Big 12 Schedules Reveal: Advantage, CU

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Big 12 Schedules Reveal: Advantage, CU

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For hardcore fans – and those of us who have to book flights for home games – the schedule reveal for the upcoming season is one of the most anticipated days of the off-season. When will home games be played? When are the bye weeks? Are there back-to-back road games? Will weather play a role in how the season unfolds?

Now, the who for the games this fall have been known for some time – just not the when. Non-conference games are often set years in advance, and the Big 12 set out a four-year rotation for the 16-team league last spring, so Buff fans had an idea of how the 2025 season would unfold, but now we have the actual schedule to review.

For starters, here is CU’s 2025 schedule:

• August 30th … Georgia Tech
• September 6th … Delaware
• September 13th … at Houston*
• September 20th … Wyoming
• September 27th … BYU*
• October 4th … at TCU*
• October 11th … Iowa State*
• October 18th … Bye
• October 25th … at Utah*
• November 1st … Arizona*
• November 8th … at West Virginia*
• November 15th … Bye
• November 22nd … Arizona State*
• November 29th … at Kansas State*
• December 6th … Big 12 Championship game

So, what did we learn?

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Seven is a lucky number

For the first time in 43 years, Colorado has seven home games. Remember how I just said that non-conference are set years in advance? Well, CU had a home-and-home set against the Houston Cougars in place for years … when CU was in the Pac-12 and looking for a non-conference game in talent-rich Texas.

Now, with CU joining the Big 12, the two teams decided to nix the series, giving CU two home non-conference games (Georgia Tech and Wyoming) for the 2025 season, together with a now open date. That date has been filled by the Delaware Blue Hens, making their debut as an FBS team (Delaware was a long time member of the Coastal Athletic Association, with six national titles on its resume. Starting in 2025, the Blue Hens will be members of Conference USA).

While the Buffs are playing at home for the first time since Bill McCartney’s debut season, this is not the norm for the rest of the nation. Of the 68 Power Four teams (counting Notre Dame), 45 had 7 or 8 home games in 2024. All of the others have had at least one (many with multiple) season with seven (or even eight) home games in the last five years.

We can spend a great deal of energy postulating as to why CU would automatically put itself at a home field disadvantage year after year, but, at least for 2025, the Buffs are playing on a more level playing field, running out behind Ralphie seven times this fall.

(A brief aside. CU also had a home-and-home with Kansas State for the 2026 and 2027 seasons nixed with CU’s move back to the Big 12. As a result, CU will have seven home games in 2027 (Colgate, Northwestern and Northern Illinois).

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Fast start 

One of side benefits of getting three non-conference home games is the opportunity for a fast start to the 2025 season. The game against Georgia Tech will not be easy. The Yellow Jackets are coming off of 7-6 season, and bring back quarterback Haynes King, but this is a gettable game for the Buffs.

The Buffs then have a game against Delaware, with Blue Hens making their FBS debut. Delaware did go 9-2 last season, but that was with a schedule which had opponents like Bryant, Sacred Heart, and Monmouth.

CU’s only road game in the opening five weeks is against Houston. The Cougars are coming off of a pair of 4-8 seasons, and is as good a draw as the Buffs could have hoped to get for their first road game of the season (though heat and humidity could be a story in Houston on September 13th).

The Buffs finish the month of September with a home game against Wyoming (3-9 in 2024) and the Alamo Bowl revenge game against BYU.

There’s no such thing as a guaranteed win in college football, but, as opening stretches go, Coach Prime couldn’t ask for too much more than four home games in the first five, with the lone road game being against a struggling Houston program.

We’ll see if the Buffs can take advantage.

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Bye weeks

For the second year in a row, there are enough weekends between Labor Day and Thanksgiving for college football to offer FBS teams two bye weeks. (Iowa State and Kansas State, who will square off in Ireland in Week Zero to open the season, will have three bye weeks in 2025).

The bye weeks are spread out throughout the calendar. Among Big 12 teams, TCU has a bye week in Week Two (?), while two teams – Texas Tech and West Virginia – have to wait until the weekend before Thanksgiving for their second bye.

Colorado has to wait until Week Seven (October 18th) for its first bye, the last team in the Big 12 to get their first week off. The Buffs will then play three games before getting their second by on November 11th (with two games to finish off the regular season thereafter).

Are CU’s bye weeks an advantage or a disadvantage?

I’m going with an advantage.

The Buffs do have to play seven games before getting a bye, but five of those seven games are at home. CU will then get a weekend off to prepare for their road game against Utah … resting at home while the Utes are facing in-state rival BYU. Advantage: CU.

Before CU’s second bye, the Buffs will take their longest road trip of the season – to Morgantown to face West Virginia. CU will then get a week off to prepare for Senior Day against one of the preseason Big 12 favorites, Arizona State.

Another plus: the only team on CU’s schedule which has a bye week before playing the Buffs is Arizona, one of the teams projected to be at the bottom of the Big 12 in 2025.

And, if you are looking for CU to make a run to the Big 12 championship game, the schedule sets up well. Two bye weeks later in the season will help the Buffs heal up for the stretch run. Plus, the Buffs will finish the season after the second bye with two games – v. Arizona State and at Kansas State – two teams which will likely be in the mix for the Big 12 title.

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Back-to-back road games

In Coach Prime’s first campaign, CU limped into the end of the season with back-to-back tough road games against Washington State and Utah to close out November.

Last season, the Buffs had to take to the road to play rivals Nebraska and Colorado State in back-to-back weekends.

In 2025 … CU doesn’t have any back-to-back road games.

In the Big 12, seven teams have to play back-to-back road games this fall. Throw in teams with two road games broken up by a bye week, and the number of conference teams who will play away from home for two straight games rises to 10.

And there are some back-to-back games for opponents which could help your Buffs.

• Arizona gets a bye before playing at CU but it will be the Wildcats second straight road game, with UA traveling to Houston before coming to Boulder;
• BYU will be heading off to east coast to play the East Carolina Pirates the weekend before traveling to Boulder (Oh, and the Cougars will have also have a short week after facing CU, playing at home against West Virginia the following Friday);
• Iowa State’s trip to Boulder will be the Cyclones’ second road trip in a row, with ISU traveling to play at Cincinnati before facing the Buffs;
• Kansas State gets CU at home in the regular season finale, but only after playing back-to-back road games at Oklahoma State and at Utah.

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Ranked opponents

The Big 12 is the poster-child conference for not paying any attention to preseason polls.

Last August, Colorado appeared to have a gauntlet of a schedule. Their were five Big 12 teams in the 2024 AP preseason poll, and the Buffs were one of three teams in the conference who was burdened with facing all five.

As it turned out, the pundits were way off of how the Big 12 would play out. In the preseason, the Big 12 boasted the No. 12 team in the nation in Utah, plus No. 17 Oklahoma State, No. 18 Kansas State, No. 21 Arizona and No. 22 Kansas.

By season’s end, only one of the five teams, Kansas State, finished with a winning record. In the final rankings, the Big 12 was represented by No. 7 Arizona State, No. 13 BYU, No. 15 Iowa State, and No. 25 Colorado.

So, when the “Way Too Early Top 25” predictions started coming out, it would have been fair for a Buff fan – for any fan of college football, in fact – to take the prognostications with a grain of salt.

Still, since we don’t know how the 2025 season will unfold, the best we can do right now in looking at CU’s 2025 schedule through the lens of how the rest of the college football world sees the fall unfolding.

A composite of 12 preseason polls has the following Big 12 teams ranked:

• No. 13 Arizona State
• No. 16 BYU
• No. 18 Kansas State, and
• No. 22 Iowa State

CU will face all four (plus Georgia Tech, which might sneak into the preseason Top 25 come August). The Buffs get three of the four at home, with a season finale at Kansas State.

Would it be better to have Oklahoma State’s schedule, which only has one of the four teams above on their calendar? Perhaps. But, as last season told us, you never know when it comes to the Big 12.

And, while the Buffs play the four presumed ranked teams in the conference, there are pluses to how and when CU faces these teams.

As noted above, the Buffs get Arizona State at home after a bye week, get BYU at home a weekend after the Cougars face rival Utah, get Kansas State after the Wildcats play back-to-back games on the road, and get Iowa State with the Cyclones on the back end of two straight road games.

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The Buff Nation will have to wait another six months before their team will fare against their 2025 schedule, but, as things look in the dreary days of February, the Big 12 schedule gods did a good job of setting up CU for success this fall …

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This post, about the Postseason game, from the 2024 Season, is filed under Article.
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