Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
Parity is the name of the game in Big 12 football this season, with one notable exception: The conference schedule is anything but balanced.
Some teams have it tougher — much, much tougher — than others. And in many cases, the teams with more talent have easier schedules.
There was no intent to play favorites.
The Big 12 created its 16-team schedule matrix "with a priority on geography, historic matchups and rivalries as well as competitive balance," according to an explanation last fall, months before rosters were set for the 2024 season.
Also, far too many variables exist in college football, either within a single season or across the sweep of years, for any conference to create a truly balanced schedule.
But this much is sure: In the post-realignment world, the conference schedule — both the teams you play and the teams you don't face — matters more than ever.
In the Big 12, everyone will miss six other teams each season.
That's amateur hour compared to the Big Ten, where every team will miss eight others.
The right combination of misses creates an upside opportunity, just as the wrong combination adds obstacles.
In the Big Ten, for example, Rutgers does not play Ohio State, Oregon or Michigan, whereas Michigan State plays all three. (Welcome to the conference, Jonathan Smith!)
For perspective on a Big 12 race that appears stocked with parity, the Hotline identified the six scheduling misses for each team.
We then assigned a point value for each miss based on the media poll released last month at Big 12 media days.
Utah, the preseason favorite, was assigned 16 points. Kansas State, which was picked second, received 15 points, followed by Oklahoma State (14), Kansas (13), Arizona (12), etc. Arizona State, slotted for last, was worth one point.
The more total points accumulated for the six misses, the easier the schedule (in theory).
Based on that decidedly unscientific approach, the Hotline determined that Cincinnati, Arizona and Kansas have the easiest paths: They miss more of the teams at the top of the preseason poll.
The Bearcats don't play Arizona, Kansas, Oklahoma State or Utah — four of the top five preseason favorites. Which means they face a higher percentage of the teams picked to finish lower in the standings.
Arizona misses Oklahoma State, Kansas and Kansas State.
Kansas misses Arizona, Utah and Oklahoma State.
At the other end of the spectrum — the teams that face the highest percentage of favorites — we find Colorado, Arizona State and Brigham Young. They play all five of the top teams.
Granted, August contenders can morph into November pretenders. It's possible Brigham Young will benefit by playing Kansas and missing TCU, for example.
(Also, we did not account for the home/road breakdown.)
However, the Hotline cross-matched the top five teams in the Big 12 media poll with two other metrics: the AP preseason poll and ESPN's Football Power Index (FPI).
Utah, Arizona, Kansas, Kansas State and Oklahoma State were the only Big 12 teams to crack the AP Top 25, and they were the top five Big 12 teams rated in ESPN's FPI.
The five were ordered differently in the three metrics, but the same five teams appeared atop all three.
So we're confident that our breakdown of scheduling misses offers a reasonable assessment of the most and least challenging pathways given what we think we know two weeks before kickoff.
Here are the misses for each team and the total score of those misses based on Utah receiving 16 points all the way down to Arizona State receiving one point.
Cincinnati: 64 points
Misses: Arizona, Baylor, Brigham Young, Kansas, Oklahoma State, Utah
Kansas: 62 points
Misses: Arizona, Cincinnati, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, UCF, Utah
Arizona: 61 points
Misses: Baylor, Cincinnati, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma State
Texas Tech: 59 points
Misses: Brigham Young, Houston, Kansas, Kansas State, UCF, Utah
Kansas State: 57 points
Misses: Arizona, Baylor, TCU, Texas Tech, UCF, Utah
UCF: 57 points
Misses: Baylor, Houston, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech
Baylor: 56 points
Misses: Arizona, Arizona State, Cincinnati, Kansas State, UCF, Utah
Utah: 54 points
Misses: Baylor, Cincinnati, Kansas, Kansas State, Texas Tech, West Virginia
Oklahoma State: 50 points
Misses: Arizona, Cincinnati, Houston, Iowa State, Kansas, UCF
Houston: 48 points
Misses: Arizona State, Colorado, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, UCF, West Virginia
TCU: 47 points
Misses: Arizona State, Brigham Young, Colorado, Iowa State, Kansas State, West Virginia
Brigham Young: 45 points
Misses: Cincinnati, Colorado, Iowa State, TCU, Texas Tech, West Virginia
Iowa State: 44 points
Misses: Arizona, Arizona State, Brigham Young, Colorado, Oklahoma State, TCU
Arizona State: 41 points
Misses: Baylor, Colorado, Houston, Iowa State, TCU, Texas Tech
West Virginia: 36 points
Misses: Arizona State, Brigham Young, Colorado, Houston, TCU, Utah
Colorado: 35 points
Misses: Arizona State, Brigham Young, Houston, Iowa State, TCU, West Virginia
*** Note: Utah plays Baylor and Arizona plays Kansas State in non-conference games that were excluded from our assessment of the schedules.
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Jon Wilner has been covering college sports for decades and is an AP Top 25 football and basketball voter as well as a Heisman Trophy voter. He was named Beat Writer of the Year in 2013 by the Football Writers Association of America for his coverage of the Pac-12, won first place for feature writing in 2016 in the Associated Press Sports Editors writing contest and is a five-time APSE honoree. You can follow him on Twitter @WilnerHotline or send an email at jwilner@bayareanewsgroup.com.
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