#3 Oklahoma @ Kansas

Saturday, October 23rd 11:00 AM CT, ESPN

#3 Oklahoma (7-0, 4-0) travels to Lawrence to take on Kansas (1-5, 0-3) in what should be the easiest game remaining for the Sooners by a good margin. Caleb Williams clearly distinguished himself as the starting quarterback in OU’s win against TCU. Kansas, on the other hand, got blown out by Tech on their homefield. Tech figures to be in the bottom third of the conference, so I can’t muster much hope for the Jayhawks to make this one interesting. The line as of the writing of this article is 38 points in favor of OU. I think they almost certainly cover that.

59-10 Oklahoma

Kansas State @ Texas Tech

Saturday, October 23rd 11:00 AM CT, FS1

While this game is not very important to the Big 12 title race, it has huge implications for both of these teams. Kansas State (3-3, 0-3) is coming off of a disappointing home loss to Iowa State where they were never really in the game. Texas Tech (5-2, 2-2) is coming off of a smack down on Kansas. A win here gets Tech to bowl eligibility, which would be huge because they are looking at a major uphill battle to secure any other wins this season. A loss here and its not unrealistic for Tech to miss a bowl game off of four straight losses down the stretch. Likewise for Kansas State, they desperately need a win in this game to feel good about going bowling. The Wildcats still have Kansas and West Virginia on the schedule, both games they should probably win. But that only gets them to five, and they would need this game or an upset to get to six. Tech is favored by one point here. I like Tech to get the win and get bowl eligibility at home.

35-31 Texas Tech

#8 Oklahoma State @ Iowa State

Saturday, October 23rd 2:30 PM CT, FOX

#8 Oklahoma State (6-0, 3-0) just took down Texas in come-from-behind fashion, getting an 8 point victory on the road. That was huge as the Cowboys retain their driver’s seat position alongside OU in the conference title race. They now have to get up for an absolute landmine that is Iowa State (4-2, 2-1), in Ames, in October. The Cyclones have had a tendency over the past few seasons to drastically improve between the months of September and October and that seems to have held true again this year, as they pummeled Kansas State in Manhattan in their last game. Oklahoma State has proven they have a strong defense, but the Iowa State offense we have seen in the last couple games might be able to break that defense, especially if Breece Hall continues to rush as well as he has been as of late. There’s a reason unranked Iowa State is favored by 7 points over the number 8 team in the country. Cyclones get an upset in Ames (which, coincidentally, would also be huge for Baylor’s Big 12 title aspirations).

33-27 Iowa State

West Virginia @ TCU

Saturday, October 23rd 6:30 PM CT, ESPNU

Similar to Kansas State and Texas Tech above, these two teams really need a win in this match up. West Virginia (2-4, 0-3) is trending toward a disastrous season as things stand now. They have no conference wins, with their latest game being a 25 point blowout loss to Baylor. Their other two losses were by only three points each, but they need to start racking up some wins quick if they want to go bowling. Meanwhile, TCU (3-3, 1-2) has proven to be a fairly average team on the season, not great but not awful. They need to win this to feel comfortable with a bowl berth, as there are only two other games they will likely be favored in. The issue for West Virginia has been their offense, and TCU’s defense has been uncharacteristically bad this season. Will that be enough to jumpstart Neal Brown’s floundering offense? I’m unconvinced. TCU is favored by 5 in this one.

35-20 TCU

FieldinOfDreams’ 2021 Prediction Record through Week 7: 37-10