No One Has Any Idea Who Is Supposed to Win the Big 12 This Season

The Big 12 has reached its chaotic era.

Last season, Arizona State was picked 16th – dead last – in the 2024 Big 12 preseason poll. It responded by winning 11 games, including a blowout in the conference title game. It put the fear of God in mighty Texas before losing a wild, coin-flip playoff game in double overtime. 

So this year, who does the market think is going to win the Big 12?

Well, that’s easy. It could be Arizona State (+600) again, which brings back nearly all of its championship team.

Then again, Texas Tech (+550) has been the darling of the offseason, using its new NIL infrastructure to sign a powerful A1 class of impact transfer players. 

Utah (+550) is also tabbed at the top. The Utes were expected to compete right away for a Big 12 championship after arriving as a Pac-12 refugee in 2024. Injuries and bad luck scuttled the season, but the trench play remains very strong in Salt Lake City, so expect a ton of positive regression here.

Baylor (+650) has arguably the best quarterback in the conference, and close conference watchers know that Dave Aranda’s club really found its stride in the second half of last season. The defense should be arguably the best in the conference this year, making the Bears a clear bet for many Big 12 specialist bettors. 

Iowa State? The Cyclones have played in two of the last five conference championship games, have a ton of coaching continuity, and still have one of the best quarterbacks in the conference in Rocco Becht. There’s a lot of value here at +1200. 

And don’t sleep on Kansas State (+600), a perennial contender over the last five years. Chris Klieman and the Wildcats actually won the conference in 2022 – the year TCU played in the national championship game – even if no one outside of Big 12 country remembers that.

Oh, and speaking of TCU? The Horned Frogs are also in the mix here for 2025 at +800.

Did I mention Kansas (+1600) still has Jalon Daniels? And doesn’t have to play its home games at Arrowhead this year, with its stadium renovation finally complete?

I write about college football odds for BetMGM. Like, for money. And health insurance. It’s my job. I am a longtime college football bettor with a very high degree of expertise in the college football space. And I cannot ever remember a time when a conference had its top seven preseason favorites all smashed together between +500 and +1200. 

Let me give you a comparison point. Take a look at BetMGM’s Big Ten football championship odds for this upcoming season. 

There are three teams who are clearly occupying the top of the market – Ohio State, Penn State, and Oregon. Michigan (+700) and USC (+1800) are market-relevant, but then there’s a big drop to the middle class of the conference. Teams like Illinois (+4000) and Washington (+5000) lead off a mid-table grouping that stretches through Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan State, and others. At the bottom, there are major long shots like Northwestern and Purdue, both at a whopping 500-to-1.

What I’ve just described is the average shape of a college football futures market. This is, in layman’s terms, a regular market that’s shaped like a bell curve. There’s a fat middle and two skinny tails. 

In other words, a couple teams are expected to compete for the title, and a couple of teams are expected to be dreadful. Everyone else falls somewhere in the middle. If you look at the SEC and ACC, you’ll see broadly similar (albeit smoother) markets.

By contrast, the Big 12 is nuts. There are zero clear favorites. There are five teams priced between +550 and +650. 

Even crazier: There are zero outlandish long shots. The ACC has Stanford at 350-to-1, and the SEC has Mississippi State at +500-to-1. The Big 12 long shot? That’s UCF at a mere 60-to-1. The entire conference is essentially priced between +600 and +6000. 

I cannot stress this enough: This is incredibly unusual. But when you’re a chaos conference whose preseason No. 16 team just blasted its entire schedule en route to nearly upsetting playoff darling Texas, it’s time to start accepting that everything is on the table.

I’ve seen other media analysts label the Big 12 as the new ACC Coastal Division, where everyone can win it because everyone sucks. But I think that gets one pivotal thing wrong – unlike the old Coastal division, everyone in the new Big 12 doesn’t suck. 

It’s true that the Big 12 doesn’t have a lot of historical major brands. That’s an issue for the conference when it comes to negotiating for a bigger TV deal or playing the perception game for CFP seeding position. But in terms of actual football quality, the Big 12 remains deeply underrated as a college product. Arizona State is just the latest example.

This is a college football betting blog, so I think I’m supposed to leave you with some thoughts on potential action. And like anyone who pays close attention, I have my opinions. I think Arizona State is being discounted as a negative regression story when they’re well-positioned to defend their title.

I think Baylor is probably the most balanced of the expected contenders. 

I think Texas Tech is being overvalued because of its splashy transfer class, and I think BYU was dropped too far after the Jake Retzlaff departure. 

But as my Ten12 Podcast cohost Phillip Slavin says, “Have whatever priors you want for the Big 12. But once the season starts, you’d better be prepared to throw them in the garbage.”

This is the only power conference in college football where absolutely anyone can win it. The bizarre Big 12 football championship odds market makes that clearer than ever. Strap in, and bet accordingly.