The 2024 Big 12 race will go down in history as one of the most unpredictable wild rides that this conference has ever seen.
With Oklahoma and Texas finally in the rearview mirror and a host of new members coming from the West, it felt like anything could happen. Still, nobody could’ve predicted how the race would wrap up on the last weekend in November.
From August to December, we watched the moniker of “favorite” bounce from Utah to Kansas State, from Kansas State to BYU, and then from BYU to Iowa State. Then during the final leg of the race, Kenny Dillingham’s bunch showed up and pummeled Matt Campbell’s Cyclones for a Big 12 Crown.
It was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of season, and there are so many ways to try and encapsulate it, but perhaps the best way is to call it “The Year of the Underdog.”
According to BetMGM, upsets in college football happen at at a rate of about 25%. Since 2005, college football underdogs in the regular season have won 24.7% of the time. Since 2018, with the US Supreme Court oververturned PAPSA, underdogs have won at a slightly higher rate of 25.3%.
Still, that puts the number squarely at one in every four games being an upset.
During Big 12 play in the 2024 season, however, that was far from the case.
In 73 total Big 12 games, including the 2024 Big 12 Championship, underdogs had a record of 29-44, giving the conference outright upsets 39.6% of the time. That means that on the average weekend during conference play, you would see between two and three games go the way of the underdog.
That, of course, bred all sorts of chaos, and made the Big 12 as unpredictable as any league in the country.
Big 12 Champion Arizona State was the best team in the country against the spread, holding a 12-2-0 record on the season. They weren’t alone in their success, though, as Colorado and Baylor both went 9-4-0 ATS, tying them for seventh nationally.
Additionally, there were seven teams in the league that were .500 or better when playing as underdogs, including BYU, who led the nation with a 5-1 record as an underdog.
