps up, I wanted to start rolling out a new weekly feature on Heartland College Sports, titled: Winners and Losers. I know, very creative.
But, with so much news happening across the Big 12 Conference on a weekly basis, this gives you a quick rundown of what you may have missed, with my three biggest winners and losers from the week that was. Here you go for the week of May 23rd, 2025.
Big 12 Winners
Kansas Jayhawks
Kansas hired Jacque Vaughn to be the most experienced assistant coach in arguably the history of college basketball. He’s coached for years in the NBA, including some of the best to ever do it like Kevin Durant. Now, he’s back home in Lawrence where his jersey hangs in the rafters of Allen Fieldhouse.
This is a huge coup for KU coming off Bill Self‘s roughest season ever. Now, is this a sign of things to come? Is Vaughn the coach in waiting? He just might be. In fact, I have a hard time not seeing him as the coach in waiting. Unless he really wanted to “come home”, was he really going to return to KU with Bill Self coaching another 5-10 years? I find that unlikely.
Houston Cougars
The Cougars signed Kelvin Sampson to a contract extension this week, which is no surprise. But Sampson’s extension coming in at four years, considering he’s 69 years old, raised some eye brows. Granted, Sampson can retire and sail off into the sunset whenever he wants. His son is there as the coach-in-waiting. But still, going with the four-year extension was telling.
No matter what, it means at least for likely one or two more seasons, Houston fans will reap the rewards of having a Hall of Fame level coach on the bench. And given how close he was to tasting that National Championship last season, he might hang around even longer than he even expected as recently as a year or two ago.
Big 12 Fans Out West
The news came out this week that the Big 12 Baseball Tournament would be moving from Arlington, Texas to Surprise, Arizona starting next season. What a great idea and a win.
Globe Life Field has no juice. This gives our fellow Big 12 fans out west a chance to get a Big 12 Championship closer to them and spread the wealth of Big 12 events around the geographical footprint.
I don’t believe the Big 12 football or basketball championships should move from Arlington or Kansas City, respectively, but moving around some of the other tournaments is a smart move by the league. Surprise also won’t deal with some of the weather delays we see at the Big 12 Softball Tournament in Oklahoma State. It’s a win-win.
Big 12 Losers
BYU Quarterback Jake Retzlaff
BYU quarterback Jake Retzlaff was accused of rape this week in a lawsuit stemming from an incident in late 2023. The victim is suing Retzlaff in civil court for battery, assault, and intentional infliction of emotional distress, according to a report from The Salt Lake Tribune.
The woman later sought medical attention and completed a rape kit examination. At the time, she chose not to name Retzlaff, fearing she would be identified by investigators. She said she was “scared, in shock, and not ready to confront him.”
Retzlaff, through an attorney, has denied the allegation. I have no idea what happened, but for a BYU football program that made huge strides in Year 2 in the Big 12, this is the last thing the program needs.
Big 12 in the CFP
The reality is that the straight-seeding model for the College Football Playoff will hurt the Big 12. The odds the Big 12 lands a bye in the CFP will now be reserved for a 13-0 team, or, at worst, a 12-1 team. And it likely has to be a 12-1 team that wins the Big 12 Title, not a 12-1 team like TCU who made the College Football Playoff in 2022.
That’s just my hunch.
I get why Brett Yormark had to play along on this, and I trust he has something up his sleeve here, but it still stings for the Big 12 Conference.
The league will continue to have to deal with the SEC and Big Ten bias of the CFP committee that will do absolutely no favors for the conference going forward.
Big 12 Softball
The Big 12 Conference only had one team reach the Super Regionals (aka the Sweet 16). Without Oklahoma, the hope was that Oklahoma State would help carry the torch of the league, but the Pokes ended up having a disappointing season.
Five teams in this league reached the Regionals round, and only the Red Raiders were able to punch a ticket to the Super Regionals.
As we look at some of the non-revenue sports, this is one where the Big 12 should be able to have more success, and make more strides, than what we saw this season.
