Hold onto your seats, Big 12 fans.<\/p>\n
Mid-tier teams in the conference spent Saturday taking a sledgehammer to its own playoff argument following UCF’s stunning upset of No. 2 BYU in double overtime and Cincinnati’s impressive win over previously-unbeaten and No. 8 Texas Tech.<\/p>\n
Those results have tossed\u00a0the conference’s College Football Playoff hopes<\/a>\u00a0in a blender with Utah being the only unbeaten left entering Week 9<\/a>.<\/p>\n As a result, Utah is now projected as a top-4 in CBS Sports’ latest CFP predictions<\/a>.<\/p>\n Cincinnati snapped Texas Tech’s nine-game Big 12 winning streak dating back to last season hours before Scott Frost and the Knights held off the Cougars, a week after BYU had beaten Notre Dame to move up to No. 2 in the AP poll.\u00a0<\/p>\n With five top-25 teams entering the weekend<\/a>, the attention now turns to BYU at Utah in a couple of weeks, with the winner getting a leg up on the rest at the top of the conference.<\/p>\n Can either of these teams restore order in the unpredictable league standings?<\/p>\n Behind four touchdown passes from JC French and a career-best 173 yards rushing from Cole Tabb<\/a>, Cincinnati snapped a two-game skid with a signature win and took advantage of Texas Tech’s season-long sputters in the passing game.\u00a0<\/p>\n Struggles offensively finally came back to haunt the Red Raiders, who turned it over three times and never recovered from Cincinnati’s 21-point surge in the second quarter.<\/p>\n The ranked win was only Scott Satterfield’s second at Cincinnati in four seasons.<\/p>\n It was personal for the Bearcats, who watched last season’s starting quarterback, Brendan Sorsby, leave this offseason via the transfer portal to Texas Tech — though he never played a down for the Red Raiders. Sorsby was suspended following a gambling investigation<\/a> before mutually parting ways with Texas Tech in June.<\/p>\n Now, Will Hammond<\/a> and the Red Raiders’ offense must likely win out \u2014 with Arizona<\/a> looming among others \u2014 to have a chance at repeating as Big 12 champions and securing an automatic berth into the CFP.<\/p>\n Top of Big 12 standings<\/p>\n No. 10<\/p>\n Utah<\/p>\n 7-0<\/p>\n 4-0<\/p>\n No. 2<\/p>\n BYU<\/p>\n 6-1<\/p>\n 3-1<\/p>\n No. 8<\/p>\n Texas Tech<\/p>\n 6-1<\/p>\n 3-1<\/p>\n No. 25<\/p>\n Arizona<\/p>\n 6-1<\/p>\n 3-1<\/p>\n No. 14<\/p>\n Houston\u00a0<\/p>\n 6-2\u00a0<\/p>\n 3-2<\/p>\n BYU goes down in Orlando<\/p>\n It’s imperative the Big 12’s best don’t bloody each other up over the second half of the season if this league wants multiple teams in the CFP<\/a>, especially after BYU’s shocking loss at UCF. The selection committee’s new conference strength metric helps contextualize league schedules, including disparities between teams with varied schedule difficulty.<\/p>\n However, only one of the league’s five ranked teams entering Week 8 had a strength of schedule ranked inside the top-35 nationally, and that’s going to be part of the discussion when the CFP selection committee meets next weekend. Before Saturday’s loss, BYU sat No. 1 in strength of record and No. 7 in game control, metrics that will come in handy if Kalani Sitake’s team rebounds as the league favorite.<\/p>\n