Join me in the dumpster.

This is the first email from my Bedgood’s Big 12 Bullets email newsletter. I’ve posted it here as an example of what you’ll get if you sign up. It’s free, it’s fun, and most of the time it won’t be posted here.
Preseason rankings are pointless. They are all made up guesses that are used to overhype early-season games. So to kick off my Bedgood’s Big 12 Bullets newsletter, I’m not going to do a preseason ranking. Instead, I have broken down all 10 Big 12 teams into three categories: The Dumpster, The I-35s, and The Bowlsbys.

The Dumpster – Pretty self-explanatory, these teams are the equivalent of what happens in Morgantown after a big win. Burning piles of trash in a metal dumpster sliding down the street towards the end of the season.

The I-35s – Adventure Road! These teams are most likely to have a middle-of-the-road season, but not without some great adventures along the way, like upsets, overtime losses, and broken records. They are the equivalent of the Turner Falls scenic turnout in Oklahoma. It’s not the ugliest thing you’ve ever seen, but it’s mostly just a waste of your time.

The Bowlsbys – Bob Bowlsby is the commissioner of the Big 12. He’s a much-maligned figure publicly, but he’s obviously doing something right because the conference that was supposed to have folded years ago still has Texas and OU in it. So, these teams are the Bowlsbys. It’s likely that they won’t have the national respect they feel they deserve because it will be perceived that they haven’t played anyone. So they’ll just have to prove it by winning the Big 12 regular season, being undefeated, beating a team they’ve already beaten again in the Big 12 Championship and hoping there isn’t an undefeated team in every other conference and/or a three-loss SEC team.

Let’s start in the Big 12’s dumpster and work our way up. This week I’ll give you the bottom three teams: Iowa State, Kansas, and Texas Tech. Each team is represented by an Andy Dwyer gif because they are all basically Andy: hilarious to watch, goofy, and completely inept.

• Iowa State (2-10) – Oh man, I love Iowa State’s head coach Matt Campbell. He’s so perfect for Iowa State. I know he’s perfect for ISU because last year at Big 12 Media Days I heard him wax poetic about how amazing Ames is. Seriously, it was the most impassioned speech about how he couldn’t imagine a better environment for college football. You would swear he was talking about the Big House in Michigan or something, but no, he was talking about when he lead his Toledo Rockets team into Ames the year before (and beat the Cyclones…good Lord) and was blown away. Right then I knew this guy was the man for the job. All that said, this poor guy has no shot. He probably should have stayed at Toledo.Iowa State is the number one most forgotten team in the Big 12. Like, if you asked 100 college football fans to name all 10 of the Big 12 teams, 98 of them would name nine of them and then convince themselves that there’s only nine teams. The two people who would remember Iowa State are Matt Campbell and Steel Jantz.I only see two possible wins on their schedule this season. They open with Northern Iowa and then Iowa, meaning they could start this season like last season: with two losses in their home state. I think they might beat Akron but even as I type that it feels wrong. I’m sticking with it, they will beat the Zips and then they will pull out an overtime win over Kansas (who beat Texas in football last season). In all seriousness, Allen Lazard is an absolute baller and makes watching your team slog through a random Thursday night game in Iowa worth it.
• Kansas (2-10) – Kansas beat the University of Texas in football last season, ending the Longhorn coaching career of Charlie Strong, causing Texas to hire Tom Herman from Houston, who then interviewed several candidates for their head coaching vacancy including OU assistant Lincoln Riley but then offered the job to to former Longhorn QB Major Applewhite, Riley then returned to OU which made Bob Stoops comfortable enough with Riley as his successor to retire and oh my goodness Kansas beating Texas made Bob Stoops retire because he realized that beating Texas was no longer impressive ok that’s not true but it’s also not not-true.Anyway, Kansas is not good at football but there are reports out of camp this year that they look good playing against themselves, which, I’m not really sure what else you could report. They are not going to win more than two games. I assume they will beat SEMU to start the season and then maybe get one more win, maybe against Iowa State (yeah I know I just said Iowa State would beat them but one thing you shouldn’t forget is that everything I say is made up).Kansas has a cornerback named Hasan Defense which sounds like a guy who changed his last name so no one would know he plays for Kansas. I think other Kansas players should try this, like the quarterback should just be John Thrower, that way the basketball fans in Kansas will know what position the guy plays. Yes, all Kansas fans only know basketball and one day OU will win a basketball game in Lawrence and it will be glorious and make me forget all the times that the Phog sucked the life out of opposing players and broke my heart.

• Texas Tech (4-8) – The mediocre reign of Kliff Kingsbury will probably continue this season and he will get a contract extension through 2025 and then bring on Johnny Manziel as the defensive coordinator because no one could be worse than what he’s had. I have no idea who the defensive coordinator is for Texas Tech because it’s pointless to learn his name. Being the Tech defensive coordinator is like being the Kansas head coach. Media reports during the summer will be all about the changes he’s bringing in. How he’s instilling toughness, working on tackling, developing a new scheme. You’ll get quotes from players about how he’s really making a difference. And then game one happens and Texas Tech will beat Eastern Washington 72-56 and he will get one more week and be fired.Think about it, Texas Tech had a quarterback that was picked 10th overall in the NFL draft and they didn’t make a bowl game. Patrick Mahomes set the single game NCAA record for most yards in a game and the Red Raiders lost. I don’t care if you’re Bill Belichick, you can’t make that defense good. Frankly, they only have to be decent for Tech to win 6-8 games a season. Yet, Tech hasn’t won more than four Big 12 games in a season in Kliff’s four seasons. It appears Nic Shimonek will be the Red Raiders QB to start the season, so I assume we will hear that name a million times in September as he lights up Eastern Washington in a win, throws a bunch of TDs in losses to Arizona State and Houston, then we’ll forget about him once Tech settles into the Big 12 portion of their schedule. I foresee wins against ISU and Kansas, then one surprising win against a much better team. I hope it’s not OU but let’s be honest, it’s going to be OU.
  

  

The follow-up to the Dumpster team email was the I-35s, if you want to see this one as well as all future emails, sign up for Bedgood’s Big 12 Bullets today. And share with your friends. I love you.