The Big 12's unexpected rise: Houston, Utah, UCF and Arizona are a combined 11-0. Are they for real?

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Willie Fritz began his coaching career more than four decades ago at Pittsburg State, a Division II school tucked into the corner of Kansas, where he had played defensive back in the late 1970s and early '80s.

In other words, the current Houston coach has seen just about everything in college football, whether it be as the head man at the junior college level (Blinn), the D-2 level (Central Missouri), the FCS level (Sam Houston State), the lower-tier level of Division I (Georgia Southern), the middle tier of Division I (Tulane) or now at the Power Four level with the Cougars.

Yes, his team is off to a brilliant 3-0 start. And yes, it is too early to start selling tickets to the Big 12 title game.

“I tell the team all the time,” Fritz said after last weekend's win over Colorado, “this only counts as one game. Fortunately, I've been doing this for a long time, and by the time I wake up tomorrow, I'll be on to the next one. I told the guys to make sure they celebrate for a couple of days and have fun with their families, but we've got to move on.”

Yet it's worth pausing to consider this: Houston, Utah, UCF and Arizona were all Big 12 bottom-dwellers last season, fodder for the programs that were in a logjam at the top of the league.

This year? They are a combined 11-0.

Houston hasn't even been tested in wins over Stephen F. Austin, Rice and the Buffaloes. Utah's drubbing of UCLA helped to get Bruins coach DeShaun Foster fired. UCF has passed its first two tests in the Scott Frost Era, Part II. And the Wildcats landed the best win of them all by beating Kansas State, which is more pretender than Big 12 contender at this point.

As league play gets going in earnest, will the upside-down nature of the Big 12 bear out the rest of the way?

“If you sit around and revel in past successes,” Fritz said, “you will never be as good as you can be. Or when you have a bad outcome, if you sit around and pout about it, you're not going to get any better. We just try to move on. Even though (beating Colorado) was a big win for our program, if we want it to be a really big win, we've got to keep going.”

Houston had plenty of bad outcomes last season, going 3-6 in the league and 4-8 overall. But the Cougars already have one Big 12 win heading into this week's bye, and they can match their win total from last season next week against Oregon State.

Utah, UCF and Arizona were all 2-7 in the Big 12 last season. All of them have reason to believe their turnaround is real.

The Utes climbed to No. 16 in the AP Top 25 this week, and they have the biggest opportunity of the weekend with No. 17 Texas Tech visiting town. The last time Utah started 4-0 was in 2008, when Kyle Whittingham led the Utes to a 13-0 mark, a win over Alabama in the Sugar Bowl and ultimately a No. 2 finish in the final AP poll.

“We've got to be up for the occasion,” Whittingham said of the showdown with the Red Raiders, perhaps the most impressive of Big 12 teams so far this season. “Our fans will be there in full force. It'll be a great environment for us. ... The degree of difficulty is getting higher, and that's what you would expect, and we're excited about the challenge."

The Knights wrap up their non-conference schedule against Bill Belichick and North Carolina, which has already lost in lopsided fashion to Big 12 brethren TCU. Take care of business Saturday and the Knights will be carrying some momentum, along with an undefeated record, into their conference opener against Kansas State the following week.

Those Wildcats, who were pegged as possible College Football Playoff contenders before the season, are still smarting from the loss to Arizona that dropped them to 1-3. They also lost their conference opener to Iowa State and fell at home to Army. They needed some miracles to pull off a 38-35 win over FCS North Dakota.

As for the other bunch of Wildcats, the win over Kansas State — oddly enough — doesn't count as a conference win for Arizona, because the series was made before it joined the Big 12. But it nevertheless was a big one for coach Brent Brennan, who is trying to build on a 4-8 first season in Tucson made even more humbling by watching Arizona State's quick turnaround last year.

The Sun Devils went from 3-9 in their final year in the Pac-12 to Big 12 champions and CFP participants.

Perhaps the Cougars, Utes, Knights or Arizona can make a similarly stunning climb to the top of the league this season.

“I feel like there’s definitely been a lot of growth this year, as far as responding. It’s showing out there,” Arizona running back Ismail Mahdi said. “The only thing you can do is compare games, whether we responded last year or not. And we’re responding.”

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