To put it lightly, the first week of college football was not very kind to the Big 12. Texas Tech, Baylor and TCU all went down, with all three being more than 10-point favorites each. On the other hand, squads like Texas and Oklahoma seemingly had no trouble in any facet of their games. Week 2 brings a good variety of solid matchups in the conference. Tech hosts Oregon, UT goes to Tuscaloosa, and Baylor travels to Utah without starting QB Blake Shapen. Once this 2nd slate concludes, I guarantee the power rankings this time next week will look completely different than they do now. By no means do I think this is how the conference actually shakes out this year, but 3 upper-end teams taking an L isn’t exactly what I expected either. Below are my current Big 12 power rankings heading into week 2:

1. Oklahoma
2. Texas
3. Kansas State
4. UCF
5. Kansas
6. Oklahoma State – While I do have them in the top half of the rankings this week, I don’t really expect them to stay there. OSU ends up at 6 almost by default for me. They played three different QBs and only won by two scores at home against Central Arkansas. I wouldn’t expect them to keep pace with the top half of the conference throughout the season.
7. BYU
8. TCU
9. Houston – Houston probably holds the best win for the Big 12 in week 1, by scraping out a low-scoring affair against in-state foe UTSA. While I don’t necessarily picture them contending for a conference title, I do think Coach Holgorsen and Tech transfer Donovan Smith can make some noise if they get hot at the right time.
10. Iowa State
11. Texas Tech – We all know what happened in Laramie. Nobody saw it coming, but it happened. The Red Raiders need to put it behind them QUICKLY before they find themselves in a quick 0-2 hole out of the gate. This Saturday should be a fun one, but it’s one they cannot get in a hole quickly in.
12. Cincinnati
13. Baylor
14. West Virginia