Rece Davis predicts Kansas as Big 12 Champion, No. 4 seed in the College Football Playoff

Rece Davis put himself out there with his prediction for the Big 12’s Champion and, in turn, their representative for the College Football Playoff.

In examining the Big 12 on the ‘College GameDay Podcast’, Davis gave his reasoning when it comes to this conference specifically. He feels the league is alike across the board with plenty of snags and issues to get caught up in from the start.

“I have no conviction, not to that kind of depth about anyone winning the Big 12,” said Davis. “There are too many caveats. There are too many potential rakes to step on.”

“This is a reach. This is a reach pick for me. But, because of what I said in a previous podcast about some people describing it as depth? I’m going to describe the Big 12 as having width. There are a lot of teams who are very similar,” Davis explained. “Depending on who gets the breaks and who wins the close games, that’s where it’s going to go.”

With that preface, Davis made his selection in the Kansas Jayhawks to win the Big 12 Championship.

“They’re not going to get the three seed according to me. They will be the four seed. I think the the Big 12 Champion will be the Kansas Jayhawks,” Davis stated. “I mean, you think about what this would mean historically. Their last conference title was in 1968 in the Big 8. They were co-champions.”

To be clear, though, this bet by Davis is almost solely on the play, and, therefore, the health, of QB Jalon Daniels. If he’s out of the lineup again with no backup like the one they’ve had in recent years, this could be immediately incorrect.

However, if Daniels is available, everything else would fall into place for the Jayhawks offense.

“This could be the wrongest prediction that ever wrongest wronged if Jalon Daniels does not stay healthy. That has been a massive issue for the last couple of years…14 of 28 games in his career, was only able to play three games last year,” said Davis. “He is a dynamic player. If he’s healthy? Lance Leipold is proven on offense. They’ve got two strong running backs coming back in Devin Neal and Daniel Hishaw, a couple of receivers. Lawrence Arnold had over 700, nearly 800 yards receiving last year. Got some experience on the offensive line, supplemented that in the portal.”

“There are a lot of good quarterbacks in this league. So, if I’m going to say, ‘Who’s going to win out of this wide band of similar teams?’? I’m going to spin that wheel of fortune, roll those dice, and go with, if healthy, the most dangerous quarterback, maybe the most creative offense,” Davis said.

Being playoff-caliber, though, also means some improvement in the trench on defense. Kansas has a already taken massive steps on that side overall in the past three seasons. Davis now just wants to see the defensive line match what they’ve been getting from their defensive backs.

“You’ve got Cobee Bryant doing mamba things in the secondary with four interceptions last year. They’ve got Mello Dotson, who also had four picks,” Davis said. “They’ve got to be better up front. One of the things is they weren’t able, last year, often enough to make teams challenge those corners because you could just run on them. They have to do a better job of being able to stop the run a little bit.”

The pieces and season over season projection are there for Kansas to potentially have an all-time finish this fall. Davis sees it too, although admittedly a long shot, with him choosing Rock Chalk as the No. 4 seed in his CFP.

“I’ll go Kansas,” Davis said.