FRISCO, Texas (AP) — There are no official Big 12 predictions going into this season, so there will be no last-to-first narrative like what Arizona State had in its league debut.
Going into its 30th football season, the Big 12 didn’t conduct a preseason media poll predicting the order of finish for the 16-team conference. The results were way off last year.
“I try to ignore it as best I can,” Kansas State coach Chris Klieman said Tuesday at Big 12 media days. “It’s one of the reasons we as coaches did not do a coaches poll because I think the narrative has really hurt our league. I know it hurt Arizona State and I know it hurt BYU last year.”
Arizona State won the Big 12 championship game last season after being picked to finish at the bottom of the Big 12 standings. The Sun Devils were in a four-way tie for first place in the regular-season standings, beat Iowa State in the title game and were the only league team to make the College Football Playoff.
Sun Devils coach Kenny Dillingham said he couldn’t care less about any of the predictions last year, or what anybody might have guessed for this season. They do have back quarterback Sam Leavitt, who was picked as the league’s preseason offensive player of the year since media still voted on a preseason All-Big 12 team.