The start of spring practice for all 125 college football teams is a chance to start fresh and forget the bad results that came along with 2012. For a handful of coaches, spring practice is also the first opportunity to turn around a program and save their job for 2014.

Most of the talk on college football’s national signing day centers around which true freshman can make the biggest impact for a program for that upcoming season. While true freshman often make big contributions, the impact junior college recruits can have on the BCS level shouldn't be overlooked.

With college football’s spring practice and basketball’s postseason around the corner, Athlon Sports decided this would be a good time to evaluate each school’s coaching tandem.

Recruiting in college football is downright nasty. It is a cutthroat, cannibalistic big business that is microscopically analyzed by fans, administrators and media members alike. Recruiting in the Big 12 has its major advantages and major disadvantages. First, the state of Texas is a built in feeder system for all 10 teams in the league, even West Virginia.

Preseason prognosticators like Athlon Sports — the most accurate college football preview magazine on newsstands — use many things to attempt to predict what the coming football season will look like.

Recruiting rankings are an inexact science, and even the experts will admit that. It is virtually impossible to measure heart, work ethic, mental focus and self-awareness in 17- and 18-year-old kids. Especially, in the face of the most important decision they will ever make.

2013 is shaping up to be an interesting year in the Big 12. Kansas State claimed the conference title in 2012, but a new champion should be expected next season. Oklahoma tied the Wildcats for the Big 12’s top spot, but the Sooners must replace quarterback Landry Jones, as well as a handful of key defenders. The Wildcats face similar problems, but coach Bill Snyder will find a way for K-State to stay in the hunt.

The merits of recruiting rankings are debated in every sports bar and around every water cooler in the nation. Athlon continues its look at how each All-Conference team ranked as high school recruits with the first-team All-Big 12 team.

Related: College Football's 2012 All-American Team as Recruits

2012 Offensive All-Big 12 Team as Recruits

The Big 12 is two years removed from hosting a championship game, but the league’s BCS bid and title will still come down to two teams in the final week.

Kansas State remains in control of its own destiny for the Fiesta Bowl if it defeats Texas, an opponent the Wildcats have handled in each of their last four meetings. After losing to the Wildcats in September, Oklahoma must hope for a Kansas State loss in addition to a Sooners win over TCU.

Texas alumni are holding their traditional Hex Rally this week, but it probably won’t be as fun. In College Station, the Aggies are holding Midnight Yell Practice in anticipation of their Thanksgiving week game.

But with TCU and Missouri on the other side the Longhorns’ and Aggies’ vitriol, it’s just not the same.