As with all things on this blog until I settle on how to use it, this is a trial and error period. The idea is for this to be a weekly feature, but we’ll see how it goes.

I’m in Lubbock for Saturday’s clash between No. 12 West Virginia and No. 25 Texas Tech, but I have some time to kill in the hotel. Before I set out in search of steak and tamales this evening, let’s take a look at which Big 12 team’s stock is up, which are down and which aren’t doing much of anything.

Starting with the good:

STOCK UP

TEXAS TECH (3-1, 1-0 Big 12): The Red Raiders are one of the hottest teams in the country and have pounded their last three opponents. WVU comes to town this weekend looking to bring Tech down a peg or two.

TEXAS (3-1, 1-0 Big 12): The Longhorns opened the season with a loss to Maryland (yuck) and followed it up with a narrow win against Tulsa (also yuck). Since then, however, Texas beat a ranked (at the time) Southern California team in Austin and surprised a lot of people by dominating last week against TCU.

WEST VIRGINIA (3-0, 1-0 Big 12): The Mountaineers were impressive in beating Kansas State 35-6 last week in Morgantown. The offense put up what has become a pretty typical WVU performance, but it was the defense that really stood out against K-State. WVU is going to get a big test from Texas Tech on Saturday.

STOCK DOWN

TCU (2-2, 0-1 Big 12): The Horned Frogs showed promise in battling mighty Ohio State a few weeks ago, but have seemed to take major steps backward in last week’s lopsided loss to Texas.

KANSAS STATE (2-2, 0-1 Big 12): The bottom fell out of the Wildcats’ offense last week in Morgantown. K-State had a lot of trouble moving the ball on West Virginia all afternoon and with the way WVU was scoring, the Wildcats found themselves in a hole they were never going to dig out of. There is a chance to bounce back against Texas this weekend, but the Longhorns are playing good football right now and the Wildcats are not.

KANSAS (2-2, 0-1 Big 12): The twice mighty Jayhakws, slayers of Central Michigan (on the road!) and Rutgers (a Power 5 team!), came back to Earth last week against Baylor as the Bears. KU takes on an Oklahoma State team Saturday looking to bounce back from a beating at the hands of Texas Tech last week.

OKLAHOMA STATE (3-1, 0-1 Big 12): Two weeks ago the Cowboys looked like a threat to join the top teams in the league after dismantling visiting Boise State, but they laid an egg last week against Texas Tech as the Red Raiders shut them out in the second half. As has been the case for a long time, a game against Kansas should be good for Mike Gundy’s bunch — just don’t ask him or anyone on the team about players using the new redshirt rule to leave the program.

HOLDING STEADY

OKLAHOMA (4-0, 1-0 Big 12): Yes, the Sooners went to overtime with Army last week. Yes, that is not a good look for a team contending for a College Football Playoff spot. I’ll give OU a pass for one week due to the fact it had to deal with Army’s wicked triple-option. Interested to see how Oklahoma responds to that performance this week when Baylor visits Norman.

IOWA STATE (1-2, 0-1 Big 12): The Cyclones played Oklahoma tough in a loss a few weeks ago but entered last week’s game against Akron winless. ISU beat the Zips by 13 – so at least we know Iowa State is better than Northwestern. MAC wins don’t move the stocks up much in my book, so the Cyclones sit tight in the middle this week.

BAYLOR (3-1, 1-0 Big 12): Copy and paste the last bit from the Iowa State entry here but change all ISU references to Baylor and Akron to Kansas. The Bears could use some good news after a not-so-great 2017, and a conference win is certainly good news. However, you have to beat someone not named Kansas to move up.