Iowa State’s path to the Big 12 Championship isn’t defined by perfection; it’s paved by the conference’s endemic chaos. In the new, expanded Big 12, the landscape is marked by unprecedented parity where no team can cruise. Every contender, including the Cyclones, is guaranteed to take a few stumbles. This very lack of a dominant, single-loss giant is precisely what keeps Iowa State, even with recent defeats, firmly in the race. The Cyclones aren’t waiting for a miracle; they’re leveraging the fact that their rivals will inevitably drop games, allowing a team with a solid-but-not-perfect record to rise through
