The Big 12 saw a team make the College Football Playoff in 2022 and 2023, with TCU and Texas accomplishing that feat in consecutive years. This season, Texas is gone along with Oklahoma, while some new teams have stepped in to take their place. Here, we take a look at the 2024 Big 12 championship betting odds and break down the field as this conference looks to produce another playoff participant.
Big 12 Football Championship Odds
In the 2023 college football season, the Texas Longhorns blew out the Oklahoma State Cowboys in the Big 12 championship game to reach the College Football Playoff. There, the Longhorns lost to the Washington Huskies in the semifinals. But this year, Texas and Oklahoma are off to the SEC, leaving this conference without the two teams that have defined it for so many years on the football field.
As a result, a newcomer to the Big 12 is the favorite to win the conference championship. That team is the Utah Utes, who have long had one of the best defenses in the Pac-12 and arrive here after their old conference was swallowed up by the current wave of conference realignment. Utah is joined by Kansas State as a favorite to win the Big 12 this year, as both of those teams play enough defense to potentially usher in a new identify of defensive football to a league where defense has long been optional.
Outside of Utah and K-State, it will be interesting to see which teams challenge them at the top of the Big 12 championship betting landscape. Teams like Iowa State, UCF, and Arizona are all being given a chance to do so by oddsmakers. But the question for many of these teams will be whether or not they can find consistency against so many opponents that they are not used to seeing.
The other new faces in the Big 12 this year along with Utah are Arizona, Arizona State, and Colorado. A disproportionate amount of attention will be paid to Colorado thanks to their attention-seeking head coach Deion Sanders. But Arizona may be the best addition to this league from a football standpoint outside of Utah.
Big 12 Championship Betting & Handicapping
This college football season, the key to handicapping the Big 12 is going to be projecting how teams match up against one another that have not seen each other much in the past. Conference play will feature a lot of games that would have been non-conference matchups just a season or two ago. Because of that, we don’t have a lot of reference points when it comes to determining how teams will fare against one another, but that will change in the near future.
It will also be very important for bettors not to get sucked into the Colorado hype vortex again this season. When the Buffaloes went 3-0 against lackluster non-conference opponents to start the season in 2023, sportsbooks were hanging updated season win totals of 6.5 games. That was, of course, ridiculous in hindsight and bettors should know better than to fall for any of that nonsense again even if Deion Sanders used to be really cool when they were growing up.
Big 12 Championship History
| Year | Big 12 Champion |
|---|---|
| 2023 | Texas |
| 2022 | Kansas State |
| 2021 | Baylor |
| 2020 | Oklahoma |
| 2019 | Oklahoma |
| 2018 | Oklahoma |
| 2017 | Oklahoma |
| 2010 | Oklahoma |
| 2009 | Texas |
| 2008 | Oklahoma |
| 2007 | Oklahoma |
| 2006 | Oklahoma |
| 2005 | Texas |
| 2004 | Oklahoma |
| 2003 | Kansas State |
| 2002 | Oklahoma |
Big 12 Championship Wins
| All Time Wins | Big 12 Team | Last Yr Won |
|---|---|---|
| 14 | Oklahoma | 2020 |
| 4 | Texas | 2023 |
| 3 | Baylor | 2021 |
| 3 | Kansas State | 2022 |
| 1 | TCU | 2014 |
| 1 | Oklahoma State | 2011 |
| 0 | West Virginia | — |
| 0 | Texas Tech | — |
| 0 | Kansas | — |
| 0 | Iowa State | — |
