The Big 12 Broadcast: Wembley Delivers, Prime Punishes & Fifita Makes History

By Simon Carroll

The Big 12 wasn’t playing in Week 3.

Last weekend gave us Wembley, controversy, records and a few more clues about where this wildly unpredictable conference might be heading. The Union Jack Classic proved that Big 12 football can thrive 4,000 miles from home, Colorado provided the latest episode in the ever-expanding Deion Sanders saga, and Arizona’s Noah Fifita put his name at the top of another school record.

But enough of the warm-up acts. Conference play is about to become the main event. Welcome to this week’s Big 12 Broadcast.

The Union Jack Classic was everything the Big 12 hoped it would be

There are plenty of ways the inaugural Union Jack Classic could have gone wrong. Put two college football teams in the middle of London, take them away from their traditional surroundings, ask their supporters to cross the Atlantic and hope that an audience unfamiliar with the sport buys into the whole experience. Instead, the Big 12 got pretty much everything it could have asked for.

A crowd of 46,523 marched into Wembley Stadium to watch Arizona State beat Kansas 24-17, creating an atmosphere that felt considerably more like a college football Saturday than a novelty exhibition. The marching bands were there, the tailgating was there, Fox brought its Big Noon production to London and, most importantly, the game itself was competitive.

The football wasn’t bad either. Kansas actually outgained Arizona State 414-228, but the Sun Devils won the moments that mattered. Jaren Hamilton’s 100-yard kickoff return immediately after halftime was spectacular, while Arizona State’s defense and special teams repeatedly turned the game in their favour. The Sun Devils ultimately walked away with the Union Jack Classic trophy after holding off a late Jayhawks comeback.

For the Big 12, however, the final score almost felt secondary. Commissioner Brett Yormark has already spoken openly about wanting to bring the conference back to London, with other schools expressing interest in playing at Wembley. The inaugural event wasn’t simply about putting American football on in England; it was about testing whether the Big 12 could create a genuine college football occasion on this side of the Atlantic.

On that evidence, the answer was emphatically yes. The Union Jack Classic didn’t feel like a gimmick. It felt like the beginning of something. And if Yormark gets his way, Wembley hasn’t seen the last of the Big 12.

Deion lays down the law

There is losing a football game, and then there is losing a football game 41-7. Colorado’s trip to Northwestern was emphatically the latter, with three first-half turnovers helping the Wildcats turn what had been a promising 2-0 start into one of the ugliest afternoons of the Deion Sanders era.

What happened afterwards, though, has become the bigger story.

Sanders said he was particularly unhappy with the behaviour of some Colorado players after the defeat. He had already confronted players he believed were laughing and showing “joy in a loss” as they walked off the field, and by Tuesday he confirmed that several players were no longer part of the program. Colorado subsequently clarified that three players had been removed from the roster, with Sanders describing the decision as being about a broader pattern of behaviour rather than simply one incident.

It is an unmistakably Deion Sanders approach to leadership. There is no suggestion from Sanders that the standard changes because the team has lost badly. Quite the opposite: he made it clear that he expects his players to hurt when they lose, and that the manner in which they respond to adversity matters to him.

There is an obvious football question sitting underneath all of this, though. Colorado now has to take that anger onto the field.

The Buffaloes open Big 12 play at Baylor this weekend, and suddenly the Northwestern defeat looks like a much more significant turning point. Colorado had looked capable of building something after opening the season with a dramatic win at Georgia Tech. Now Sanders has to find a way to turn a humiliating loss and a disruptive week into a response.

Whether the players agree with every decision is almost beside the point. Sanders has made his expectations very clear. Now comes the difficult bit: winning football games while enforcing them.

Noah Fifita has officially entered Arizona legend territory

There is something particularly satisfying about a quarterback breaking a school record that belonged to Nick Foles, especially when he does it by staying at the same program in an era when changing schools has become almost routine.

Noah Fifita did exactly that on Saturday.

The Arizona quarterback entered the Northern Illinois game knowing that he was closing in on Foles’ career passing record. By the end of the Wildcats’ 42-17 victory, the record belonged to him. Fifita threw for 325 yards and four touchdowns, completed 31 of 34 passes and also rushed for a touchdown as Arizona improved to 2-1.

The numbers were ridiculous. His 91.2 percent completion rate also broke Foles’ Arizona record for a single game with at least 30 completions. He now owns the program’s career passing-yardage record, career passing-touchdown record, single-season passing-touchdown record and single-game passing-yardage record.

But perhaps the most interesting part of the Fifita story isn’t any individual number. It is the fact that he has done it all at Arizona.

In the modern transfer era, sticking around long enough to become the statistical standard-bearer for one program is becoming increasingly unusual. Arizona head coach Brent Brennan pointed directly at that after Saturday’s performance, noting that Fifita had chosen to stay and build something in Tucson rather than look elsewhere.

That gives the record a little more weight than simply another quarterback passing an old mark.

Fifita has been one of the Big 12’s most productive quarterbacks since Arizona joined the conference, and Saturday was another reminder that the Wildcats have one of the league’s established stars under center. Now he gets a chance to add another chapter to the story against an old Pac-12 opponent, Washington State, this weekend.

The records are already his. The next challenge is seeing how far he can take Arizona.

The Big 12 is about to stop talking and start finding out

Three weeks into the season, it is becoming increasingly difficult to know exactly what the Big 12 is going to look like when the dust settles.

There are six unbeaten teams heading into the weekend: BYU, Texas Tech, Cincinnati, Kansas State, Utah and West Virginia. Meanwhile, Arizona State has already picked up a conference win at Wembley, while Houston and Kansas have tasted defeat in Big 12 play.

That makes this weekend particularly important because the conference is finally moving into the phase where preseason assumptions start meeting reality.

There is an interesting mixture among those unbeaten teams. BYU and Texas Tech have already played conference games, while Cincinnati, Kansas State, Utah and West Virginia are still perfect without having played a Big 12 opponent. West Virginia’s 38-27 victory over ranked Virginia was particularly notable, while Kansas State survived Tulane and Cincinnati fought back from a 14-point deficit against Miami (Ohio) last weekend.

The point is none of these programs have suddenly established themselves as the team to beat. But we are about to get considerably more information; the Big 12 has spent the opening weeks collecting evidence, and now the conference schedule will give us more clues as to how 2026 will shape out.

And perhaps that is the most intriguing thing about this league. There isn’t a shortage of teams with legitimate ambitions, but there is also very little separating a good-looking September record from a team that can actually survive the conference grind.

By the time we get to October, some of the questions will have answers. This weekend is where we start getting them.

Five All-Big 12 matchups: now the fun really begins

For the first time this season, the Big 12 has a healthy schedule of all-conference football matchups, with five games carrying genuine league implications. And there are questions everywhere you look.

Utah at Iowa State might be the most intriguing from a measuring-stick perspective. The Utes arrive at 3-0 and ranked No. 15 after shutting out Utah State 33-0, while Iowa State is also 2-1 and coming off a ridiculous 55-7 demolition of Bowling Green. Whoever controls this one could make a very early statement about where they belong in the conference conversation. The Cyclones’ start to 2026 has been a pleasant Big 12 surprise, as Jimmy Rogers has had to build a program from rubble following Matt Campbell’s defection to Penn State. They gave Iowa a game – can they roll with one of the conference favourites?

Kansas State at Cincinnati might have the strongest pure “don’t blink” potential. Both teams are 3-0, and Cincinnati already showed its resilience by coming back from 14 points down against Miami (Ohio). K-State, meanwhile, has quietly navigated a tricky opening schedule and now gets its first Big 12 test.

Then there is TCU at UCF, which feels like one of those games that could tell us a great deal about both programs. TCU is 2-1 after a comfortable win over Arkansas State, while UCF enters conference play at 2-1 following a 44-30 victory over Georgia State. The Horned Frogs still have some stink on them from their Dublin debacle, and UCF will have their cynics until Scott Frost can prove he can catch lightning in a bottle twice at the Bounce House.

Oklahoma State at West Virginia is fascinating for completely different reasons. The Mountaineers are unbeaten after knocking off ranked Virginia, while Oklahoma State has put together a 2-1 start that saw a shocking loss to Tulane followed by a jaw dropping win over Oregon.. WVU has suddenly become one of the more interesting teams in the conference, with Rich Rodriguez back on his old stomping ground and rebuilding the offense in his own dynamic, unpredictable image.

And finally, we have Colorado at Baylor, a game that sees two coaches under pressure square off. The Bears are 2-1 and Colorado arrives wounded, angry and under a microscope after Northwestern. If Sanders wants his team to show that last weekend was an aberration, this is where he gets the chance. Dave Aranda will be quietly confident he has his Baylor side back on solid ground, having pushed Auburn extremely close in their only loss. But can he and DJ Lagway maintain that momentum?

Five games. Five very different questions. The Big 12 season starts here.

Big 12: Week 4 Schedule

Saturday:

5pm: Sam Houston State (1-2) @ #11 Texas Tech (3-0)

5pm: Colorado (2-1) @ Baylor (2-1)

8:30pm: #15 Utah (3-0) @ Iowa State (2-1)

8:30pm: TCU (2-1) @ UCF (2-1)

9pm: #25 Houston (2-1) @ Georgia Southern (1-2)

12am: Oklahoma State (2-1) @ West Virginia (3-0)

12am: Kansas State (3-0) @ Cincinnati (3-0)

12:30am: Arizona (2-1) @ Washington State (1-2)

Bye Week:

Arizona State (2-1), #9 BYU (3-0), Kansas (1-2)

Mock Draft

SIMON CARROLL

Lead Writer, Head of Content

PREVIOUSLY THE FOUNDER OF NFL DRAFT UK, SIMON HAS BEEN COVERING COLLEGE FOOTBALL AND THE NFL DRAFT SINCE 2009. BASED IN MANCHESTER, SIMON IS ALSO CO-CREATOR & WEEKLY GUEST OF THE COLLAPSING POCKET PODCAST, COVERS THE JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS FOR SB NATION and is a college football writer for dazn.

Twitter Envelope Linkedin Spotify Apple
Rated 5 out of 5
BoyleSports NFL