With eight weeks of Big 12 football in the books, who stands atop the power rankings?
The eighth week of Big 12 football has come and gone with all but two schools being in action last Saturday. This didn’t see any upsets. However, a shootout for the record books took place and an undefeated team made their claim as arguably the conference’s best team.
The all-time shootout saw Oklahoma narrowly edge Texas Tech, 66-59. There were over 1,700 yards of offense and Red Raiders quarterback Patrick Mahomes set an NCAA record with over 800 yards of his own. It’s a game where you wonder why the defenses even took the field for 60 minutes.
Texas also lost their fourth game in five weeks and put head coach Charlie Strong’s job in more jeopardy. He hasn’t been fired yet, but all signs point to this happening soon.
These things helped impact this week’s Big 12 power rankings, which saw plenty of movement.
Kansas remains at the bottom of the Big 12 after their most recent loss to Oklahoma State. Once again, they failed to stay competitive in a game after losing by 24 points, their fourth-highest margin of defeat for the season.
Oklahoma State players Justice Hill, Jalen McCleskey, and Mason Rudolph all torched the subpar Jayhawk defense, combining for nearly 400 yards of offense. They put the game out of reach by the middle of the fourth quarter and never looked back.
On the bright side, Kansas did get 145 yards out of running back Ka’aun Kinner. This was by far the senior’s highest single-game total of the season.
Kansas closes out the month next Saturday against No. 16 Oklahoma in Sooner country. They might as well pre-update their record to 1-7 before taking the field.