The Iowa State Cyclones have made it impossible for the teams in the CFP conversation, and they have ruined it for TCU. TCU should have easily beaten this team, but they overlooked ISU because they thought that they had to look ahead to harder teams at the end of their schedule. I am deeply disappointed because that would have made things interesting, but now maybe Oklahoma can get back into it. We have to see how things shake out in the Big 12, and we need to see why Iowa State of all schools is going to give people a hard time.
They are better than we thought
I would never say that Iowa State is going to make the playoff or compete in that way because they do not seem to ever have that kind of talent, but they can definitely make more waves in their own conference. They can beat Iowa and ruin their season, and they can be just good enough to make everyone else worry in the future. That would be more than enough for them to consider their seasons a success, and they might even start to steal talent from Iowa. I do not think either of those schools can compete for a title, but they can definitely be much more competitive and relevant.
The Big 12 is too volatile
It may be that the Big 12 is just the conference of the upset.
They might end up experiencing more of them than any other, and that will make it very hard for them to be represented in the CFP. I know that they can get teams in there, but I also know that they will have the most problems getting teams in because of how they look. Their upsets look really bad most of the time which is why they lose out to teams that are in the SEC.
Alabama can take a bad loss and still win a title, but the teams in the Big 12 cannot do that. They simply do not have enough brand recognition.
TCU should have known better
TCU has been so good for so long that they do not have the excuse that they did not know what was going to happen when they played an inferior opponent that they were supposed to beat.
They are not always going to get this chance because they are usually not this good, and they threw it away because they did not want to work hard on beating Iowa State. At the very least, they should have scored more. The Cyclones cannot have a defense that is that good, and that is where the Honred Frogs lost me. They had to do better in a game that should have been easy, and their fan base is right to be very upset by this loss. Now we have to wait and see what happens when the teams get picked for the playoff. How far off is TCU now?