Pokes Report Big 12 Football Preview: All of the Rankings, Head Coach and Positions

STILLWATER – The first thing that I would tell you is that these rankings don’t mean anything. It will all play out on the field starting in late Auguest whent he Big 12 has their first conference game on Aug. 23 when Farmageddon invades Dublin, Ireland and Kansas State and Iowa State open the season with all of college football watching. 

Rob Gray-Imagn Images

Jake Retzlaff’s trouble and his pulling out of BYU drastically changed our QB rankings.

There has been one major situation change since we did these rankings and that was the lawsuit, now dropped, but the institutional penalty at BYU against quarterback Jake Retzlaff. The seven-week suspension has caused the quarterback known as the BYJew to pull out of school and the program and look for a new home. We are hearing that Tulane, New Mexico, and South Alabama are the most likely schools for Retzlaff to land.

Big 12 schools Oklahoma State and UCF were among the initial wave of schools mentioned. I can’t speak for the situation at UCF, but Oklahoma State has seen Zane Flores and Hauss Hejny throught he spring and summer. Our sources say that offensive coordinator Doug Meacham and quarterbacks coach Kevin Johns like both players and feel the continuity in the offense and the relationships built up with those two and the rest of the offense is more valuable than bringing in a player that would need to learn the offense and connect with the unit. 

The disruption moved BYU to the bottom of the league in the QB rankings and all other schools moved up one that were behind BYU initially at No. 4.

I’m on record as stating that head coach, quarterback, defensive line, corners and/or secondary, and offensive line are my key positions. If you carve those out, here are the top schools in the Big 12.  

Michael C. Johnson-Imagn Images

Cincy’s Corleone is a major reason the Bearcats now show up in position rankings.

Using those five rankings and pulling those out produced these top teams:

Arizona State 3.6

Iowa State 4.0

Texas Tech 5.0

Utah 5.2

Cincinnati 5.8

I had Arizona State, Iowa State, and Texas Tech in a tie with Kansas State (7.4) for first. The average using those top five factors (positions) for me also produced these schools: 

Baylor, Oklahoma State, and TCU all at 7.0.

It’s just something interesting to play with. I’ll stick with my picks and here are the rankings for each position that we did. We have applied the changes at quarterback since Retzlaff has pulled out of school at BYU.