Greg McElroy does not believe the Big 12 has a single national championship contender in 2024

The Big 12 makes a case as one of the deeper, most wide-open conference in all of college football this year. That depth just doesn’t include many national contenders within it, though, according to Greg McElroy.

McElroy placed the Big 12 into tiers from championship contenders to works in progress during a recent episode of ‘Always College Football’. In doing so, he didn’t have a single team of their 16 in the top one with him seeing no program in the league that is capable of winning the national title.

“There are none in this league,” stated McElroy. “With all due respect to the Utah Utes and the Kansas State Wildcats, the Kansas Jayhawks, and the Oklahoma State Cowboys, I think there’s a lot of teams in this league that can get to the College Football Playoff. I just don’t think there are any that can win the national championship.”

“The gap that currently exists between the Big 12 and that of the Big Ten, SEC, and even the top end of the ACC? I think there is a gap there,” McElroy admitted.

For reference, McElroy didn’t actually rate any teams into tier one when examining the ACC. However, he did have four from the SEC in Georgia, Texas, Alabama, and Ole Miss along with three from the Big Ten in Ohio State, Oregon, and Penn State.

Regardless of this, the Big 12 is getting at least one team into the College Football Playoff in 2024. Their conference champion, just like the other three from the remaining leagues, will get an automatic berth into the field. Even so, making it in and winning it all are two separate conversations.

That’s before you even have the conversation of if the Big 12 can manage to secure an at-large bid.

Opinions are going to be all over the place as we exit talking season and head into August with kickoff coming soon. Still, this one is a pretty pessimistic, whether legitimate or not, one from McElroy in regards to the Big 12.

“Like I said, I think there’s a bunch that fit into tier two, which we qualify as College Football Playoff contenders,” said McElroy.

Big 12 releases preseason football media poll

Nationwide realignment impacted all of the top leagues, including the Big 12. Texas and Oklahoma departed for the SEC while Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and Arizona State joined.

 With that, the Big 12 released their highly anticipated media preseason poll ahead of the 2024 season.

Check out how media members voted in how they believe the conference will finish heading into the season below:

2024 Big 12 Football Media Preseason Poll

1. Utah
2. Kansas State
3. Oklahoma State
4. Kansas
5. Arizona
6. Iowa State
7. West Virginia
8. UCF
9. Texas Tech
10. TCU
11. Colorado
12. Baylor
13. BYU
14. Cincinnati
15. Houston
16. Arizona State