The Big 12’s unintentional backloading of its schedule was supposed to help the conference and its chances for a spot in the College Football Playoff.

However, in the past two weeks as Oklahoma has beaten Baylor and Baylor has beaten Oklahoma State and TCU has been derailed by injuries to its star players, it’s difficult to put a finger on which is truly the best team in the Big 12.

And more importantly, whether any of them deserve a playoff spot.

Baylor’s 45-35 win against Oklahoma State ensured the conference would not have an undefeated team to boast and the Sooner’s nailbiter in Fort Worth confirmed that three one-loss teams will head into the final full weekend of the Big 12 schedule.

View photos

The Bears, the Cowboys and Oklahoma all have one loss and the two Oklahoma teams have just one game remaining. Baylor is the only one-loss Big 12 team with two games remaining. When the regular season ends, only one Oklahoma team will still have one loss and Baylor could be out of the conversation altogether (though, not likely).

Seems familiar doesn’t it?

This is the same position that Baylor and TCU found themselves in a year ago. TCU was the higher ranked team heading into the final rankings, Baylor launched a campaign calling for head-to-head to come into play and while both teams were squabbling in the media, the CFP committee made sure both were on the outside looking in.

By the time the latest rankings come out on Tuesday, the Big 12 could have three teams in the top 10. Oklahoma, which was No. 7 this week, should move into the top six and some believe could even crack the top four. Baylor, which was No. 10, will probably land around No. 6 and Oklahoma State, which was No. 6, will probably end up No. 10.

Of course, this is just speculation. The CFP is a fickle beast and the committee's opinions tend to change with the day of the week. It’s also clear it doesn’t hold the Big 12 in the highest regard as none of the Big 12 teams, even when there were undefeated ones, ever cracked the top four.

And really, the Big 12 only gets two more cracks at the rankings while several other teams get three simply because they play conference title games. Baylor plays a lowly Texas team that championship weekend, but the other teams in contention are done.

A year ago, the biggest points of contention for keeping the Big 12 out were head-to-head, nonconference schedule and the lack of a conference championship game. The Big 12 made one change to remedy that this year, it declared that only one team would be named champion instead co-champions like a year ago.

However, the other problems from a year ago are going to be problems this year. If Baylor is the highest-ranked team, there will be complaints about its nonconference schedule, which consisted of SMU, Lamar and Rice. Oklahoma State has the same nonconference problem as Baylor with contests against Central Michigan, Central Arkansas and Texas-San Antonio. Of the three teams, Oklahoma has the best nonconference schedule with a win at Tennessee, but many would argue it has the worst loss of all the one-loss teams in the running (not just the Big 12) with the loss to Texas.

It’s time for the Big 12 to realize that if it wants to gain the respect of the CFP committee it’s either going to have to have an undefeated team with a strong nonconference schedule or it’s going to have to expand and play a conference championship. Otherwise, history will continue to repeat as it appears it’s going to do this year.

Story continues