Rich Rodriguez and Scott Frost are newbies to the Big 12 conference, but not for the school that welcomes them back.
Rodriguez of West Virginia and Frost of UCF are the only new coaches on the 16-team 12 teams and are now experiencing their first spring since returning to old school.
West Virginia has spent 13 seasons in 12 huge 12 seasons, but when Rodriguez led the climbers to lead the climbers for three straight 11-win seasons, leading the climb to Michigan from 2005-07.
Frost was the coach of the UCF unbeaten season at the 2017 Athletic Conference, when the Cavaliers announced themselves as the national champion before he headed to Nebraska.
Frost's situation is indeed different from his first spring with the Cavaliers in 2016 in the 0-12 season.
"We had our first melee in the spring, and I was discouraged. ...We weren't doing anything good, or at least feeling that way," Frost said. "We were doing something good. Only the speed and precision that had to happen in every game can make it work, and we haven't."
The Cavaliers, who scored 10-15 in the first two big 12 seasons of the first two seasons, was a former national champion who left UCF four seasons to become an offensive coordinator at Florida State. Six straight winning seasons, a game-record season, a 12-game-straight era, a 13-0 season after Frost's 6-7 debut.
Rodriguez's second term in West Virginia was 18 years after his first end. If the climber will compete for 12 big titles, he will have to make wholesale changes in the name, image and similar eras as well as the transfer portal waiting range.
The offense lost the entire line and the top three. The total four receivers last season returned 524 yards.
"We just don't have enough systems … we just don't have enough bodies," Rodriguez said. "We obviously want someone to be one-on-one people you can rely on. And our guys are getting better and having confidence in them. But we don't actually have enough bodies to run the way we want to run it."
In last week's NFL draft, all five big 12 guards averaged at least 100 yards per game.
Only two of the top ten sprints last season are still in the league: Baylor's Bryson Washington (1,028 yards, 12 touchdowns) and BYU's LJ Martin (723 yards, 7 TDS).
The West Virginia offense may revolve around running back to Jahiem White, who ran 845 yards for climbers in two climbing systems last season, an average of 6.5 yards per carry.
Dylan Edwards, now a junior at Kansas State, lagged behind JD Giddens’ 74 yards last year. Carson Hansen had 13 sprints for Iowa State, which is the big 12 of any return.
All-run Cam Skattebo has disappeared from all runs from dominating the 12-win champion Arizona State, which has just added Kanye Udoh from the transfer portal after running 1,117 yards and 10 TDSs for the Army last season.
Among the Big 12, there are a lot of experienced quarterbacks, but it's a turbulent spring in that position in Oklahoma.
Maealiuaki Smith and Garrett Rangel are the only Oklahoma quarterbacks with extensive experience, entering the transfer portal. That leaves cowboys and Zane Flores and Hauss Hejny. Flores had only a few games last season. Redshirt freshman Hejny was transferred from TCU.
Colorado must replace quarterback Shedeur Sanders and have played two games between Liberty Transfer Transfer Kaidon Salter and Julian Lewis, the touted five-star recruits who entered school early to participate in the spring drill. Buffalos plans to find more balance between running and passing this season, which is why Coach Deion hires Hall of Fame member Marshall Faulk as running guard coach.
Sam Leavitt, the Big 12 returner, passed 2,885 yards and 24 TD after transferring from Michigan State to help Arizona State win the Big 12 No. 12. Sawyer Robertson returned to Baylor after his 3,071 yards and 28 TDs, scoring higher than TCU's Josh Hoover (3,949 yards) and Texas Tech's Behren Morton (3,335 yards).
BYU made his debut in 2023 with a 5-7-7 appearance, arguably the biggest surprise team in the league last season, beating Colorado State in 11-2 with the Alamo Bowl, reaching sixth in the CFP rankings. BYU has a lot of experience in returning on both sides of the ball. But the Cougars are also facing problems along the defensive line, with each starter starting last season.
Utah collapsed last year in its 12-big debut, from preseason favorites to seven-game losing streak. UTE brought an offensive overhaul by former New Mexico offensive coordinator Jason Beck, which was near the lowest point of Big 12 in nearly every major stat category last season.