UCF, Iowa State are now contenders

Coupled with a variety of traditional non-conference games, we’ve got an early beat on how the Big 12 race might shake out.

Holding serve: Utah, Kansas State, OSU. They were picked 1-2-3 in the preseason media poll and all are unbeaten and ranked in the top 15 of The Associated Press poll.

Pleasant surprises: UCF, Iowa State, Brigham Young, Arizona State. Iowa State’s 20-19 win at Iowa is the Big 12’s best victory. ASU is 3-0, against a schedule that seemed to offer multiple opportunities for defeat. BYU won at Southern Methodist.

Disappointments: Arizona, Kansas and West Virginia. KU and WVU each have two losses, the former to Illinois and Nevada-Las Vegas, the latter to Penn State and Pittsburgh.

Harder schedules: Utah’s conference schedule shapes up as the most difficult. The Utes don’t play K-State, but they do have OSU, UCF and Iowa State. The Cyclones don’t play OSU, but they do get Utah, UCF and K-State. OSU’s schedule is notable in that the Cowboys don’t play Cincinnati or Houston, which figure to be at the bottom of the standings.

Easier schedules: K-State doesn’t play UCF or Utah, and the Wildcats get to play both Cincinnati and Houston. Iowa State gets to play the four teams that appear most likely to finish at the bottom — Houston, Cincinnati, Texas Tech and Baylor.

1. Utah at Oklahoma State, 3 p.m., Fox: Utah’s first football trip to Stillwater. The Cowboys’ only trip to Salt Lake City came in 1945; they won 46-6 en route to an unbeaten season. Is that a good omen?

2. Kansas State at Brigham Young, 9:30 p.m., ESPN: Unbeatens put Big 12 center stage in the late television window.

3. Arizona State at Texas Tech, 2:30 p.m., Fox Sports1: Old Border Conference rivalry could be a catapult game for the Sun Devils.

4. Baylor at Colorado, 7 p.m. Fox: The 2-1 Buffaloes need this game, considering their next three games are at UCF, Kansas State, at Arizona.

5. Texas Christian at Southern Methodist, 4 p.m., CW Network: Old Southwest Conference rivalry becomes a Big 12/Atlantic Coast Conference matchup.

6. Kansas at West Virginia, 11 a.m. Saturday, ESPN2: Can you believe it? One of these teams will have three losses before summer officially bids farewell.

7. Houston at Cincinnati, 11 a.m., Fox Sports1: Still getting used to these big-city names being Big 12 football teams.

8. Arkansas State at Iowa State, 1 p.m., ESPN Plus: Red Wolves are a strange team. They squeaked by both Central Arkansas and Tulsa, then lost by only 10 at Michigan.

The Cougars looked lethargic in losing 27-7 to Nevada-Las Vegas in their season opener. But UNLV won at Kansas, and Houston dang near upset OU in Norman, before losing 16-12.

Meanwhile, Cincinnati beat Division I-AA Towson 38-20, blew a 21-point lead and lost 28-27 to Pitt, and struggled with Miami-Ohio before winning 27-16.

Now the Bearcats are 3½-point favorites over Houston. But Houston has a decent defense, a veteran quarterback in Donovan Smith and a far better coach in Willie Fritz.

The wrong team is favored. Go with Houston.

Texas Tech fired Matt Wells in October 2021, right after the Red Raiders lost 25-24 to 25th-ranked Kansas State, which dropped Tech to 5-3.

Prominent Tech boosters wanted Wells gone and were not interested in giving him more opportunity to have a good season, after his first two years were 4-8 and 4-6.

Tech soon enough hired Joey McGuire, whose Texas high school coaching career had made him an icon, before he worked on the Baylor staffs of Matt Ruhle and Dave Aranda.

And McGuire has done reasonably well at Tech: 8-5 in 2022, 7-6 in 2023. Not bad at a school with six losing seasons in the eight years before McGuire’s arrival.

But Tech needed overtime to survive Abilene Christian 52-51 in the 2024 season opener, then the Red Raiders were dominated 37-16 at Washington State. A 66-21 rout of North Texas stopped the bleeding.

But now comes a home game against upstart Arizona State. The 3-0 Sun Devils have beaten Wyoming, Mississippi State and Texas State. Some figured ASU would be fortunate to get one win from that trio of games. Instead, the Devils have looked like a much-improved team.

Tech was hoping to move up the Big 12 food chain in Year 1 of the 16-member conference. But the Red Raiders still look like a second-division team, and losing to Arizona State would offer more confirmation. The pressure is on Joey McGuire.