Big 12 Game of the Week Preview: Full 2025 Season Breakdown

Week-by-week game of the week for the entire 2025 Big 12 football schedule, highlighting every single best matchup across the conference. From marquee rivalry showdowns to under-the-radar trap games, we cover the storylines, stakes, and playoff implications for each week. 

Keywords:
Big 12 football 2025, Big 12 schedule preview, 2025 college football, game of the week, Big 12 matchups, Big 12 weekly breakdown, college football schedule analysis, Arizona State, BYU, UCF, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, conference preview, college football podcast

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Tomorrow, we will be 10 weeks away from week one of college football. So what's the best game every single week? Let's talk about it on today's show. From all the homeless state to Colorado, Arizona State to Cincinnati, we've got the 12 covered from end zone to buzzer beater. This is person 12. Draw access pass to all 16 teams. All in every episode. Hello and welcome to another episode of first and 12. I'm your host Adam Gibby. Thank you for tuning in today. Thank you for listening. If you want to get in touch with the show, please reach out to me on X at first and 12. Give us a follow. Also, if you want to get involved in the show, you want to be a guest on the show. Or just have your voice heard. Leave me a message. Comment on one of my posts. I'd love to hear from you. We can get you on the show. So college football tomorrow will be 10 weeks away from officially starting week one. And a little surprise, we're actually only nine weeks away from week zero, which features a fantastic big 12 matchup. So I thought it would be fun being 10 weeks away, kind of nine, but really 10 from the college football season starting to look at every single week week, zero to week 14. And give you the best game, at least from my perspective as of this moment right now, that we will get every single week within the big 12. Now a couple of things to throw out there. First off, we don't know what's going to happen in the big 12. We have no idea if there's a single league in college football, whether you're talking power conferences, the G five, you could even go FCS division two division three NAIA whatever division you want. Even go to the high school ranks. I'm not sure you'll find a conference that has so much parity as there is in the big 12. What I mean by that is last year, I remember I believe was week three Oklahoma State Utah were facing off. And it was viewed as the way to early conference championship game. In fact, I remember there were fans that were upset that they had to face off for these two in the first couple weeks of the season because one of them one of them is going to have a battle loss on their record and it's going to affect them the rest of the season and they won't get to play again until a conference championship. Oklahoma State didn't win a single big 12 game all year and Utah didn't even make it to a bowl game. So we don't know what's going to happen on the flip side. Had I told you hey, be while you're in Arizona State are playing in the second to last weekend of the season and the winner is going to be not only going to the conference championship game but probably be the favorite in that game. You would have said you're crazy and I probably would have been at that point but that's what ended up happening those two squared off and it was a massive game. So as I'm going through this list, I'm going based off of preseason expectations. I'm taking into other things into account such as what time the games at whether it's on TV. Well, it's going to be on TV but where on TV. We don't have a lot of information for later in the season but we do have some kickoff times for the first couple of weeks as well as a couple of Friday night games that are kind of sprinkled in on this list. So with that, let's go ahead and get started with today's show and going into week zero. The game of the week is Iowa State vs Kansas State. This kicks off college football. You're going to have the game at 11 o'clock central and the reason I use central in the show is because the big 12 is centralized in Texas where they use central time zone and most of the conference is in the central time zone if you're looking at percentages. Why so when I say a time, I'm using central time. So they play 11 o'clock AM. It will be on ABC and it is in Ireland. This is the first game of the season kicking off the college football year. If this game is entertaining, it could get over 10 million views. This is a fantastic way to start the season. I'm so glad that it's two big 12 teams facing off. Last year we got Georgia Tech vs Florida State instant classic. Hopefully Iowa State and Kansas State can provide an encore to that game. Week one and is actually technically after the week ones over but it's still in the week one category. TCU vs North Carolina 7 pm on ESPN. This is the Labor Day game. There's only one game that occurs during week one and is TCU vs North Carolina. This is a massive game. This is the first game for both of these teams as well. TCU bringing back Josh Hoover who led the conference and passing last year against Bill Bella check his girlfriend and the rest of the team. It should be an instant classic again. You're going to get so much attention on Bill Bella check's first game. It's going to be on ESPN. It's going to be primetime. I would love nothing more than for Josh Hoover and the TCU Horn Frogs. Feel us in the yesterday show Horned Lizards to send Bill a check packing again to send them home. Let them know hey this is college football. I know you're great in the NFL. You have an argument to be the greatest NFL coach of all time. Thanks Brady. But no, you're not going to win here. We're going to dominate. Go TCU. Week two Iowa State vs Iowa. This is an 11 am Fox kickoff. If you remember last year, aside from being a fantastic rivalry, the Sihock trophy, this game last year was a game that Iowa had in their grasp. They should have won this game. And I say that as somebody who was written for Iowa State, they should have won that. But Iowa State somehow found a way. Got some big plays late in the game ended up nailing a massive huge fill goal. I think it was like 50 yards plus. As time was basically expiring to win that game, I was going to want revenge. I was States not going to want to give it back. This is the game that kind of set Iowa State up for success last year. And I'm so excited to watch this rematch week three. Now again, I started with a week zero. So yes, this is the fourth game. This is considered week three of the college football season. Pittsburgh first West Virginia 230 on ESPN. This is the backyard brawl. It's one of the more underrated rivalry games in college football is one of those games that typically happens early on in the season. And it's also one that's between two different conferences. This is a statement game between the big 12 and the now I'm not sure how much stock to really put into that thought because West Virginia brand new coach. I expected to do a ton of damage within the big 12 or college football. Pittsburgh's kind of in that same category. I think both teams are just hoping to make it to a bowl game this year. So we'll see how big of a game that's actually ends up being. But if you get a rivalry game in week three this season, you got to take it. It's got to be a game of the week. Week four. It's another rivalry game SMU versus TCU. This is another ACC versus big 12 rivalry. This is a big one though. This is one that has what I believe will be two contenders. I think TCU they they suffered some some tough losses early in the season last year. I think they won't do that this year and they're going to be a threat. They're going to be the kind of team that nobody wants to play all year long. Now it's going to be interesting because TCU is quick and athletic SMU is also very quick and athletic. These are two teams that love to score points. Defense isn't always there. And so we could end up with one of those 49-45 kind of games not to mention it is a rivalry game SMU and TCU are rivals. They are in state rivals. I'm so excited for this game as well. You're actually going to see TCU on this list a lot. They they have a very intriguing schedule which brings us to the next week week five shocker TCU versus Arizona State. This is an APM Fox game. This is two heavy weights. Now at this point if TCU comes into this game four no they will be ranked in the top 10. They just will. They will have already beaten North Carolina and Bill Belichick. They will have beaten SMU who was the best team in the ACC last year and other B playing Arizona State who is coming off of appearing in the college football playoff last year. This could be a massive massive game. Two heavy weights this could set one of them on a rail or they could set one of them onto a pathway to make the college football playoff as a five and oh team ranked in the top 10. This is that kind of game early in the season that I think we were expecting of Oklahoma State in Utah last season. It's that kind of game we'll see if it ends up being more like Utah, Oklahoma State or more of the game I'm explaining either way should be a fun one week six has the Kansas State Wildcats traveling to play the Baylor Bears. This is an old classic game. This is a game of two big 12 teams who've been in the conference for a long time. They're both expected to be contending for a big 12 conference championship spot. And this is just one of those games that should be entertaining. There should be a lot of interest in this game and it's probably going to go under the radar a little bit but it shouldn't. This is going to be a fantastic game. Week seven there's not a lot of great games this week. And there's going to be weeks that are significantly better. Let me read you all the games on week seven then share why I chose the line. So week seven you've got BYU at Arizona. Okay. I always stay at Colorado. Yeah okay all right that was not bad. TCU at Kansas State could be a good game. Houston at Oklahoma State. Eh Kansas to Texas Tech. Okay. Arizona State at Utah. Okay. I want to give it a UCF in Cincinnati. Here's why. I think both of these teams are primed to be the five and seven six and six kind of teams at the end of the season. Both of these teams are going to need to get wins whenever they can get them. And this feels like a game between two pretty evenly matched teams. Now in terms of importance if you're talking going eight and four or seven and five or going and getting bowl eligible. I think getting bowl eligible is the bigger deal which is why I'm going to go with the UCF in Cincinnati. This game I believe the winner of this game has a very clear path to a bowl game. The loser of this game is going to have a big uphill battle to try to get to a bowl game. That's why this game is so big. Not to say there's not other big games this week but they're just there's no massive headliner. And so for that I'm giving it to the let's get to a bowl game. Match up week eight by far the best week of the big 12. There are some fantastic games this week. If if week seven the one I just talked about was the week that was pretty lame. It was to set up a great week eight. I want to read you a couple of games that we got going on. We've got Baylor versus TCU. That feels like a three versus four kind of game maybe a four versus five. The winner has an inside track to maybe getting to the college football playoff getting to the conference championship game. The loser might be eliminated. We have Texas Tech versus at Arizona State. Another example of that. I think Arizona State they're going to be sitting at the top and Texas Tech's going to come in with their fiery offense. They're going to come in there with their huge amounts of talent. This could be a great game. But when I tell you who's actually playing who gets the game the week nobody can argue. So Utah versus BYU it's the Holy war after the last season everybody's going to be watching this game. This is going to be one of those games that gets national attention regardless of how Utah is doing. Regardless of whether BYU is meeting their expectations or not. This game is going to be circled on a lot of people's calendars because of the fourth and whole play last year because of what happened in the comments that the Utah athletic director Mark Harnell and said after the game of not wanting to be in the big 12. This is the game of the week. This is the rivalry of the conference. There are other good rivalries. But this is the top rivalry game. They're clearly going to get the top spot. This is very likely to be a 830 930 kickoff. It's going to be a lay game. It's probably going to be cold. We're getting into the middle of October. This is the game to watch. Again, other great games. Nothing touches this one though. Week 9. I'm sticking with BYU as they travel to go play Iowa State. This is a trap game for the kookers. If they beat the youths they're going to be going off of a super high. They're going to have to travel to Ames, Iowa and play in a very hostile environment. That's a tough draw for the kookers. The same time, this is the game BYU wanted last year. Iowa State, they don't realize it because they were in the conference championship game. But BYU wanted this game so bad. They were tied with Iowa State. They both went into the conference championship week with an identical record. Last season, BYU, Iowa State, Arizona State and Colorado all finished seven and two in the conference. Had Iowa State lost their last game against Kansas State, BYU would have gotten a rematch against Arizona State in the conference championship game with an opportunity to get to the college football playoff. They wanted to play Iowa State all year. They wanted to play Colorado all year. They got to play Colorado, beat them soundly in the Alamoble. They did not get that opportunity against Iowa State. So Iowa State got to go to the conference championship game and win the rest of history. Arizona State pummeled Iowa State. Whereas BYU came up two yards short on a Hail Mary, BYU wanted an opportunity to play in that conference championship game. Unfortunately, did not get it. So they've had this game circled all year. Again, the problem is it's the week after the Utah game. So as big as that circle might be around Iowa State, there's always going to be more focus on the Utah game. So it should be a great game. I would have liked to see this on a different week because I feel like both teams may have been a little bit more focused and given us a better product. But we'll see. We'll see. Maybe BYU wins that game, keeps momentum and makes it a great game. We tend to got Texas Tech in Kansas State. This is another game that feels like it might have playoff implications. Texas Tech has a very tough schedule that to play at BYU. They have to play against Arizona State. They have to play Kansas State. I'm not sure where Texas Tech will be at this point in the season. I don't know where Kansas State will be at this point in the season. But if both teams are sitting around 6-1, 6-2, maybe at this point, one of them could potentially put themselves in position to be going for a conference championship while the other one would essentially eliminate themselves. Again, no idea how things are actually going to play out once the season gets going. But sitting here today on June 18th, that is clearly the game of the week. Week 11, there are not a ton of great games. BYU vs. Texas Tech could be a good game. We'll see Iowa State vs. TCU could be a really good game. We'll see. But I'm going to do another one of those fighting for bull eligibility games. That's going to be Houston at UCF. Houston has a very, very favorable schedule. I'm going to read you their schedule a quick. They play in 2025. Houston plays, Steven Foston, Rice, Colorado, Oregon State, Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, Arizona, Arizona State, West Virginia, UCF, TCU and Baylor. They do not play Iowa State. They do not play BYU and they do not play Kansas State. They have an opportunity to get to a bull game this year. They're going to have to win in a way game somewhere. I want to read you their way games outside of rice. They play at Oregon State. That's a tough game. At Oklahoma State, at Arizona State, at UCF and at Baylor. I think Oklahoma State could be a winable game and I think at UCF could be a winable game. For UCF, on the other hand, they need to get as many winners as they can. This is another one of those games of can one of us get to a bull game. Can one of us get an important win? That's either going to put us at six or put us in a spot to get to six late in the season. That's why I have them as my top game that week. Week 12, I got TCU versus BYU. This isn't necessarily the biggest game of the entire season, but it is the only game that features two teams that both had winning records last. Every other game either faces off two teams who did not have a winning record last year or they have games that only one team was good last year. There are also, I believe, four teams that are on a buy this week. It's just not the most exciting week in college football. It's not the most exciting week for the big 12. So TCU and BYU by default, it is an old Mountain West rivalry which could be fun, but it's not the most exciting game. There's no other week that this game would be the game of the week, but it is for this week for those reasons. TCU, however, the next week, will be in the top game of the week when they face off against Houston. And here's why I have this game feed Houston has a very good defense. TCU has a very explosive offense. If TCU is really good at the end of the season, I could see this being the kind of game that could trip them up very easily. So I'm talking if TCU comes into this game, 7-2, 8-1, they've got a track towards the big 12 championship game. They're being considered for the college football playoff. And now they have to travel to Houston who isn't regarded as the best team in the conference. Again, probably hovering around 500. You have to play that game and now Houston has a very good defense, very, very good defense. Now they don't get credit for what they did last year. But last year, in 2024, I'm going to read you how many points they give up. They gave up 20 points to Baylor. They gave up 19 points to Kansas State, 14 points to Utah, 19 points to TCU, 20 points to Iowa State, seven points to Rice, 16 points to Oklahoma. Now they didn't have a couple of blowouts in there. They did give up 30 points to be with you. They did give up 42 points to Kansas who was the weirdest team of all college football last year. But they held TCU last year to 19 points at TCU. This could be an interesting game. This could be the kind of game that could trip up TCU season. They're not careful. Now, I don't know where TCU will be at this point in the season. But I'm just saying if TCU is good, circle that game as a potential trap game for the Horn Frogs. Finally, week 14, final week of the season. I've got Colorado in Kansas State. The reason I chose this game, again, there's not a ton of great games this week. There's some okay games. But as I go through the whole list, Arizona, Arizona State, we got a rivalry game. Not sure how good that game is actually going to be given where Arizona is currently at. It could potentially be a huge upset, especially at Arizona State. If Arizona State's primed to make the conference championship again, I just don't see it. You talk Kansas. Okay, Houston and Baylor. Okay. UCF and BYU. Colorado at Colorado State. Pretty good game. I was at Oklahoma State. No, Cincinnati, TCU, no, Texas Tech versus West Virginia. No. Colorado versus Kansas State is the game of the week. Not only is it the best game, but this also is the kind of game that could be very, this is the kind of game that makes you wonder, is it the last game of coach primes, coach Deon Sanders 10 year at Colorado? There's already been rumors swirled. Those rumors last year, they were rumors two years ago that he might look at going to the NFL. This will be the first year where he is not coaching his son, Shadour or his other son, Shiloh. How does he like that? Does he like the college game without coaching his sons? We'll find out, but I feel like this could be his last game. And it will be a good game. Kansas State in late November. That sounds like a snow bowl to me. I would love to see the game in the snow late in the season, Buffaloes versus the Wildcats. Best game in the week. Good way to send out the big 12 season. And then we get into conference championships and the college football playoff. College the big 12 conference championship game will once again be at 18 T Stadium in Arlington where the Dallas Cowboys play. And then from there, we'll go to the college football playoff. As a reminder, this is another year of a 12 team playoff that did change the format a little bit to where yes, there will be a representative from the big 12 as a conference champion, but they will not be seated one through four necessarily. They will be seated wherever they finish in the actual rankings. So let's say Iowa State wins the ranked number eight, they get the eight seed their ranked number 17. They would come in probably as the 11 or 12 seed depending on where the G five champion comes in or the other champions come in from other conference. So that's the final game. You have the conference championship. When it goes on to the college football playoff, if you have a team that is in the next seven, you can get a second team or a third team from the big 12 for that to happen though, I think you would need a team like Kansas State, BYU, Iowa State, maybe Colorado, Arizona State, Baylor, TCU to be ranked all season long, get some reputation, get some stories narrative behind them so that when they do play each other in these good games that I've talked about, they're able to sustain a loss without dropping out of that seven at large bid spots. That's the biggest thing that the big 12 needs to hope for is to be able to get a second team into the college football playoff last year. They weren't particularly close looking at the rankings last year. BYU was the closest team at 17 and they were the fifth team out. So you would have needed a playoff, essentially to have 17 teams for the kugers to have made it. Now, if there was a 16 team playoff, I feel like they would have maybe looked at the BYU for self-care line argument, maybe a little bit closer, maybe looked at Ole Miss with their three losses, not entirely sure what they would have looked at, but still point being the same. I think BYU, if they go 10 and 2 this year, they're ranked a lot higher than 17 because they're going to be starting a lot higher than they did last year, which was an expectation to finish 13th in the conference. I think Arizona State who finished ranked 12th in the rankings last year, I think if they go 11 and 2 again, they're ranked probably in the top 10 because they're going to start off ranked this year. What you do not want to happen is a team like, and this is nothing against you, if you're listening, you don't want a team like Houston or UCF or West Virginia to shock the nation, shock the big 12 rise from nowhere, be 10 and 2 at the end of the season and hoping for an out-large bit. It's probably not going to happen because it's going to take so much work, so much winning for those teams to get up in the rankings in the first place, that any loss or setback is going to make it almost insurmountable for them to get into the at-large conversation. So, you need a team that's already ranked. So, again, those teams I mentioned or receiving votes to be there at the end of the year. Those are the top games. Again, I will read them off to you really quickly. Week 0, Iowa State vs. Kansas State, week 1, TCU vs. North Carolina, week 2, Iowa vs. Iowa State, week 3, Pitt vs. West Virginia, week 4, SMU vs. TCU, week 5, TCU vs. Arizona State, week 6, Kansas State vs. Baylor, week 7, UCF vs. Cincinnati, week 8, BYU vs. Utah, week 9, BYU vs. Iowa State, week 10, Texas Tech vs. Kansas State, week 11, UCF vs. Houston, week 12, TCU vs. BYU, week 13, TCU vs. Houston, and rounding out the season, in week 14, Colorado vs. Kansas State. If you agree with my list or disagree with my list, I would love to hear it in the comments. Love to hear it on social media. Again, that is at first in 12 on X. Give me a follow. Let me know what you think and we will get it on the show. So thank you again so much for tuning in today. I appreciate it so much. I will catch you on Monday. See you later. Bye.