Just a few nuggets following the Big 12 football schedule release last week:
- Arizona at Kansas State on September 13/14 and Baylor at Utah on September 7 are non-conference games (previously contracted games).
- Still can't figure out why Oklahoma and Georgia had to cancel their previously scheduled game last season in anticipation of Oklahoma moving to the Big 12...maybe that did cost ya' Georgia.
- Additional P5 nonconference games:
- TCU at Stanford August 30
- Penn State at West Virginia August 31
- Mississippi State at Arizona State September 7
- Pittsburgh at Cincinnati September 7
- Colorado at Nebraska September 7
- Houston at Oklahoma September 7
- Iowa State at Iowa September 7
- Kansas at Illinois September 7
- Arkansas at Oklahoma State September 7
- Texas Tech at Washington State September 7
- (Is Washington State still considered P5...maybe not?)
- West Virginia at Pittsburgh September 14
- UCF at Florida October 5
- Baylor and BYU are only two Big 12 schools without a P5 non conference game. (EDIT: See corrections from Chester below)
- Weakest games (at least on the surface, I didn't look these schools up):
- Tarleton State at Baylor August 31
- Townson at Cincinnati August 31
- Lindenwood at Kansas August 29
- Long Island at TCU September 7
- Abilene at Texas Tech August 31
- Kansas as we know hosts us and all Big 12 home games at Arrowhead.
- Their two non-conference games will be at Children's Mercy Park (soccer stadium) in Kansas City, KS.
- On a sidenote, Northwestern is re-doing their stadium--and is thus without a home for 2024 and likely 2025. From what I can see, they have not settled on a venue yet for 2024
- The Big 12 seemed to attempt to give teams byes after long road trips. For example:
- Arizona, BYU, and Colorado have byes after their trips to UCF
- Arizona State has a bye after their trip to Cincinnati
- UCF has a bye after their trip to Arizona State
- West Virginia has a bye after their trip to Arizona
- Each school has two byes.
- The two bye dynamic is a quirk that occurs every so often when there are 14 weeks in the standard scheduling window (Labor Day through Thanksgiving weekend).
- This same quirk will happen again in 2025.
- Of ISU's two non-conference opponents beyond Iowa:
- North Dakota was 7-5 in 2023. Of note, they beat Drake 55-7 at home, and lost at UNI 27-0.
- Arkansas State was 6-7 in 2023. Of note, they lost 37-3 at home to Memphis, and lost 73-0 at Oklahoma.
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