2026 Big 12 Preview: The Champ Lost Its QB, and the Whole League Smells Blood

Texas Tech won the Big 12 at 12-2 last season and returns the most talented roster in the league — but quarterback Brendan Sorsby is gone after a bizarre offseason saga that ended with the NFL refusing to hold a supplemental draft. In a league that has crowned a different champion four years running, that crack in the champ's armor makes 2026 the most wide-open race in America.

The Frontrunners

Texas Tech is still the team to beat, and it isn't particularly close on paper. The Red Raiders project as a top-10 SP+ team behind an elite defense — reloaded again through the portal with linebackers Austin Romaine (Kansas State) and Corey Platt Jr. (Houston) — and a running game that gets USC transfer Quinten Joyner back healthy. The question is redshirt sophomore Will Hammond, officially named the starter after beating out Tulsa transfer Kirk Francis. Hammond's résumé is short but loud: he came off the bench against Utah last year and carved up one of the league's best defenses in a 34-10 win. He also gets a gift of a schedule — more on that below.

BYU went 12-2 and pushed Tech to the brink, and the Cougars bring back the league's best young backfield: sophomore QB Bear Bachmeier and senior RB LJ Martin, who passed on the NFL for one more year in Provo. The concern is the other side of the ball, where defensive coordinator Jay Hill left for Michigan. BYU's recent history alternates between excellence and collapse; the roster says this should be another excellent year, but the schedule (at Arizona early, and host ND in October) will test that fast.

The Next Tier

Utah enters the Morgan Scalley era after Kyle Whittingham's stunning exit to Michigan, and the new coach inherits the league's best returning quarterback in Devon Dampier — 2,490 passing yards, 24 touchdowns, and 835 rushing yards in his All-Big 12 debut season. Both lines got gutted, but the schedule is friendly: no Texas Tech, and BYU comes to Salt Lake City.

Arizona might have the league's ceiling play. Noah Fifita returns for a fourth year as the starter coming off 3,228 yards, 29 touchdowns and just six picks — legitimate dark-horse Heisman material. The Wildcats went 9-4 and draw a brutal draw (nearly every contender is on the slate), but if Fifita levels up again, they're a playoff threat.

Houston is the sleeper the numbers love. The Cougars went 10-3, rank near the top of the country in returning production, and bring back Conner Weigman with five-star freshman Keisean Henderson waiting behind him. Willie Fritz teams win with line play, and this might be the best front Houston has had in years.

Kansas State hands the keys to Collin Klein after Chris Klieman's retirement, and the biggest win of his first offseason was keeping Avery Johnson, who returns for his senior year as one of the nation's most dangerous dual-threats. The defense was rebuilt almost entirely through the portal; if the pieces fit, a 6-6 team could jump fast.

TCU is fascinating. Josh Hoover left for Indiana, and the Frogs replaced him with Harvard graduate transfer Jaden Craig — the Crimson's all-time leader in passing yards and touchdowns, with one year of eligibility to turn Fort Worth into his 2027 NFL Draft audition. TCU went 9-4 and can win this league, but nobody's schedule is meaner (see below).

The Transfer Class That Reshaped the League

The quarterback carousel alone rewrote the race. DJ Lagway, a former five-star and Florida's starter for two seasons, came home to Baylor — his dad played running back in Waco. A 5-7 Baylor team with Lagway and Colorado transfer WR Dre'lon Miller is the classic chaos entrant. Michael Hawkins Jr. (Oklahoma) landed at West Virginia, Alonza Barnett III (James Madison) gives UCF a proven winner, and Jaylen Raynor (Arkansas State, 8,694 career passing yards) headlines Iowa State's overhaul.

Then there's Oklahoma State, which didn't so much use the portal as annex North Texas. New coach Eric Morris brought roughly 90 newcomers to Stillwater, including his entire offensive core from Denton — QB Drew Mestemaker chief among them. After a 1-11 season, it's a full factory reset, and honestly the only rational play.

Four new head coaches, and two of the league's giants walked out the door: Whittingham to Michigan after the second-longest tenure in the sport, and Matt Campbell to Penn State after a decade at Iowa State. The replacements — Scalley (Utah), Klein (Kansas State), Morris (Oklahoma State), and Jimmy Rogers at Iowa State, fresh off one year at Washington State and an FCS national title at South Dakota State — are all first-year Power Four head coaches. Rogers, for the record, says he's "not signing up for 2nd place." Meanwhile Deion Sanders enters year four at Colorado off a 3-9 faceplant, betting the program on redshirt freshman Julian Lewis at quarterback. Prime's seat is warmer than it's ever been.

Schedule Quirks That Will Decide This Thing

  • Texas Tech hit the lottery. The champs miss BYU, Utah, and Kansas State entirely, with no top-90 nonconference opponent. If the Red Raiders stumble, it won't be the schedule's fault.
  • TCU drew the short straw. The Frogs play every top contender, open against North Carolina in Dublin — and the Week 0 Ireland game has quietly cursed nearly every team that's played it — then close with four straight ranked-caliber opponents in November.
  • Arizona gets no favors either, starting with a Week 2 trip to Provo that could define both teams' seasons by mid-September.
  • Utah's path is the inverse of TCU's: no Texas Tech, BYU at home. If the Utes are going to crash the title game in Scalley's first year, the schedule-makers did their part.

Bottom Line

Texas Tech is the favorite on talent, BYU is the favorite in the coaches' poll, and at least six other teams can talk themselves into the title game without lying. In a 16-team league with no divisions, a soft schedule is a roster upgrade — which is why Tech and Utah should be in Arlington in December, with Arizona and Houston as the live longshots. But this is the Big 12: the only safe prediction is that the safe prediction is wrong.