State of Oklahoma Carried Big 12 Kicking and Screaming in the Past Three Seasons

Oklahoma, on top of Texas on maps and in football.

This fun little list from Chris Low made its way around social media last week:

Big 12 records last 3 years vs. final AP Top 25:

Oklahoma 10-4 (.714)
Oklahoma St 6-4 (.600)
Iowa St 4-8 (.333)
TCU 2-9 (.181)
Texas 2-9 (.181)
Baylor 1-8 (.111)
K-State 1-9 (.100)
West Virginia 1-9 (.100)
Kansas 0-9 (.000)
Texas Tech 0-10 (.000)

— Chris Low (@ClowESPN) July 17, 2019

So, the conference’s four Texas schools combined for five wins against teams that finished the in Top 25, and Oklahoma’s two schools finished with 16 wins. It looks worse when diving into winning percentages: Oklahoma = .667 and Texas = .122.

Now that we’re done poking fun at the Lone Star State (I was born in Lubbock if that at all gives me a pass), let’s dive into OSU’s positioning on that list.

The Cowboys’ six wins came against Texas (2018), Boise State (2018), West Virginia (2018), Virginia Tech (2017), West Virginia (2016) and Colorado (2016). OSU’s losses came against Oklahoma (2018), Oklahoma (2017), TCU (2017) and Oklahoma (2017).

This makes Taylor Cornelius look like one of the best quarterbacks in program history, as Cornelius was 3-1 against AP Top 25 finalist to Mason Rudolph’s 3-3. But in reality it just means that Corndog only had to play OU once.

It’s also just kind of how conferences work, as Low made a list for all of the Power Five conferences. All of the conferences had one or two teams at or above .500 (apart from the Pac-12, who’s best team was USC at 6-7) with the rest trickling below. The Pac-12 also had three teams that were winless in the past three years against AP Poll finalists: Arizona (0-7), Oregon State (0-10) and UCLA (0-12).

Clemson has the most conference weight of any Power Five team in the metric at 14-1 with the No. 2 ACC school being Miami at 3-5.

Here’s the conclusion to Low’s experiment:

Power 5 conference records last 3 years vs. final AP Top 25:

SEC: 52-121 (.300)
ACC: 39-104 (.272)
Big 12: 27-79 (.254)
B1G: 37-124 (.229)
Pac-12: 25-96 (.206)

— Ala, Clem, Ohio St and Okla combined for 49 of the 180 overall wins.
— Six ACC/B1G teams had 1 or fewer wins.

— Chris Low (@ClowESPN) July 18, 2019