College football's preseason conversation gets loud this week, and it carries more Bay Area accents than the map might suggest. Big 12 Football Media Days runs Tuesday, July 7, and Wednesday, July 8, at Ford Center at The Star in Frisco, Texas, with eight programs featured each day and live coverage on ESPNU from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Central, plus a Big 12 Studios simulcast and part of day one on ESPN2.
The event is the league's annual kickoff: head coaches and selected players face two days of interviews that set the storylines for training camp. Nothing is won or lost, but reputations and expectations take shape fast.
The San Jose State breakout, now in black and gold
The most direct local thread runs through Danny Scudero. The San Jose native put together one of the country's most productive receiving seasons at San Jose State in 2025, catching 88 passes for 1,297 yards and 10 touchdowns, then transferred to Colorado in January. On Tuesday he represents Deion Sanders' Buffaloes at the podium alongside quarterback Julian Lewis, who threw four touchdowns without an interception in limited 2025 action according to ESPN. For East Bay fans who watched Scudero light up Mountain West secondaries just down the road, his first Big 12 appearance is worth a look.
The Pac-12 diaspora
There is also a broader Bay Area familiarity to the field. Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah, programs that Northern California fans spent decades watching in the Pac-12, now make their preseason rounds in the Big 12. Arizona sends one of the group's biggest names Wednesday: quarterback Noah Fifita, a Southern California product out of Anaheim's Servite High School, who threw for 3,228 yards with 29 touchdowns and six interceptions in 2025 per ESPN.
Arizona State, fresh off retaining coach Kenny Dillingham for a fourth season, appears Tuesday with a seven-player group and an open quarterback competition after Sam Leavitt's transfer to LSU.
By Wednesday night the Big 12's summer talking points will be set, and a few of them will have started with names Bay Area fans already know.
