ESPN's Big 12 rankings revealed: How all 16 teams stack up
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With Week 1 of the 2025 college football season set to kick off in just 100 days, ESPN's Bill Connelly recently released his post-spring CFB Top 25. It's not all that surprising to see the usual suspects leading with way, with teams like Ohio State, Alabama, Georgia, Texas, Oregon, LSU, and Michigan all within the Top 10.
But when it comes to Texas Tech, Connelly's SP+ projections have left the Red Raiders just outside of the Top 25, sitting at No. 26.
As noted by Connelly, the SP+ is based on three factors, including returning production, recent recruiting, and recent history. And while Texas Tech has done an incredible job supplementing the roster via the transfer portal, recent history isn't necessarily working in the Red Raiders' favor.
(SP+ is a tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency. It is a predictive measure of the most sustainable and predictable aspects of football, not a résumé ranking, and along those lines, these projections aren't intended to be a guess at what the AP Top 25 will look like at the end of the season. These are simply early offseason power rankings based on the information we have been able to gather.)
NEW: ESPN SP+ College Football Top 25 via @ESPN_BillC👀
— On3 (@On3sports) May 22, 2025
The SP+ factors returning production, recent recruiting, and information from the previous four seasons. https://t.co/eyaP9ayXWn pic.twitter.com/Kl8A3NN5tw
Only two teams from the Big 12 cracked Connelly's post-spring Top 25: Kansas State and Arizona State
The good news for Texas Tech fans is that the SP+ rankings view the Red Raiders as one of the top contenders in the Big 12.
Here's a look at where all Big 12 teams ranked in the ESPN SP+ rankings:
- No. 18 - Kansas State
- No. 22 - Arizona State
- No. 26 - Texas Tech
- No. 27 - BYU
- No. 29 - TCU
- No. 31 - Utah
- No. 32 - Iowa State
- No. 35 - Baylor
- No. 50 - Kansas
- No. 52 - Colorado
- No. 57 - West Virginia
- No. 58 - Oklahoma State
- No. 59 - Houston
- No. 60 - Arizona
- No. 61 - UCF
- No. 66 - Cincinnati
- Enjoy more Texas Tech coverage on Texas Tech On SI -
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Christopher Breiler launched Winged Helmet Media and began covering the Michigan Football program in an unofficial capacity in 2017. He then joined Wolverine Digest as part of the FanNation network in 2021 as a contributing writer, where he served as both a writer and a photographer on game days. In 2024, he took over as the Managing Editor for Michigan Wolverines On SI. In January of 2025, he took over as Publisher for Maryland On SI. His love for Michigan Football brought him into the industry, and his passion for being a content creator has led to some amazing experiences along the way.
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