Rav's Big 12 Preview: Tech's One Very Loud Problem + Who is Best of Rest?

Texas Tech just won 11 regular season games by 20+ points, the first team to do that since 2019 Ohio State. They signed TWENTY four-star transfers over two cycles when the Big 12 average is two, and brought back the #1 opponent-adjusted defense in America. Nine defensive starters earned All-Big 12 honors last year, five of them first-team. This roster, top to bottom, is the most talented in the conference. THEY ARE LOADED bro.

Here's the part nobody wants to say out loud: the program is currently trying to sign its second different outside quarterback in 6 months, and that's not what a top team with title aspirations is supposed to be doing in August.

Behren Morton went pro. Tech went out and paid up for the #2 rated transfer quarterback in the entire cycle, five-star Brendan Sorsby out of Cincinnati. Then Sorsby's gambling situation turned into a legal battle over his own eligibility, and in June his college career ends. So the plan became "run it back with Will Hammond," the sophomore who filled in fine last year and led scoring drives against Utah and ran for two scores against Kansas. He is a semi-respectable plan B. Except Hammond is still working back from an ACL injury, with his return timeline only now lining up with kickoff.

THEN, this past week, Thomas Castellanos, the well-traveled QB who's already played at Boston College and Florida State and just got a Kentucky court to hand him a fifth year of eligibility out of nowhere, becomes available, and Texas Tech is reportedly the "likely landing spot." A program that already paid premium money for a five-star transfer quarterback is now circling back to add a guy who was a portal vet at his last stop and who was all but an afterthought until this last week. Does that sounds like confidence in the QB that started plenty of games for them last season? Uh absolutely the hell not. Tech is borderline hedging in public because it doesn't fully trust the guy it has.

The offensive line returns three All-Big 12 starters, the running back room is a proven 1,000-yard duo in Cameron Dickey and J'Koby Williams, and the defense doesn't have a real weakness anywhere. If Hammond, or Castellanos, or whoever wins the job just plays average quarterback, Tech is a Big 12 title favorite again. But "if the quarterback is just average" is not the sentence a team with the deepest roster in the league or a team with serious Playoff aspirations should be hoping is true in Week 1. Tech's own actions this offseason are a tell. They do not trust that Will Hammond can take them where they want to go this season. If that is because of skill, or because of injury, or a mix of both, we don't know. Maybe they're only talking to Castellanos to make him a backup for Hammond? If that were the case why would Tommy even fight for eligibility or decide to go to Lubbock? This is something to seriously monitor with the Red Raiders.

While Tech was buying its way through the transfer portal, Kalani Sitake did something almost old-fashioned: he just kept his team. BYU signed a record eight four-star high school prospects, good for a program-high #21 national class ranking, and then retained every single returning starter who was eligible to come back. 17 of their players earned some form of All-Big 12 recognition last year. 10 returned. The other seven graduated. ZERO transferred out. In a sport where every good player gets a portal offer the moment the season ends, that retention number is really impressive stuff. No wonder why every school with a Head Coaching opening wanted him. Sitake is 23-4 over the last two years, the second-best two-year stretch in program history behind the 1984 national title team, and Penn State reportedly really wanted him for their own head coaching search. He said no and stayed in Provo. That loyalty is paying off with a roster that doesn't have to rebuild anything. In fact, this roster is very strong.

Start with the quarterback. Bear Bachmeier was a true freshman last year who'd spent spring ball at Stanford before transferring in, and he fucked around and won Big 12 Freshman of the Year with over 3,500 total yards and 26 touchdowns. He's got that legit dog in him, like when he dragged three Utah defenders into the end zone for the walk-off TD in the Holy War. 

Now he gets an actual full offseason as the starter, complete with real spring ball reps in Provo for the first time. Second-year quarterback bonus, and he's already this good.

Running back LJ Martin comes back too after winning Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year with 1,305 rushing yards, and he did that while playing through a shoulder injury that needed offseason surgery. The offensive line in front of both of them is stacked with veterans, two All-Big 12 returners in center Bruce Mitchell and tackle Andrew Gentry, plus three transfers who've actually started games elsewhere.

Then there's the defense. Six All-Big 12 defenders are back. BYU took basically zero transfer losses on that side of the ball, and the staff still went out and added the #1 linebacker transfer in the entire cycle in Cade Uluave, who put up 100 tackles and 12 for loss last year. Pair him with returning do-it-all linebacker Isaiah Glasker and a secondary that ranked top 25 nationally in pass defense, and this is a unit with zero real holes.

BYU beat everybody in the regular season last year except Texas Tech and lost the Big 12 title game to them again. Outside of the WR room, nothing on this roster got worse. The quarterback gets better, the RB room gets better, the O-line got more veteran, and the defense added a first-team All-ACC linebacker. I love the value of this team to win the whole conference at +500 which is why I'm picking BYU to win the Big 12 this year, and Tech's quarterback chaos is a big reason why I think the door is actually open. This team is good enough to meet Tech in the Big 12 title game in Arlington and avenge last year's near-playoff miss and two rough losses to them.

I want to like this Utah team more than I do. Devon Dampier is a dangerous quarterback and a very very fun watch. The most elusive scrambler in the country who threw 24 touchdowns against just five picks last year while banged up. His backup Byrd Ficklin averaged 8.4 yards a carry. That duo alone keeps Utah relevant.

My hesitation starts up front. Utah's offensive line was the best in school history last season, #2 in the country in run-push, and every single starter earned All-Big 12 honors. All five of them are gone. So is the offensive line coach who built them. New head coach Morgan Scalley is replacing a unit that had two first-round NFL Draft picks on it with a group that's mostly backup depth and a true freshman five-star tackle who might have to start day one.

Nine starters are gone on defense, including all four defensive linemen and the guy who led all of Power 4 in sacks per game last season. The staff backfilled a lot of those losses with three-star transfers from the non-Power 4 and JUCO levels rather than proven P4 replacements. That's concerning.

Kyle Whittingham left for Michigan and took multiple starters and his best assistants with him. Scalley is a good coach who's earned this shot after a decade running Utah's defense and literally being named the Head Coach-in-waiting years ago, but replacing nine starters and an entire offensive line with a patchwork of lower-level transfers in the same offseason is exactly how a team regresses in a transition year.

The safety room is a huge strength. Jackson Bennee is a playmaker who should get All-Big 12 hype, and Dampier alone gives Utah a floor most rebuilding teams don't have. I'm not writing this team off entirely. But I think this is the year the wheels come off a little for Utah.

Willie Fritz is a great coach and is building something real in that building. I want to say that up front because what I'm about to say sounds harsher than I mean it. Last year's breakthrough had two engines, and I think both of them are close to unrepeatable.

The first was the transfer portal approach. Fritz called it finding "moneyball" gems, guys with real college starts and snaps who'd been under-recruited coming out of high school. It worked to an unbelievable degree last year. That transfer class produced 13 starters, and EIGHT of them earned All-Big 12 honors. That actually has to be one of the best transfer hit rates ever, and it's also not the kind of thing that just repeats on command every single cycle. Six defenders earned All-Big 12 last year off that formula. Five of them are gone.

The second reason was even more concerning: Houston went 6-1 in one-score games last year, propped up by a kicker hitting game-winners and a defense that bailed them out late.

Now stack the roster losses on top of that. Running back Dean Connors, who was one of the toughest runners in the country, is gone. Tight end Tanner Koziol, who caught 141 receptions combined with the team's other featured target, is gone too. The offensive line was already a bottom-tier unit in run-push, and now it has to replace three starters with transfers pulled from the G5 level rather than proven Power 4 talent. Add in losing five of six All-Big 12 defenders, and you've got a program replacing its two best skill-position pieces, its O-line depth, and most of its defensive difference-makers, all in the same offseason that also needs the one-score luck to hold.

I respect what Fritz is building here, and five-star freshman QB Keisean Henderson (the #1 overall recruit in the 2026 class) is an unreal long-term building block behind returning starter Conner Weigman. But betting on Houston to repeat last year's record means betting that a crazy high hit-rate transfer class and a one-score coin flip both come up heads again in the same season. That's not a bet I'm making.

If you thought I was going to write a Big 12 Preview and not mention THE ASU Sun Devils headlined by the coach that everyone wants but nobody can have Kenny Dillingham you truly just don't know me well enough.

Arizona State loses 18 starters off last year's roster. An enormous number, and on its face it should read as a total step back after a two-year run that included a Big 12 title and 19 wins, the program's best two-year stretch since the 1970s. But Dillingham isn't just staying in Tempe to fucking suck. He brought in the third-best transfer class in the Big 12 and the 15th-best in the country to reload instead of rebuild.

Start at quarterback, because I think this is the single most overlooked storyline in the entire conference. Sam Leavitt is off to LSU. But Dillingham replaced him with Cutter Boley, a former four-star out of Kentucky who started ten games as a true freshman last year and finished #12 in the SEC in QB Rating, completing 65% of his passes with great arm talent and a ton of mobility to extend plays. A 65% completion rate as a true freshman in the SEC is a legit high floor to inherit.

Are we seriously doubting that Dillingham can develop a transfer quarterback fast? Remember who he did this with last time. Sam Leavitt arrived at Arizona State with ZERO starting experience (he'd redshirted at Michigan State) and all Dillingham did with him was win a Big 12 title and reach the Playoff. Dillingham has been getting quarterbacks right since he was calling plays at Oregon and Florida State too. I trust the process here completely. Boley is going to be good and the sooner you realize the sooner you can take advantage.

The pieces around him back that up. The receiver room might be the best in the Big 12 after Dillingham landed three GOOD Power 4 starters in the portal, headlined by Omarion Miller, who was Colorado's MVP and All-Big 12 a year ago, and Reed Harris, a Boston College transfer and another 4-star transfer addition. Both starting tight ends are former four-stars. The offensive line loses all five starters, which sounds disastrous, but the portal work there was strong enough that I think this unit won't be as big of a liability as it seems.

Defensively, ten starters are gone too, but DC Brian Ward has now built back-to-back top 25 opponent-adjusted defenses, one of only two staffs in the league to do that. All three levels of this defense should still finish in the top half of the Big 12 even after the overhaul with all kinds of impactful portal additions everywhere.

So why isn't anyone talking about this team? The schedule. It is brutal. Arizona State has to go on the road to Texas A&M in Week 2, cross an ocean to play Kansas at Wembley Stadium in London, travel to Texas Tech, and then go to BYU on Halloween. Four of the toughest possible trips a Big 12 team could draw, bunched into the first two months of the season. That schedule, not the roster, is the actual limiting factor here. I think this team is talented enough to finish 7-8 regular season wins, but definitely is a good roster-retention year away from seriously competing for the Big 12 title again.

New head coach Collin Klein was a former QB at Kansas State and inherits a program in total transition. Chris Klieman walked away after seven years, and Klein is now the guy trying to turn a talented but underachieving roster back into a contender. I actually think the schedule draw does a lot of that work for him.

Start with the quarterback reunion. Klein originally recruited Avery Johnson to Manhattan (when he was the OC) and coached him as a true freshman back in 2023, and now the two are back together with Johnson entering his final season tied with Will Howard for the school's career passing touchdown record. Johnson has been the definition of boom-or-bust across his whole career and personally is one of the most annoying players to bet on. He's got great breakaway speed and has ranked 9th and 11th in the Big 12 in QB Rating the last two years, but reuniting with the coach who developed him could definitely push his numbers in the right direction.

The defense is a different story, and it's a total rebuild. 9 starters are gone, including all four defensive linemen and both starting linebackers. Six of those nine earned All-Big 12 honors.  But new coordinator Jordan Peterson, who helped coordinate Texas A&M's Playoff defense last year, landed proven Power 4 pieces at exactly the spots that were gutted, including Wendell Gregory (Oklahoma State), who graded as a high four-star transfer and was that team's best defender a year ago. This could be what people are calling a reload instead of a rebuild.

Here's the part I actually care about most. Kansas State gets the best schedule draw in the entire conference, avoiding the league's top three teams entirely. No Texas Tech, no BYU, no Utah on the slate. I don't think Kansas State has the roster to run away with the Big 12. But I did reference trying to find the best of the rest behind Texas Tech and BYU, and I do think that schedule alone is worth two or three extra wins compared to a neutral slate, and that's more than enough to push this team into the top of the standings if a few things break right.

Eric Morris takes over a program that hit rock bottom: a 1-11 season, an 0-9 Big 12 record, and a midseason firing of program legend Mike Gundy. Morris built his reputation with a #1 nationally ranked scoring offense and total offense at North Texas, and he brought a huge chunk of that operation with him: his offensive coordinator, six offensive starters, and most importantly the trio that ran that attack.

Drew Mestemaker led the entire country in passing yards last season with 4,379 yards, finished second nationally with 34 touchdowns, and was rated the #3 transfer quarterback in this cycle. Running back Caleb Hawkins led the country with 25 rushing touchdowns on a shade under 1,450 yards. Slot receiver Wyatt Young led the AAC in receiving yards. On paper, this looks like Oklahoma State just bought an entire offense that finished #1 in the country in both scoring and yardage.

What isn't being talked about enough and what really scares me about Oklahoma State is who North Texas played last year. North Texas's 2025 slate that produced those gaudy numbers didn't include a single Power 4 opponent. Mestemaker put up the nation's leading passing total against AAC secondaries and a non-conference slate of Lamar, Western Michigan, Washington State, and Army. We're talking about the Big 12, yes, but this is an entirely different level of competition than what he's about to see every single week.

Oklahoma State will definitely improve overall from their offense last season. it almost has to be after finishing dead last in the conference a year ago. And Morris does have a great track record: nine Top 5 passing attacks across 13 years as a playcaller before this. But the jump from putting up video-game numbers in the AAC to doing it consistently against Power 4 defenses is a bigger jump than people seem to realize, and I think those same people are pricing in last year's box score instead of the level of competition it came against.

The defense is also a near-total rebuild under a 30-year-old coordinator who's never called plays at this level. I like the Morris hire long-term. I just think the ceiling on this team may be lower than people think, and it may take Morris and Mestemaker a little longer to get acclimated to better defense this season.