Here are 16 football players to watch next season in the Big 12 Conference

Players in the Big 12 Conference this spring who could have big impacts for their teams in the fall:

S Malcolm Hartzog. With its three top defensive backs gone, Arizona will count on the Nebraska transfer who started 32 of his 38 games, recording 108 tackles and eight interceptions. He was a regular for Nebraska from 2022 until a groin injury limited him to two games last year.

LB Owen Long, a transfer from Colorado State. He was seemingly everywhere during Arizona State's spring session, using his athletic ability and smarts to make plays up the middle and to either sideline. Long was the FBS leader last season with 151 tackles.

RB Dawson Pendergrass is back after missing all last season with a foot injury and will have a prominent role for Baylor after leading rusher Bryson Washington transferred to Auburn. As a true freshman in 2023, Pendergrass ran for 338 yards with five TDs, and in a two-man rotation with Washington in 2024 had 671 yards with six TDs. He also has 37 career catches for 302 yards and three TDs.

LB Cade Uluave fills a huge hole in BYU’s defense left by the graduation of Jack Kelly and promises to be the same type of disruptive defender. Uluave transferred from California, where he had 235 tackles the past three seasons. He had 97 tackles, 11 1/2 for loss, and three sacks last season.

WR JV Gibson caught three TD passes in Cincinnati's final spring scrimmage, two of those from new QB JC French. Gibson, a redshirt senior, spent last season at Oklahoma. That was after 70 catches for 1,215 yards and nine TDs at Arkansas-Pine Bluff in 2024, when he was an AP second-team FCS All-America pick.

WR Danny Scudero joins the Buffaloes after a season at San Jose State, where he had 88 catches for 1,297 yards and 10 TDs and was a second-team AP All-American. Coach Deion Sanders believes Scudero’s style of play resembles that of longtime New England Patriots receiver Julian Edelman. Both find ways to get open while not being the biggest targets; Scudero is 5-foot-9, an inch shorter than Edelman.

Senior QB Conner Weigman is back after throwing for 2,705 yards and 25 TDs in his debut with Houston last season. The Cougars went 10-3 with the Texas A&M transfer. Houston already has Weigman's likely successor in five-star recruit QB Keisean Henderson, who enrolled early after signing and is expected to spend this season learning from the senior.

DE Isaac Terrell, one of 12 defensive transfers who went to Iowa State from Washington State with new coach Jimmy Rogers, was one of the most disruptive players on the West Coast last season. Terrell led the Cougars with seven sacks and 12 tackles for loss. He is relentless in pursuit and will anchor a defense that will look very similar to the Cougars unit that limited opponents to 300 yards and 20 points per game.

RB Dylan Edwards keeps moving east on Interstate 70 in the Big 12, and the electrifying running back’s latest move is his most interesting. After beginning his career with Deion Sanders at Colorado, he played last season with good friend and Kansas State QB Avery Johnson but now is headed to Kansas for his junior year.

DE/LB Wendell Gregory, the reigning Big 12 defensive freshman of the year, transferred from Oklahoma State to Kansas State after four sacks and 12 tackles for loss last season. He started his career at South Carolina but appeared in only two games before redshirting, making him a sophomore this season.

RB Caleb Hawkins is in his home state after joining QB Drew Mestemaker and new Cowboys coach Eric Morris in the move from North Texas. Hawkins led FBS with 1,434 yards and 25 touchdowns rushing last year, and set an FBS record for most total TDs by a freshman (29). Mestemaker, who was also a freshman, had an FBS-best 4,379 yards passing.

RB Jeremy Payne scored the game-winning TD for TCU on a 35-yard catch-and-run in overtime against Southern Cal in the Alamo Bowl when he broke multiple tackles. He goes into his junior season primed to be the Frogs' featured back. Payne led them last season with 623 rushing yards, and 476 of those came in the final five games.

LB Ben Roberts is a three-year starter, and last season was the top defensive player in the Big 12 championship game when he had two interceptions, five tackles and a pass breakup. He has 275 career tackles, and his 90 last season were second on the team behind graduated All-America LB Jacob Rodriguez.

LB Lewis Carter was UCF's leading tackler with 92 last season and is expected to again be the defensive anchor. He became a starter as a junior last year, when he had three games with at least 12 tackles. He transferred to UCF in 2024, when he played all 13 games on special teams and as a backup LB, just like he did as an Oklahoma freshman in 2023.

WR Braden Pegan could become QB Devon Dampier’s favorite target. The Utah State transfer had 60 receptions, 926 yards, and five TDs for the Aggies in 2025. Pegan followed new Utah offensive coordinator Kevin McGiven to Salt Lake from Logan, and that familiarity should help him flourish in Utah’s new offense.

RB Cam Cook was the FBS leader with 1,659 rushing yards in his only season at Jacksonville State after the previous two years at TCU. West Virginia hasn't had a 1,000-yard rusher since Leddie Brown in 2021. The Mountaineers will settle for anyone with durability. Their running back room was decimated by injuries last year, when no one had more than 335 yards rushing.

AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-football

FILE - North Carolina tight end Jake Johnson (19) is tackled by Central Florida defensive back Jaylen Heyward, left, and linebacker Lewis Carter, right, after catching a pass during the second half of an NCAA football game, Sept. 20, 2025, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack, File)

FILE - TCU running back Jeremy Payne (26) runs for a touchdown against Southern California during overtime in the Alamo Bowl NCAA college football game in San Antonio, Dec. 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)

FILE - Texas Tech linebacker Ben Roberts celebrates after being awared the Most Outstanding Player trophy following the team's win in the Big 12 Conference championship NCAA college football game against BYU, Dec. 6, 2025, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File)

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican authorities on Wednesday continued to muddle the official account over the role of two CIA agents in a counternarcotics operation in northern Mexico and the extent to which Mexico's federal government was aware of the U.S. involvement in the incident, which has started to ignite tensions with the White House.

The incident has increasingly fueled speculation in the Latin American nation as Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum for more than a year has repeatedly underscored her country's sovereignty and publicly turned down offers by U.S. President Donald Trump of intervention on cartels.

The Mexican government acknowledges the presence of U.S. agencies on Mexican territory but says that they cannot participate in on-the-ground operations.

Mexican and U.S. officials have been offering contradictory accounts for days. After the Mexican government originally said it had no knowledge of any sort operation or U.S. involvement, the president admitted Wednesday that federal forces were involved and another high-level official acknowledged that the government at least discussed the matter with the U.S.

The collaboration came to light this week after two local investigators in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua and two CIA agents — originally identified as U.S. Embassy officials — reportedly died in a car crash in the early morning on Sunday while driving back from an operation to destroy cartel laboratories in a rugged area of Mexico. The local government said the convoy drove off the side of a ravine and the car exploded.

The Americans killed were from the CIA, The Associated Press confirmed on Tuesday with a U.S. official and two other people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence matters.

Sheinbaum on Wednesday maintained that she had no knowledge of the operation between the U.S. and local Chihuahua authorities, and that it could constitute a violation of Mexico's law, because any such action should be approved by the federal government.

In her press briefing she said she was considering possible sanctions on Chihuahua’s government, and emphasized that the operation didn’t constitute a new security strategy by Trump in her country. She added that she sent a letter to the U.S. ambassador requesting that he provide all available information regarding the incident and that she planned to speak to Chihuahua's governor.

“There cannot be agents from any U.S. government institution operating in the Mexican field,” Sheinbaum said Wednesday. “It is very important that something like this not be allowed to go unaddressed."

The CIA particularly has a tainted legacy in Latin America, associated in decades past with orchestrating coups and backing military dictatorships in a number of countries. Despite that, the agency has maintained a presence in Mexico for many years, which has also been the subject of contention in Mexican politics.

On Wednesday afternoon, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt pushed back on Sheinbaum's comments, saying that U.S. efforts to counter cartels in Mexico “is not only a benefit to the American people, but to her people as well.”

“I think the president would agree that some sympathy from Claudia Sheinbaum would be well worth it for the two American lives that were lost, considering all that the United States of America is doing currently under this president to stop the scourge of drug trafficking through Mexico to the United States,” Leavitt said in an appearance on Fox News.

The Trump administration has provided very few comments on the incident since the Sunday crash. The CIA declined to comment on Wednesday.

The back-and-forth comes after days of contradictions in accounts, which have raised eyebrows and have prompted experts to say it underscores heightened U.S. involvement in security operations in Mexico and across the region.

Those only continued on Wednesday when Sheinbaum acknowledged that Mexico's army participated in the operation, but didn't know that the U.S. agents were present. Days before, Chihuahua's Attorney General César Jáuregui said the investigation came following months of investigation by state prosecutors and Mexico's military.

Later on Wednesday, Security Secretary Omar García Harfuch said at a news conference that the Defense Ministry had previously “received a petition for security support” by the U.S. But, he added, that “going to support an operation is different from actually being part of the planning of a operation.”

“Agents have never been in the field with us," he added.

David Klepper and Aamer Madhani in Washington, and Fabiola Sánchez in Mexico City, contributed to this report.

Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

FILE - Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum speaks during her daily morning press conference at the National Palace in Mexico City, Nov. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte, File)