Texas Christian v. Iowa St.

This game should be a blowout for Texas Christian.  Iowa State is 0-8 in conference and 2-9 overall.  Texas Christian is at home.  Texas Christian is favored by 35 points, in a game where the over-under is 69 points.  That would work out to a Texas Christian victory of something like 52-17, which sounds about right.3-9

So Texas Christian should keep the UCFC.  But, of course, that's not the main issue for the folks in Fort Worth today.  With one game left for most conference members, here are the current standings in the Big XII (AP rankings in parentheses):

(5) Baylor:  7-1, 10-1
(4) Texas Christian:  7-1, 10-1
(9) Kansas St:  7-1, 9-2
(18) Oklahoma:  5-3, 8-3
Texas:  5-4, 6-6
W. Virginia:  5-4, 7-5
Oklahoma St:  3-5, 5-6
Texas Tech:  2-7, 4-8
Kansas:  1-8, 3-9
Iowa St:  0-8, 2-9

Baylor hosts Kansas State tonight, and so the Big XII race will likely finish with a tie between Texas Christian and the Baylor/KSU winner.  If Kansas State wins, there won't be much controversy as to which Big XII team is the best -- Texas Christian dominated Kansas State when the two teams met a few weeks ago.  But if Baylor wins -- and the Bears are favored by 7 points -- we will have an old-fashioned donnybrook between Texas Christian fans and Baylor fans.  The pollsters and the folks who run the College Football Playoff currently have Texas Christian ranked ahead of Baylor -- even though the Bears beat the Horned Frogs 61-58 in a UCFC game earlier this season.  Here's how each team has done so far (home teams listed first):

TEXAS CHRISTIAN (10-1):
Texas Christian 48 - 14 Samford
Texas Christian 30 - 7 Minnesota
Southern Methodist 0 - 56 Texas Christian
Texas Christian 37 - 33 Oklahoma
Baylor 61 - 58 Texas Christian
Texas Christian 42 - 9 Oklahoma St.
Texas Christian 82 - 27 Texas Tech
W. Virginia 30 - 31 Texas Christian
Texas Christian 41 - 20 Kansas St.
Kansas 30 - 34 Texas Christian
Texas 10 - 48 Texas Christian

BAYLOR (10-1)
Baylor 45- 0 Southern Methodist
Baylor 70 - 6 Northwestern St.
Buffalo 21 - 63 Baylor
Iowa St. 28 - 49 Baylor
Texas 7 - 28 Baylor
Baylor 61 - 58 Texas Christian
W. Virginia 41 - 27 Baylor
Baylor 60 - 14 Kansas
Oklahoma 14 - 48 Baylor
Baylor 49 - 28 Oklahoma St.
Texas Tech 46 - 48 Baylor (at Arlington, Tex.)

It is very difficult to judge between these two teams.  I will say, however, that I personally came away from the Baylor/Texas Christian game convinced that the Horned Frogs were the better team, regardless of the final score.

Of course, the Playoff guys could avoid the whole Baylor/Texas Christian issue by putting Ohio State in the playoff and leaving out both Big XII champs.

We, of course, will hope that whatever happens, Texas Christian gets into the playoff -- it would be great to have the UCFC and the National Championship united once more.  But it's been a crazy season so far, and nothing that happens would surprise me -- unless Iowa State wins and takes the UCFC.  That would be a surprise.