Big 12 preview: What to make of defending champ K-State, upstart UCF, rest of 12

Editor's note: This is part of a series previewing each of the opponents on BYU's inaugural Big 12 schedule, beginning with the Cougars' Sept. 23 road opener at Kansas and leading up to defending champion Kansas State before fall camp opens in August.

SALT LAKE CITY — Up to this point, our Big 12 preview series has focused on each of BYU's first opponents in its inaugural conference campaign. But what about the group of schools the Cougars will skip in Year 1?

In particular, the Big 12 schedule makers may have done BYU a solid by not assigning them a trip to the defending champions.

That would be Kansas State, the breakout team of 2022 that won its first league title under Chris Klieman in his third year in Manhattan, Kansas. But while the Wildcats return 12 starters, including quarterback Will Howard and all five offensive lineman from a year ago, there's a big, star-sized hole in their roster.

That would be running back Deuce Vaughn, the 1,558-yard rusher who was a sixth-round pick of the Dallas Cowboys. How will the Wildcats replace him?

By not even trying.

"You don't replace Deuce Vaughn, and if you want to come here on Sundays, he's going to be playing here every Sunday, and he's going to be having a heck of an NFL career, and I love the kid because of his passion for football," Kleiman said during Big 12 media days at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. "Him allowing me to be in his life, what a great, great young man, a great football player but a better person, a better family. We probably aren't going to be able to do that with one guy."

The Wildcats will rely on a committee at running back, including DJ Giddens, who ran for 518 yards and six touchdowns as a freshman; and newcomer Treshaun Ward, who transferred from Florida State after earning All-ACC honorable mention honors.

But the offense will undoubtedly run through Howard, the 6-foot-5 senior quarterback who bulked up to 242 pounds a year after throwing for 1,633 yards and 15 touchdowns with four interceptions after taking over full-time for Adrian Martinez.

The Wildcats won't be sneaking up on anyone this year as defending champions. And that's just fine by the "EMAW" crew from the "Little Apple."

"We've definitely got a target on our back. But we're still hunting," Kansas State safety Kobe Savage said. "People are noticing what we've got, the culture that we've got, our coaches. But we also just have to keep grinding every day."

UCF

The Cougars' nine-game conference schedule also skips fellow newcomers Houston and UCF, which is projected to field the strongest adjustment to the Power Five.

Led by former Auburn coach Gus Malzahn, the Knights were picked to finish eighth in their first season in the Big 12 with Ole Miss transfer John Rhys Plumlee at quarterback.

Just a year after finishing 6-2 and tied for second in the American Athletic Conference, UCF returned 14 starters, including half its offense that boasted the ninth-best run game in the country and a top-30 scoring offense at 32.9 points per game.

The Knights have earned a high level of respect from their first season among the Power Five, a program that first rose up in 1979 and jumped to Division I-A (now FBS) in 1996.

Since then, they've won five conference championships, including an undefeated season in 2017 under Scott Frost and an unbeaten regular season a year later under Josh Heupel.

"UCF has been playing high-caliber football for a long time now," Plumlee told KSL.com. "Blake Bortles, Daunte Culpepper, McKenzie Milton; they've all led teams playing championship football for many years.

"What we want to do is just continue that legacy of playing championship football at UCF. Win big games, and win when it comes down to it, like those guys have done in the past."

Houston

Like BYU, Houston enters the 2023 season with several questions, including the most high-profile position. Donovan Smith succeeds four-year starting quarterback Clayton Tune, who threw for 11,996 yards during his career, after two years and close to 3,000 yards with 19 touchdowns at Texas Tech.

The Cougars hope to remain competitive, but head coach Dana Holgorsen confirmed that Houston and the other newcomers won't receive a full share for their first three years in the conference. No matter, he was quick to add.

"That doesn't give you any excuses to not be successful and not be competitive. That's just going to take time," said Holgorsen, the Cougars' fourth-year head coach who makes a return to the league after leading West Virginia from 2011-18. "But it's going to happen. You can mark your calendar three years from now that we're going to have what we need. But in the meantime we expect to line up, be competitive, recruit at a high level, compete at a high level, and that's what we're going to do."

Baylor

After unofficially teasing the New Big 12 with a home-and-home series, BYU and Baylor won't face off in 2023. The Bears have a home-and-home series scheduled with Utah beginning Sept. 9 in Waco, Texas, but a return trip against the state's Big 12 team won't happen until at least 2024.

The Bears won the league title two years ago but took a step back with last year's 6-7 campaign that provided a "hard lesson" for fourth-year Baylor coach Dave Aranda, including not using the transfer portal enough, he admitted.

"I think one of the struggles for me has always been if you say yes to something, a player outside of your team that's in the portal, you're saying no to a player on your team that maybe is struggle from an injury, that's maybe trying to get his class, his schoolwork in order, that's maybe trying to hone the techniques of this new position that he's playing or maybe he's trying to gain weight or any of those things," Aranda said during Big 12 media days.

"I think when you bring somebody in, you almost kind of stunt the growth of that person. I think for me to kind of come to grips with, 'hey, this is what needs to happen for the betterment of the team' as opposed to just looking at what's best for that one particular player on your team …. To say, hey, we've still got you, we still believe in you. But this is what we need to do for the team right now, has been an area of growth for me."

With that mindset, Aranda utilized the transfer portal more, bringing in a talented group that included BYU transfer linemen Clark and Campbell Barrington, among others, to pair with the returning talent like junior quarterback Blake Shapen, who threw for 2,790 yards and 18 touchdowns with 10 interceptions a year ago.

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