Big 12 Preseason Poll

The Big 12 Football Preseason Poll has been released and West Virginia, once again, is extremely overlooked and undervalued.

Now Oklahoma is going to dominate. That is an easy pick. They are the class of the conference and deserve all the praise they get. Good for them.

But what about the Texas schools? They get all the love from the voters, which is not really surprising, but very unwarranted in my opinion. Common sense would tell you that Baylor and TCU will be down from where they were last year, wouldn’t it?

Baylor might be WAY down considering the current turmoil and recent coaching changes in Waco. Jim Grobe is a good coach, but can he come in and win right away? That will be tough.

TCU lost the majority of their weapons from a year ago but yet they received a couple first place votes. They didn’t even get an offensive player on the Preseason Big 12 First Team. How does that work?

Oklahoma State could do some damage in the conference and I look for them to lose a couple games they probably shouldn’t, and also win some games that strongly affect the championship race. That is just what they do.

Texas obviously should be the best team in the conference. Biggest budget. Best facilities. Best recruits. Most prestigious program in the conference traditionally. But why continue to give them preseason praise when they have strongly underachieved for a few years. 14 losses the last 2 years. For Texas? That can’t happen. How much time does Charlie Strong need when everything is afforded to him. You should win based on talent alone, right? Hasn’t been that way. It is hard to justify Texas being in the top half of the conference in this poll, but no chance that will ever be in doubt.

But Texas Tech being ahead of WVU is absurd. Their defense is atrocious. Their offense is mild. And they haven’t won a game of any substance since they beat West Virginia in 2012. 1 win against a ranked team since. Sure they beat #24 TCU in 2013 but that Frogs team turned out to be 4-8. Not impressive. So explain any other reasoning behind their #6 ranking other than, they are from Texas…

You can’t.

I am not saying West Virginia should be top of the conference. But hell, give the Mountaineers a little unbiased credit. Tons of talent returning from a team that was ranked 6th in the 2015 Big 12 preseason poll and finished 5th. So you rank them 7th the following year? Did they not learn anything from basketball season?

But, in reality, who cares? Writers don’t play the games. The poll really means absolutely nothing. If the Mountaineers take care of business, they can stuff these media “experts” into a virtual locker.

But, just for fun, this is how I feel the Big 12 Preseason Rankings should have looked:

  1. Oklahoma
  2. Oklahoma State
  3. TCU
  4. West Virginia
  5. Texas
  6. Baylor
  7. Kansas State
  8. Texas Tech
  9. Iowa State
  10. Kansas

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