Joel Klatt picks Texas Tech over BYU in Big 12 Championship game

There arguably isn’t a better conference championship race in the Power Four than what’s underway in the Big 12. There, in a parity-driven conference, there are four teams with one or fewer conference losses and eight teams with two or fewer conference losses.

College football analyst Joel Klatt dove into the Big 12 race on The Joel Klatt Show. There, he decided that it’s going to be a Texas Tech vs. BYU battle in the Big 12 Championship Game with the Red Raiders coming out on top.

“In the Big 12, this one gets kind of crazy,” Joel Klatt said. “There’s a lot of scenarios in the Big 12. I think it’s one of the leagues that could go totally haywire… But in the Big 12, let’s just say for the sake of argument that Texas Tech were to run the table and beat BYU. So, both Texas Tech and BYU would be 11-1 at that point at the end of the year.”

This season has been phenomenal for Texas Tech, coming off an offseason where the Red Raiders were very active in the Transfer Portal. It’s safe to say they’ve hit, sitting at 7-1 on the season overall and 4-1 in Big 12 play. Then, BYU had an awkward offseason, losing its starting quarterback. It’s worked out with freshman Bear Bachmeier, though. He’s hit the ground running and now the Cougars are 8-0 and 5-0 in Big 12 play.

“And they would each be 7-1 in the conference and, likely, pending some of these other games, like I’m talking about the wonkiness,” Klatt said. “Let’s just say Texas Tech and BYU face each other as 11-1 foes in Dallas in the Big 12 Championship Game. Now, that would mean Tech would beat BYU in the regular season in their upcoming game. They would be healthier then. Skyler Gill-Howard might be back for that Big 12 Championship Game. Possibly. I’m going to go with Tech winning that one. They would be a 12-1 Big 12 Champion, which would leave BYU as an 11-2 team, non-champion.”

That Big 12 Championship win would put Texas Tech in the College Football Playoff. Depending on the rest of the field, however, BYU would still have an argument to make it too. A season ago, it was just conference champion Arizona State to make the field as the four-seed. However, now the seeding model has changed to a straight-seeding model. That means the top-four ranked conference champions no longer inherently get a top-four seed.

There are also two key teams still in this conference race. Cincinnati is 5-0 in Big 12 play. That’s with an upcoming game against BYU. Then, Houston sits at 4-1 in Big 12 play. They’ve already dropped a game to Texas Tech and won’t see BYU, but they could also make it interesting down the stretch here.

There’s still a whole month of football left to play. For some teams, that includes five games or nearly half their season. So, there’s still plenty of time for chaos before the Big 12 Championship Game on Saturday, December 6th.