Big 12 expert picks 2025: Most overrated and underrated teams, projected order of finish, bold predictions

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The Big 12 proved itself as the hardest conference to project last season as Arizona State went from picked last place to winning the Big 12 as a first-year member of the conference. After two straight years of change, though, the league finally heads into 2025 with a secured group of 16 teams. 

But while the league gets steadier, the race for the conference championship will only get more competitive. Five teams are between +550 and +650 to win the league at FanDuel and 15 of the 16 league members have win totals set between 5.5 and 8.5. Returning 11 quarterbacks — including six of the top seven passers — will only add to the chaos. 

Last season, Arizona State and Iowa State met in the Big 12 Championship Game as both posted breakout seasons under well-regarded coaches. One interesting note to keep an eye on: The Big 12 has featured a new participant in the Big 12 Championship Game in seven of the past eight years. 

Among the top contenders, Texas Tech and Utah are the only ones to not make the final. Could that change in 2025? Here’s how our experts see the Big 12 shaking out this season. 

SEC expert picks 2025: Most overrated and underrated teams, projected order of finish, bold predictions

Brandon Marcello

Most overrated team

Texas Tech: It’s hard to say anybody in the Big 12 is overrated because it truly is anybody’s ballgame, but I do think we’re all overreacting to Tech’s transfer portal bonanza. The results of the portal have shown that the biggest benefactors have been the programs who were already established powers. When it comes to everyone else, you’ll see an occassional team make a huge leap, but the typical result sees a team improve by a win, if that. The Raiders are far more likely to be 8-4 than 10-2. — Tom Fornelli (also David Cobb)

Iowa State: I’ve got the Cyclones rated as a plus-value Big 12 and power conference team but the top 25 ranking they are carrying into the season seems to be an extended celebration from the program’s first-ever 11-win season. The team has to replace two 1,000-yard receivers and could see a regression after going 5-1 in one-score games last season. Iowa State has a solid foundation with its run game and defense, but makes more sense as a top 40 team to start. — Chip Patterson (also Shehan Jeyarajah)

BYU: Call me crazy but I don’t think the best formula for a preseason top 25 team (or one that finished 26th in the polls) is to return only nine starters and lose your likely starting quarterback to an honor code violation two months before the start of the season. BYU is well coached and filled holes nicely in the portal. But this is also a team that lived on the edge in one-score games a lot last season on the way to 11 wins. Given how congested things are in the Big 12 and the questions BYU carries, I expect the Cougars to finish in the bottom half of the league. — Chris Hummer (also Brandon Marcello, John Talty, Brad Crawford)

Arizona State: The Sun Devils are just an obvious regression target for me because of the amount of one-score games they had last season to Texas State, Mississippi State, Utah, UCF, and BYU. In a parity filled Big 12, it’s doubtful all those such results break their way again, add in that the Baylor team they avoided last year is early in the schedule and Utah is primed to be great and it’s doubtful to me that the Sun Devils pull off 11-2 again — Richard Johnson

Most underrated team

Baylor: The Bears won six straight to finish the regular season last year and have one of the more unheralded returning starters at QB. Sawyer Robertson is the real deal, and I expect he’ll announce his presence with authority in the season-opener against Auburn. — Tom Fornelli

Texas Tech: Is it unpopular to select one of the top betting favorites as an “underrated” team? Sure. But I think nationally not enough respect is being given to the ceiling if all of Texas Tech’s bets pay off. If the investment in this roster, which has included high-profile additions on both sides of the ball, add to a group that was a couple blown leads away from competing for the Big 12 title a year ago it’s not crazy to think of Texas Tech as a top-10 team in the country by season’s end. — Patterson

Utah: Picking a team with the fourth-best odds to win the conference as underrated might admittedly be a cop out. Still, Utah is unranked in the preseason AP and Coaches polls and seems to still be suffering perception-wise from last year’s disappointing 5-7 record. Utah could have the best offensive line in the country, has upgraded at QB with Devon Dampier and should look much more like the Utah teams that physically beat up the Pac-12 than what we saw last season. — John Talty (also Marcello)

Kansas State: I hope you enjoyed Kansas State being down, because that’s done and dusted. They’ll need to figure themselves out at wideout and limit big passing plays on defense but this is a veteran hungry Wildcats outfit with a dynamic rushing attack. Avery Johnson will have to improve as a passer, but the pieces are there for this team to take the next step. — Johnson

TCU: For one moment, let’s pretend the magical 2022 run to the national championship game never happened. Suddenly, Sonny Dykes’ job at TCU looks like a perfectly normal, perfectly effective rebuild. That oversimplifies things a little, but there are serious reasons to believe a breakthrough is coming in Fort Worth. Quarterback Josh Hoover is a rising star and receiver Eric McAlister will contend with Jordyn Tyson for best in the conference. The defense really started to find its footing in the second half of the year. There’s every reason to believe that the rivalry game against Baylor on Oct. 18 will be for a trip to the Big 12 Championship Game. — Jeyarajah (also Cobb, Hummer)

Houston: The Cougars will not be a top-tier finisher in the Big 12, but this team should get to bowl eligibility and be improved during Willie Fritz’s second season. Written off as a bottom-feeder following an eight-loss campaign that resulted in numerous players leaving the program, Houston welcomed 30 additions from the portal and hiring LSU assistant Slade Nagle as OC is an immediate enhancement. For a program that ranked last in the country last fall in red zone touchdown percentage, just an incremental improvement should result in a couple more victories. — Crawford

Bold predictions

• Tom Fornelli: Both teams in the Big 12 Championship Game will get there with a mark of 7-2 in conference play, and nobody in the league will win more than nine games during the regular season.
• Chip Patterson: Avery Johnson contends for the Heisman Trophy. The former blue-chip prospect from Overland Park, Kansas, had a ton of hype going into 2024 and fell short of expectations, particularly in some of the biggest games of the year. But with a full offseason to learn from his experience, that Heisman dark horse might not have been wrong but just a year early. If Johnson can stay healthy and clean up the mistakes, he has a high ceiling as one of the great playmakers in the Big 12. 
• Brandon Marcello: Utah gets back to dominating opponents in the trenches and wins the Big 12 title after a four-team race near the top of the conference. The Utes’ revamped offense — something akin to the Urban Meyer days in Salt Lake City — utilizes more RPOs with former New Mexico quarterback Devon Dampier and will be difficult to defend.
• John Talty: Kyle Whittingham wins the Big 12 and then decides to ride off into the sunset on his motorcycle. The succession plan is already in place — defensive coordinator Morgan Scalley is the head-coach-in-waiting — and while there was plenty of speculation Whittingham would hang it up last season, it became clear he didn’t want to end on the sour note of a 5-7 year. Expect this year’s Utah team to look more like the ones that went to back-to-back Rose Bowls and find a way into the CFP after winning the league. 
• Richard Johnson: This Texas Tech thing actually works out. It’s been a lot of sizzle, but the Red Raiders prove there’s some steak behind it too when they play in the Big 12 title game this season after all that money spent on portal pieces. Yes, this was a down portal class but Texas Tech built through the trenches, which is where football games are truly won.
• Shehan Jeyarajah: The most consequential team in the Big 12 will prove to be… Houston. The Cougars get Texas Tech and TCU at home, as well as Arizona State and Baylor on the road in the final five games. They will win two of those games to ultimately shake up the conference championship race. Willie Fritz is one of the best pure ball coaches in college football, and he’s building a nasty program at Houston. 
• David Cobb: The Big 12 will have more quarterbacks who throw for 3,000+ yards than any other league, including the 18-team Big Ten and 17-team ACC. Two of the league’s strong crop of proven signal callers will wind up in the top 10 of the final Heisman Trophy voting.
• Brad Crawford: After failing to get back to the Big 12 Championship, Arizona State misses a golden opportunity to reach the College Football Playoff as a potential at-large selection due to a shocking Week 2 upset loss at Mississippi State in one of September’s biggest surprises. The Big 12’s playoff auto-qualifier will be a first-time selection. 
• Chris Hummer: Utah ends up with three-plus draft picks on its offensive line and bullies its way into the Big 12 title game. Bully is the key word there, by the way. This is going to be a run-first offense led by New Mexico QB transfer Devon Dampier, who ran for 1,166 yards on 7.5 yards per carry last season. Do not expect a 5-7 repeat in Salt Lake City. 

Big 12 predicted order of finish

Big 12 champion

Kansas State (+550): In a conference as unpredictable as the Big 12, it’s often best to go with the most consistent program you can find. That’s Kansas State. It’s a team that went 9-4 last year because it went 9-4 the year before, and that’s after a 10-4 record and Big 12 title in 2022. There’s also some upside if Avery Johnson lives up to his potential. Still, at the end of the day, there may be only three teams in the Big 12 that would cause me to give somebody the side eye if they said they think they’re going to win it. — Fornelli

Texas Tech (+550): Plenty of ink has been spilled about Texas Tech’s NIL and transfer portal strategy, but the excitement about this season actually comes down to one factor: trench play. The Red Raiders are poised to have one of the Big 12’s best defensive lines in years, which will give them a major leg up against every team on the schedule. Road trips against ASU, KSU and Utah will be serious challenges, but win just one and a trip to Arlington is very much on the table. Expectations are off the charts but Texas Tech has the goods to deliver. — Jeyarajah (also Patterson, Hummer)

Utah (+550): Utah ran into a perfect storm of debilitating injuries and downgrades at quarterback last season, but one thing remains constant in Kyle Whittingham’s program: toughness and brute force in the trenches. The Utes went out and grabbed New Mexico quarterback Devon Dampier, a dynamic runner, out of the portal and installed an RPO-heavy offense that will be more uptempo and should bring flashbacks to the dynamic, creative offenses of Urban Meyer’s yesteryears. If the Utes remain dominant in the trenches and somehow become more potent offensively, the Utes will be in the mix of yet another tight race for the title. They get contenders Texas Tech, Arizona State and Kansas State at Rice-Eccles Stadium, and are my pick to emerge as the victor at the top of the conference. — Marcello (also Talty, Johnson, Cobb)

Iowa State (+1200): The Cyclones bring back 14 starters from a team that picked an inopportune time to play their worst game last season in the Big 12 title finale. I think there’s some unfinished business there for Iowa State. Matt Campbell’s squad doesn’t play Utah or Texas Tech during the regular season and gets the BYU-Arizona State combo in Ames. ECU transfer Chase Sowell is going to be an impactful star for this passing game with Mr. Consistent Rocco Becht entering Year 3 as the starting quarterback. — Crawford

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