Big 12 football picks, predictions: Kansas State, Iowa State trending up ahead of 2025 season
Jacob Fetner and the Inside the Lines Team break down every Big 12 team's win chances, plus best futures bets for the season.
The Big 12 enters the 2025 as arguably the most open Power 4 conference when it comes to a champion. Arizona State comes in as the reigning title holder and lone College Football Playoff representative from the conference a year ago but top sportsbooks have six teams priced at under +1000 odds to win the Big 12. The Sun Devils are co-favorites to win the conference with Kansas State at +550 at DraftKings, which shows you how unpredictable oddsmakers believe this group will be in 2025. Here's our best futures bets for the Big 12 for the upcoming season based on our model projections and corresponding value offered at the books.
Big 12 best futures bets
Best win totals
West Virginia Over 5.5 Wins (+120, DraftKings)
This is a bet on Rich Rodriguez, who returns to West Virginia where he won 32 games over his final three years. He was a Pitt win away from potentially taking West Virginia to a national title game in his last season almost 20 years ago. West Virginia has a lot of turnover but does bring back RB Jaheim White and QB Nicco Marchiol was solid in limited action last season. Bet on the Mountaineers to go over their win total at DraftKings here:
Iowa State Over 7.5 Wins (+115, DraftKings)
Iowa State is coming off a 10-win season and returns starting QB Rocco Becht for his third season at the helm. The Cyclones lost some weapons at receiver but had a solid transfer portal haul to address their needs. Every game on Iowa State's schedule is winnable, and we like the Over at plus money here.
UCF Under 5.5 Wins (+100, Hard Rock)
UCF brings back Scott Frost, who was successful in his first stint in Orlando. However, this season is going to be a rebuild as the team returns less than 50% of its production on both sides of the ball. Frost took UCF from an 0-12 team to a 13-0 team in two years but that was in the AAC. We have the Knights winning 5.3 games but would take the Under at even odds.
Best bets to win Big 12
Kansas State (+550, FanDuel)
Iowa State (+1200, FanDuel)
These teams meet in Dublin in Week 0 and are our favorite teams to win the conference. We think there's a high probability that the conference winner is the lone playoff representative, so rather than getting the shorter odds to make the playoff, we think the longer odds to win the conference is a better bet. Sign up for FanDuel to bet on the Big 12 conference champion and other college football futures here:
The rest
The win totals in the Big 12 range from 4.5 to 8.5. There is so much unknown in this conference, and it wouldn't be a shock if you were to tell us that any of the top-8 preseason teams were to win the conference.
Arizona State is the favorite and we have the Sun Devils in the same tier as Kansas State and Iowa State, but their conference road games are tough this season. That's why we don't have value on them.
Texas Tech spent a whole lot of NIL to boost the roster, which already ranked in the top-10 in returning production. The Red Raiders do returhn quarterback Behren Morton, who will need to be more consistent if they are going to win the conference.
BIG12 | WINS | WIN LINE | MAKE PLAYOFF | ODDS | ODDS% | WIN CONF | CONF ODDS | ODDS% |
Kansas State Wildcats | 8.0 | 8.5 (-110o, -105u) | 32.7% | 440 | 18.5% | 22.1% | 550 | 15.4% |
Iowa State Cyclones | 8.2 | 7.5 (115o, -125u) | 20.4% | 980 | 9.3% | 14.0% | 1300 | 7.1% |
Arizona State Sun Devils | 7.8 | 8.5 (-106o, -114u) | 11.8% | 410 | 19.6% | 9.4% | 550 | 15.4% |
Texas Tech Red Raiders | 7.6 | 8.5 (-140o, 130u) | 9.4% | 450 | 18.2% | 3.8% | 700 | 12.5% |
7.1 | 7.5 (-175o, 142u) | 9.3% | 470 | 17.5% | 7.3% | 700 | 12.5% | |
West Virginia Mountaineers | 6.7 | 5.5 (120o, -140u) | 7.0% | 3000 | 3.2% | 6.8% | 4000 | 1.4% |
6.4 | 7.5 (-104o, -118u) | 6.3% | 540 | 15.6% | 6.0% | 700 | 11.1% | |
6.3 | 6.5 (-160o, 146u) | 5.8% | 730 | 12% | 5.6% | 1200 | 7.7% | |
6.6 | 6.5 (110o, -130u) | 4.7% | 1800 | 5.3% | 7.3% | 3300 | 2.9% | |
6.3 | 6.5 (-160o, 135u) | 3.7% | 1100 | 8.3% | 6.3% | 1500 | 6.3% | |
Brigham Young Cougars | 6.6 | 6.5 (-124o, 102u) | 3.5% | 1260 | 7.4% | 1.8% | 2700 | 3.6% |
6.1 | 5.5 (-105o, -110u) | 3.2% | 2500 | 3.8% | 2.5% | 4500 | 2.2% | |
6.0 | 6.5 (126o, -130u) | 1.6% | 1800 | 5.9% | 1.3% | 3000 | 3.2% | |
5.8 | 4.5 (-200o, 165u) | 1.3% | 3500 | 2.8% | 1.3% | 5500 | 1.8% | |
UCF Knights | 5.3 | 5.5 (100o, 100u) | 0.9% | 3000 | 3.2% | 0.4% | 8000 | 1.2% |
4.8 | 5.5 (-192o, 154u) | 0.1% | 1800 | 5.3% | 0.5% | 4000 | 2.4% |
