Big 12 Football Roundup, Week 10: Utah Makes Its Case

Welcome to the inaugural season of Big 12 football roundup. 

This is the space where I, Chase Kiddy – college football betting analyst and weekly contributor at Ten12 Podcast Network – recap a few of the most important weekly events during the Big 12 football season. 

This isn’t an exhaustive list of everything Big 12 football fans should know. But if you’re looking for a few insights, it’s a pretty good place to start.

Stock Up: Utah

Utah was adjusted down to 8-to-1 in BetMGM’s Big 12 championship odds market. I think that’s a bit much – more on that in a bit, as you can guess – but the fundamentals are there for such an adjustment. Utah remains mired in the middle with other two-loss teams, but the Utes already have a head-to-head win against Arizona State. 

If Cincinnati drops another game, Utah can draw an advantage there, too.

That puts Utah in an awfully strong position if BYU gets dinged up over these final weeks. I suspect they’ll be an underdog at both Texas Tech (this week) and Cincinnati (Week 13), which will put a whole lot of pressure on the Cougars’ final two home games.

There’s also the potential that Texas Tech could lose to BYU, then drop one other late game. A road trip to Morgantown in Week 14 would be high-stakes, and WVU is looking suddenly competent.

Do you feel great about any of these scenarios if you’re Utah? No, not really. But there is a chance, which is why the Utes are +800 and not +8000.

Stock Down: Colorado

After playing tight games for the first two months, Colorado has given up 52 or more points in back-to-back weeks. Coach Prime has some health issues he’s working through. After this past week, he prevented players from talking to the media after the game.

I don’t like saying stuff like this, but it sure seems like the team has quit. This is a brutal time to draw a road trip to West Virginia.

Late Season Surprises

This miserable WVU team winning at No. 22 Houston will go down as one of the stranger results of this season. Phillip and I talked about how much we were willing to read into West Virginia’s second half against TCU in Week 9, and it turns out that we should have pressed a little harder. 

Now, don’t go too crazy reading into this game. Houston was minus-four in turnovers, many of which were asinine or insanely lucky. WVU freshman quarterback Scotty Fox was 13-for-22 for 157 yards, running for two touchdowns and passing for a third. He rushed 10 times for 65 yards. 

Pat White, this is not. But it’s still West Virginia’s first road win against an AP Top 25 opponent since the famous Horns Down game at Texas in 2018, not to mention this team’s first conference win of the year. 

It’s increasingly obvious the Mountaineers will be a potentially hard draw in the final weeks of the season. I’ll be watching to see if the odds market keeps up,  or if it continues to price WVU like the dreadful team it’s been over the last six weeks. 

Futures Corner

Texas Tech is a -200 conference favorite coming out of Week 10, and that price is a fair number, given market factors. But Texas Tech is one home loss to undefeated BYU away from being in real trouble, which opens the door for some value betting down the board.

Cincinnati’s blowout loss to Utah looks bad. But at the end of the day, the Bearcats are still a one-loss team that gets to host BYU in Week 13. The Bearcats control their destiny. If they win out, they’re in the title game. A +1000 price seems like an overreaction.

Once again, the value in this conference is on Cincinnati.