At the beginning of July, four new teams officially joined the Big 12: Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah, but I’ve realized in recent weeks that I don’t know much about these schools beyond their recent history.
So, with Big 12 Media Days coming up next week, I thought it would be a good time to take a closer look at Sports Reference and learn about the recruits, and here are some of the things I discovered about each program.
Arizona
Passing leaders: Super Bowl winner Nick Foles is the only player in program history to throw for more than 10,000 yards. From 2009-11, he threw for 10,011 yards with 67 touchdowns (tied for the school record) and 33 interceptions.
Rushing Leader: Kadeem Carey ran for 4,239 yards and a team-high 48 rushing touchdowns between 2011 and 2013. He ran for 15 more touchdowns than anyone in team history.
COACHING LEADER: Dick Tomei coached the Cats from 1987-2000, winning 95 games – 47 more than any other coach in program history. Tomei compiled a record of 95 wins, 64 losses and 4 ties in 14 seasons in Tucson. He also spent 10 years at Hawaii and five years at San Jose State. He passed away in 2019.
Best Season: The Wildcats went 12-1 in 1998, finished fourth in the AP Poll and won the Holiday Bowl. Arizona finished second to UCLA in the Pac-10 standings that season. The Wildcats had three ranked wins that year, beating No. 20 Washington, No. 12 Oregon and No. 14 Nebraska. Keith Smith and Ortegee Jenkins each played 12 games as Arizona’s quarterbacks that season and threw for a combined 2,743 yards and 18 touchdowns. Their primary targets were Dennis Northcutt and Jeremy McDaniel, who combined for 1,838 receiving yards.
Arizona
Passing leaders: Andrew Walter narrowly surpassed Rudy Carpenter as the Sun Devils’ all-time leading passer. Walter played from 2001-04, throwing for 10,617 yards and a team-high 85 touchdowns. He spent three seasons at Arizona State, throwing for more than 3,000 passing yards, before being selected by the Oakland Raiders in the third round of the 2005 NFL Draft.
Rush Leaders: Woody Green is the Sun Devils’ all-time leading rusher with 4,188 yards in just three seasons at Arizona State. The Sun Devils won the Fiesta Bowl each of those three seasons before the Kansas City Chiefs selected Green in the first round of the 1974 NFL Draft. Green finished eighth in the Heisman voting in 1973, his final year with the Sun Devils.
COACHING LEADER: Frank Kush is the best coach in Sun Devils program history, statistically speaking. Kush coached at ASU from 1958-1979, compiling a record of 176 wins, 54 losses and one tie, 118 more wins than Bruce Snyder, the second-most in program history. Kush led the Sun Devils to double-digit wins in six seasons and won the Fiesta Bowl trophy four times. ASU named a field Frank Kush Field in 1996 and has a statue of him outside Mountain America Stadium. Kush passed away in 2017 at the age of 88.
Best Season: The Sun Devils went undefeated in 1975, finished No. 2 in the AP poll and won the Fiesta Bowl against Nebraska. Running back Freddie Williams was the star of that team, rushing for 1,316 yards and nine touchdowns. Arizona State, a member of the WAC that year, outscored its opponents by a combined score of 347-127.
Colorado
Passing Leaders: Sefo Liufau leads the team in passing yards with 9,763, a record he set from 2013 to 2016. However, Liufau is actually third in passing touchdowns with 60, behind only Steven Montez (2016-19) and Cody Hawkins (2007-10), who each had 63.
Rush Leaders: Eric Bieniemy may be best known for serving as the Kansas City Chiefs offensive coordinator from 2018-2022, but he is also the Buffaloes’ all-time leading rusher with 3,940 yards and 41 touchdowns from 1987-1990. Bieniemy’s best year came in 1990, when he was a senior in the Big Eight and rushed for 1,628 yards and 17 touchdowns. The San Diego Chargers took Bieniemy in the second round of the 1991 NFL Draft.
COACHING LEADER: Bill McCartney was the collegiate head coach in Boulder for 13 years. McCartney compiled a record of 93 wins, 55 losses and 5 ties at CU from 1982-1994. He led the Buffaloes to a national title in 1990 and 11 wins three times (the only time CU had that many wins in a season). McCartney led CU to victories in the Fiesta Bowl, Orange Bowl and Aloha Bowl.
Best Season: Colorado’s best season was 1990 when the Buffaloes won the national title and the Orange Bowl. Colorado entered the year ranked 5th in the AP rankings but started the season with 1 win, 1 loss and 1 tie. The Buffaloes started the season tied with 8th-ranked Tennessee for 31st place, then beat unranked Stanford by 4 points and lost to 21st-ranked Illinois. But Colorado then picked up steam and won against 22nd-ranked Texas, 12th-ranked Washington, 22nd-ranked Oklahoma, 3rd-ranked Nebraska and 5th-ranked Notre Dame for an 11-1-1 season.
Utah
Passing leaders: Scott Mitchell is Utah’s all-time passing leader with 8,981 yards from 1987-1989. The Miami Dolphins selected Mitchell in the fourth round of the 1990 NFL Draft. He played 11 seasons in the NFL and threw for 15,692 yards and 95 touchdowns. His 69 touchdown passes at Utah also remain a school record.
Rushing Leaders: Zack Moss is the program’s only 4,000-yard runner, running for 4,067 yards and 38 touchdowns (also a program record) from 2016-2019. He ran for a career-high 1,416 yards and 15 touchdowns and was named Pac-12 Offensive Player of the Year in 2019. The Buffalo Bills took Moss in the third round of the 2020 NFL Draft.
Coaching Leader: Like Oklahoma State, Utah State currently has a legendary coach leading the team. Kyle Whittingham took over as head coach at Utah in 2004 and has since led the Utes to a 162-79 record. During that time, he won the Fiesta Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Sun Bowl and other bowls. Whittingham is actually one of two Utah coaches with triple-digit wins; Ike Armstrong (1925-1949) had a record of 141 wins, 55 losses and 15 ties.
Best Season: Since the turn of the 2000s, Utah has had two consecutive undefeated seasons, first in 2004 under Urban Meyer (and lastly Whittingham) and then in 2008. Both seasons were in the Mountain West. Utah finished 13-0 in 2008, the most wins in school history, and finished second in the AP poll. Brian Johnson led Utah with 2,972 yards and 27 touchdowns that season. Utah had three ranked wins, including wins in the Sugar Bowl over No. 11 TCU, No. 16 BYU, and No. 4 Alabama.
