A Horned Frogs team that's won more Big 12 games than anyone since 2022 heads to Waco to face a Baylor squad betting its season on a five-star transfer arm.
Bush’s Picks
TCUBAY
TCUBAY
OverUnder
Best BetTCU
TCU is the program that's actually won consistently in this league the last four years, and that matters more than a flashy quarterback addition on the other side. Baylor's outright hopes ride almost entirely on DJ Lagway looking like a finished product by mid-October, which is a lot to bank on for a team that missed a bowl game last season. Back the more established program until Baylor proves its rebuilt trenches can hold up.
TCU
+9-4 in 2025 with an Alamo Bowl win
+Most Big 12 wins of any team since 2022
+Defense reportedly trending upward
−Losing record-setting QB Josh Hoover to Indiana
−Jaden Craig unproven outside the Ivy League
−Preseason ranked only 6th in the Big 12
Baylor
+Landed five-star transfer QB DJ Lagway
+Full offseason investment in O-line/D-line
+New OC Spavital giving Lagway more freedom
−Missed a bowl game at 5-7 in 2025
−Aranda reportedly on the hottest seat in the Big 12
−Lines were overmatched consistently last season
TCU shows up to Friday, October 16 with a new quarterback and the same expectations. Jaden Craig, a Harvard graduate transfer who rewrote the Crimson's passing records in 2025, steps in for Josh Hoover, who's now off running things at Indiana. Across the field, Baylor counters with the biggest name in the transfer portal at the position: DJ Lagway, the former five-star out of Florida, now running Jake Spavital's offense with what Dave Aranda has called a lot more freedom than he ever had in Gainesville.
The stakes for Aranda are straightforward. Baylor missed a bowl game last season at 5-7, and the fifth-year coach enters 2026 widely described as sitting on the hottest seat in the Big 12. The Bears spent this offseason pouring resources into the offensive and defensive lines after admitting they got outmuscled up front too often in 2025 — a fix that either shows up by mid-October or it doesn't. TCU, meanwhile, isn't dealing with job-security drama. Sonny Dykes is building around a defense that's trending the right direction and a Craig-led offense that's supposed to be more balanced and less turnover-prone than last year's group.
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None of that changes the fact that TCU comes in as the program with the longer track record of just winning games in this league, while Baylor is leaning on a single transfer addition to flip its fortunes. Preseason Big 12 rankings actually have TCU only 6th in the conference, which says plenty about how muddled the middle of this league looks heading into the year — Baylor and TCU both have real questions to answer before anyone should call this a mismatch.
TCU Horned Frogs
Oct 2?vs BYU—
Sep 25?@ UCF—
Sep 19?vs Arkansas State—
Sep 12?vs Grambling—
Aug 29?vs North Carolina—
Baylor Bears
Oct 2?@ Arizona State—
Sep 25?vs Colorado—
Sep 19?vs Louisiana Tech—
Sep 12?vs Prairie View A&M—
Sep 5?@ Auburn—
Recent form.
Craig's transition is the thing to watch for TCU. He put up huge numbers at Harvard, but the jump from the Ivy League to a Big 12 defense on the road is a real leap, and Gordie Haug, TCU's new offensive coordinator, is reportedly building a more controlled, run-first attack rather than asking Craig to sling it 40 times a game. For Baylor, Lagway is the opposite bet — all arm talent, and Spavital seems intent on letting him play loose after a buttoned-up college career so far.
By the time this one kicks off, both programs will have played a handful of games and the picture on both offensive lines, both new coordinators, and both quarterbacks should be a lot clearer. Right now it reads like a matchup between a program with more institutional stability and a team making a single, talented, high-variance swing to save its coach's job.
