Big 12 Lunch Links: It’s Bedlam Week in the Big 12

Now that it’s more competitive, the next step for the Big 12 is to find a way into the College Football Playoff, and it’ll come down to a insane final two weeks. The Sooners are at TCU on October 1, with home games against Baylor on November 12 and Oklahoma State on December 3. And in spite of only playing four true road games this season, those games have all been challenging, and the home slate was too. Check out the Oklahoma vs. Oklahoma State prediction and game preview.

One problem: The only other teams with mathematical chances to reach the six-win plateau required to accept a bowl berth are Kansas State (4-6) and Texas (4-6).

Another week, another College Football Playoff ranking is released. Here’s a look at the winners and losers from Week 12 of the college football season. The Frogs have scored a first-quarter TD in 24 consecutive games, a Big 12 record. Even if OSU loses Bedlam, the hype going into next season will be silly, and the battle between TCU, Baylor, OU, and OSU could be even more epic than this year.

Oklahoma may have the edge in this game with the superior defense, but a team with Oklahoma State’s offense is always capable of turning a game into a shootout and giving any team a run for its money. He picked off two passes against TCU. “It’s tough. Gary (Patterson) is sitting over there with a team (TCU) that hasn’t lost but three times in two years”.

The Sooners climbed two spots in the latest Associated Press Top 25 poll for their highest ranking of the season following 30-29 nail-biter over then-No. Oklahoma State, meanwhile, remained overshadowed by in-state rival Oklahoma.

With quarterback Mayfield at the helm, the Sooners jumped out to a 23-7 lead over the TCU Horned Frogs in the first half last week. In the Big 12, there’s a difference between being 400-yard dominant, and 270-yard effective.

During his freshman season, Darlington took some teammates to their house for Thanksgiving but the pair would not allow anyone to eat until they each gave one reason why they hated Oklahoma State.

“The implications to us are we’re trying to get back into the Big 12 hunt and have an opportunity to have another championship banner around here”, Baylor coach Art Briles said this week. Baylor had 607 yards already, Johnson had 132 passing yards with two touchdowns on his only two possessions of the year, and the whole occasion seemed Baylor-esque. Ever since the Cornhuskers bolted for the Big Ten in 2011, the Big 12 has seen a power shift from these programsto the “little brothers” of the conference: Baylor, TCU, and in some respects, Oklahoma State. Player Who Matters Is this when Mason Rudolph starts to get some national attention? In fact, it all continued to go OSU’s way vs Baylor, with the exception of player execution/coaching decisions/opponent collapse. Take that off the table, and the Sooners would be sitting as a bona fide playoff contender with the Big 12 wrapped up. This time around, if he outplays Mayfield and gets the win, he’ll be the hot quarterback going into the bowl season – and the offseason. The Oklahoma defense will bounceback. Insane things can and will happen.

Nabbing the first game of the Bedlam series for Oklahoma would be another feather in his hat in a race that has all but been decided after previous favorites such as Leonard Fournette, Ezekiel Elliott, and Trevone Boykin have been knocked down in perception.