Iowa State upset No. 3 Oklahoma 38-31 on Saturday, throwing another wrench into the Big 12 outlook when it comes to the College Football Playoff.
The Cyclones pulled off the upset with the help of Kyle Kempt's 25-yard touchdown pass to Allen Lazard with 2:19 remaining. Baker Mayfield couldn't lead the Sooners to a game-tying score.
MORE: Mayfield the leader for Heisman — for now
It's only the first week of October, but here are four storylines that will take shape down the line.
Sooners' place in line uncertain
Oklahoma (4-1, 1-1) lost their first conference game since Texas upset them on Oct. 10, 2015. The good news is the Sooners made the College Football Playoff that season after winning out. The bad news is this loss is much worse. Every College Football Playoff team gets a mulligan, but losing to the Cyclones at home is a shank. Oklahoma still has a strong nonconference victory against Ohio State, but where do they fit in the one-loss line? Behind Auburn? Ahead of Ohio State? It's a tough spot to be in because the Sooners have a "bad" loss.
TCU best of the rest
That leaves No. 8 TCU as the lone unbeaten left after beating West Virginia. No. 15 Oklahoma State and Texas Tech are the only other one-loss teams left. The Big 12 has only three ranked teams, whereas a conference like the Big Ten has four teams ranked ... in the top 10. TCU doesn't have to win out, but a one-loss Big 12 team still might get treated differently than the SEC, Big Ten or ACC. When it becomes to that final spot, the debates between the Big 12 and Pac-12 could be intense down the line.
MORE: TCU silences critics — and Oklahoma State
Big 12 perception hit
This is a bad loss for a conference that has missed out on the College Football Playoff in two of three seasons. Remember, Oklahoma didn't lose a conference game in 2016 and still missed out on the playoff. Oklahoma State was pumped up as a playoff contender and lost a shootout against the Horned Frogs. In a conference where so many offensive shootouts happen, upsets like this are going to happen. Still, Oklahoma can't lose to Iowa State. There's no excuse. How many times are you going to hear “defense wins championships” as an indictment of the Big 12?
Championship angst
It's still debatable whether the Big 12 championship game, long clamored for the past three seasons, will hurt the conference. As of now, it's the only Power 5 conference that can't have two unbeaten teams in its championship game. What if it's a battle of two one-loss teams? Or worse, two-loss teams? That's an unintended consequence of round robin scheduling. Oklahoma and TCU or Oklahoma State could split their regular-season meetings and end up knocking each other out of the playoff hunt. That's the impact of the Sooners' loss.
