The 2016 Big 12 Conference football season will represent the 21st season of

Big 12 Conference The Big 12 Conference is a college athletic conference headquartered in Irving, Texas, USA. It consists of ten full-member universities. It is a member of Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) for all sports. Its ...

football, taking place during the

2016 NCAA Division I FBS football season The 2016 NCAA Division I FBS football season was the highest level of college football competition in the United States organized by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The regular season began on August 26, 2016 and ended on D ...

. The season will begin with non-conference play on Friday, September 2, 2016, with

Kansas State Kansas State University (KSU, Kansas State, or K-State) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Manhattan, Kansas, United States. It was opened as the state's land-grant college in 1863 and was the first public instit ...

traveling to face Stanford. Big 12 Conference play will begin on Saturday, September 17, 2016, with Iowa State traveling to play TCU. The 2016 season will be the fifth for the Big 12 since the

2010–13 Big 12 Conference realignment 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1 ...

brought the Big 12 membership to its current form. The conference has ten members: Baylor, Iowa State,

Kansas Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to th ...

, Oklahoma,

Oklahoma State Oklahoma (; Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a state in the South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the north, Missouri on the northeast, Arkansas on the east, New ...

, TCU,

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

Texas Tech Texas Tech University (Texas Tech, Tech, or TTU) is a public research university in Lubbock, Texas. Established on , and called Texas Technological College until 1969, it is the main institution of the five-institution Texas Tech University Sys ...

and

West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the B ...

. The Big 12 is a

Power Five conference The Power Five conferences are the five most prominent and highest-earning athletic conferences in college football in the United States. They are part of the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of NCAA Division I, the highest level of collegiate ...

under the

College Football Playoff The College Football Playoff (CFP) is an annual postseason knockout invitational tournament to determine a national champion for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), the highest level ...

format, along with the

ACC ACC most often refers to: * Atlantic Coast Conference, an NCAA Division I collegiate athletic conference located in the US *American College of Cardiology, A US-based nonprofit medical association that bestows credentials upon cardiovascular spec ...

, the

Big Ten The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference) is the oldest Division I collegiate athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representati ...

, the Pac-12 and the SEC. As a 10-team league, the Big 12 will play a 9-game, round-robin conference schedule and each member will play 3 non-conference games–one of which must be against another Power Five conference foe. The conference championship will be awarded to the team with the highest conference winning percentage at the conclusion of league play. In the event of a tie atop the standings, the conference tiebreaker shall determine the champion. The Big 12 Champion will earn a berth to the

2017 Sugar Bowl The 2017 Sugar Bowl is a bowl game that was played on January 2, 2017 at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana. This 83rd Sugar Bowl was played between a team from the Big 12 Conference and the Southeastern Conference. It is one o ...

, to play the SEC Champion at the

Mercedes-Benz Superdome The Caesars Superdome, commonly known as the Superdome (formerly known as Mercedes-Benz Superdome), is a multi-purpose stadium located in the Central Business District of New Orleans, Louisiana. It is the home stadium of the New Orleans Saint ...

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

, on January 2, 2017. If the Big 12 Champion or SEC Champion are selected for the College Football Playoff, then a replacement team from the league will be designated to represent its conference in the Sugar Bowl according to the league's rules.

Preseason

Recruiting

*ESPN has not updated its class rankings since National Signing Day. In May–July, 2016, Baylor lost a significant number of signees as a result of the school's sexual assault scandal, which led to the firing of many university employees, including head coach

Art Briles Arthur Ray Briles (born December 3, 1955) is an American football coach who is currently the head coach for the Guelfi Firenze in the Italian Football League. Briles was the head coach of the Houston Cougars football, Houston Cougars from 2002 ...

. Several of Baylor's top-ranked signees re-signed with other Big 12 schools, including Texas, TCU, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State.

Preseason poll

Preseason awards

2016 Preseason All-Big 12 *Offensive Player of the Year: Baker Mayfield, Oklahoma, QB *Defensive Player of the Year:

Malik Jefferson Malik Terrell Jefferson (born November 15, 1996) is an American football linebacker for the Dallas Cowboys of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football at Texas. As a senior at Poteet High School in Mesquite, Texas, Jeffer ...

, LB *Newcomer of the Year: Kenny Hill, TCU, QB

Regular season