After Week 2 provided us a disastrously bad sample for the Big Ten, Week 3 was a good opportunity to gauge the Big 12 as seven of the league's 10 teams played opponents from other Power Five conferences. What did we glean? It was a good week for the Big 12, even if the league won't challenge the SEC or Pac-12 for the title of the best conference, and it's better than the Big Ten and likely the ACC. In the words of Dennis Green, they are who we thought they were. Let's start with the good. Oklahoma did what it was supposed to against Tennessee at home, jumping out to a big lead and controlling the game. Oklahoma State, led by backup QB Daxx Garman, beat a UTSA team that gave Arizona a close game and beat Houston. TCU, a sleeper team behind the Sooners and Baylor, dominated Minnesota. Iowa State got its first win of the season against Iowa on a late field goal. OK, so perhaps the last two games are also indictments against the Big Ten. We're focusing on the positive in this paragraph, OK? Texas' fight against UCLA counts as a positive, even if it ended up as a 20-17 loss for the Longhorns. While UCLA QB Brett Hundley missed most of the game with a left elbow injury, Texas' defense kept the Longhorns in the game despite allowing over 200 yards rushing. UCLA's winning touchdown was set up by a 45-yard punt return by Ishmael Adams that gave the Bruins a very short field. While the gameplan was limited on deep throws, Texas QB Tyrone Swoopes was 24-34 passing for 196 yards and two touchdowns. Yes, baby steps, but the Longhorns will win games in David Ash's absence if Swoopes can continue to do that. Now, for the negative. It's a big one too. If Texas Tech was to announce itself as a contender in the conference, it needed to beat a maligned Arkansas team at home. It was as simple as that. Instead, Arkansas literally ran over, around and through the Red Raiders en route to a 49-28 win. The Razorbacks ran 80 offensive plays and 68 were rushing attempts. That's 438 yards rushing (6.4 yards per carry) and another disastrous performance for Texas Tech's rush defense. Oh, it was also Arkansas' first win against a Power Five school in 23 months. Since a 7-0 start in 2013, Tech is 3-6 with wins over Arizona State, Central Arkansas and UTEP. It's not pretty in Lubbock and the near future schedule isn't easy. The Red Raiders' next two games are against Oklahoma State and Kansas State. Both of those teams can run the football well. You can bet what the focus of Tech's upcoming bye week will be. (Kansas, who lost 44-3 at Duke is also a negative. But we're quite accustomed to Kansas football futility at this point.) And while we can all agree that the Big 12's top two teams are Oklahoma and Baylor, it's still unclear who is the conference's third-best team. It's probably not Texas Tech or Texas. Is it Oklahoma State? TCU?* We'll take Kansas State, who was off on Saturday in preparation for Thursday's game at home against Auburn. It's a chance for the Wildcats to not only make a statement for themselves, but for the conference as a whole and show the Big 12 may be closer to the SEC than we think. On to the rest of our winners and losers. WINNERS

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