Season set to open Aug. 23 in Ireland
The Associated Press
IRVING, Texas — The 30th season of Big 12 football will kick off with a conference game in Dublin, Ireland.
That season-opening game overseas between Kansas State and Iowa State on Aug. 23 had been announced previously, but the Big 12 released the rest of its conference football schedule on Tuesday. Each of the 16 teams will play nine conference games, leading up to the league’s championship game Dec. 6 in Arlington, Texas.
Two other games will be played that say to open up the 2025 campaign: Stanford at Hawaii and Fresno State at Kansas.
There will be 14 games that Big 12 teams will play against teams from other Power Four conferences, including Baylor hosting Auburn on Labor Day weekend. Nebraska plays Cincinnati in Kansas City on Thursday, Aug. 28, and TCU is at North Carolina for coach Bill Belichick’s debut with the Tar Heels on Sept. 1.
There are only two weekends when all 16 conference teams will be in action. Those are Labor Day weekend and then eight conference games will be played Thanksgiving weekend to end the regular season.
Defending Big 12 champion Arizona State is scheduled to open conference play Sept. 20 at Baylor. That is the same day Kansas is set to host open league play in its renovated stadium against West Virginia, where Rich Rodriguez is back for his second stint as the Mountaineers head coach. They were in the Big East when Rodriguez was coach from 2001-07.
Scott Frost is back at UCF for the second time, but the Knights were in the American Athletic Conference when he coached them in 2016 and 2017. His first Big 12 game is scheduled Sept. 27 at Kansas State.
The Big 12’s television partners — ESPN, Fox and TNT Sports — haven’t yet made their selections for the first three weeks of the season.