This is Part 1 of a five-part series using advanced statistics to project the winners of the Power 5 conferences.

With Baker Mayfield behind center, Oklahoma has won back-to-back Big 12 titles.

The Sooners became the first team since the Big 12 went to round-robin conference scheduling to run the table in conference play when they went 9-0 against Big 12 opponents last year. They started the season 1-2, dropping their season opener to Houston and falling two weeks later at home to Ohio State. Despite not losing again all season, Oklahoma was left out of the Playoff while the Buckeyes got in.

But what are the odds the Sooners win a third straight Big 12 championship, something that’s been done only once before? The only other time it was when Oklahoma itself won three straight conference titles from 2006-08, falling in the Fiesta Bowl the first two years during that streak before earning a spot in the national title game at the end of it in 2008.

Whoever wins the conference will have to do it by beating a team it faced earlier in the season as the Big 12, still incorporating a round-robin regular season schedule, brings back a conference championship game.

We simulated the season 10,000 times using the ratings produced by a preseason model that assigns ratings to every FBS team and projects the outcome of every FBS game the upcoming season. Oklahoma, perhaps unsurprisingly, is the overwhelming favorite to win the Big 12 this year. The preseason model-fueled simulation gives the Sooners a 40.7 percent chance to win a third consecutive conference championship and a 61.0 percent shot to reach the first Big 12 title game since 2010.

Team Chance to reach conference title game Chance to win Big 12 Oklahoma 61.0% 40.7% Texas 32.5% 16.2% Oklahoma State 32.8% 14.5% Baylor 29.6% 13.9% TCU 21.5% 8.4% West Virginia 9.0% 2.8% Texas Tech 6.7% 2.0% Kansas State 3.9% 1.1% Iowa State 2.2% 0.4% Kansas 0.7% 0.1%



Oklahoma State was a Bedlam win away from winning the Big 12 last year and is one of the teams who has the best chance to unseat the rival Sooners as conference champs. But it’s resurgent Texas, with three straight losing seasons under its belt coming into this year, with the next best shot to win the Big 12 at 16.2% and a 32.5% to reach the Big 12 title game in 2017. The Cowboys are not far behind, with a 14.5% chance to win the Big 12.

The only other team with at least a 10% chance to win the conference is another team who struggled last year – Baylor. The Bears started the season 6-0 under interim head coach Jim Grobe before losing its last six regular season games and bouncing back to beat Boise State in the Cactus Bowl. Baylor has a 13.9% chance to win the Big 12 this season and a 29.6% shot to reach the conference championship game.

Oklahoma, at No. 4 in the preseason model’s rankings, is the conference’s only Top 10 team but there are four other teams in the preseason model’s Top 25 – No. 14 Texas, No. 15 Oklahoma State, No. 17 Baylor and No. 23 TCU. The Horned Frogs turned in just their third losing season in the past 19 years when they went 6-7 last year after going 23-3 the previous two seasons.

The preseason model projects TCU to get back to its winning ways, with a 65.4% chance to have a winning regular season and a 40.8% shot to win eight or more games this regular season. The Horned Frogs have a 8.4% shot to win the Big 12 title and a 21.5% chance to get to the Big 12 championship game.

The rest of the conference has a collective 6.4% chance to win the Big 12, with the nobody from the projected bottom half of the conference being ranked higher than No. 50 in the preseason model.

Once again, Oklahoma is the team to beat in the Big 12. But there are as many as four other teams – including fierce rivals Texas and Oklahoma State – who have a legitimate chance to knock them off as conference champions.