Rumors about teams leaving or joining the Big 12 these days arise on a daily basis.

However, one truth that can be witnessed each Saturday in the Big 12 is the success of the conference’s offensive units, which are lighting up scoreboards and stealing hours of sleep from defensive coordinators week in and week out.

At his weekly news conference on Monday, ISU coach Paul Rhoads compared this season’s offensive success throughout the conference to that of the 2009 season, Rhoads’ first at Iowa State.

That year, names like Colt McCoy, the starting quarterback at Texas, running back Daniel Thomas out of Kansas State and the Kansas wideout tandem of Kerry Meier and Dezmon Briscoe were all facilitators for offensive outbursts throughout the season.

“There’s great players in this league offensively, and I stand by my statement you could give up 30 points, 28 points, 34 points on any given week and walk away saying you know what. We played good defense today,” Rhoads said.

Offenses this season might even exceed the offensive totals attained in 2009. Three teams finished among the top 25 teams both in total offensive yards and scoring back in 2009. Already through eight weeks in 2011, six teams rank in the top 25 in total offense and five are among the nation’s 25 best in scoring.

Even though Iowa State has surrendered an average of 42.8 points per game in its four Big 12 conference games, the high point totals are not necessarily an indication of bad defensive play in the eyes of the ISU coaching staff.

“We gave up 33 points Saturday to Texas A&M, I thought we played pretty good defense,” Rhoads said.

Obviously the team with more points on the scoreboard wins in the game of football, but with college offenses attacking defenses with new formations and plays each season, defenses must be prepared to adjust both during the week and mid-game.

“You try to stay one step ahead,” said ISU defensive coordinator Wally Burnham. “We never treat it as frustration we try to sell our defensive coaching staff and our players as another opportunity to do something great against these offenses.”

Texas Tech, Iowa State’s opponent on Saturday, is no stranger to explosive offensive outputs. In a 41-38 upset win over No. 3 Oklahoma on Saturday, the Red Raiders racked up 452 yards through the air and 120 on the ground — their fourth consecutive game with at least 40 points and more than 500 yards of total offense.

“They sling it around everywhere so there are multiple challenges again,” Burnham said. “But our first priority is going to be to stop the run again and hopefully we can do that.”

Flying a bit under the radar this season has been the catalyst for Texas Tech’s offense this season, junior quarterback Seth Doege.

Doege leads the nation with 34 completions per game and averages 381.3 yards of total offense per game, which is second-most nationally.

“The only reason why maybe he isn’t already, is because of the other quarterbacks and offensive stars in this league but from a defensive staff standpoint,” Rhoads said. “From our players standpoint we’ve been aware of him, and we don’t need any introduction to him; we know he’s a great player.”

Texas Tech has hit its stride offensively over the last month, but so to have many of the other offenses in the Big 12 that the Cyclones will square off against in the final four weeks of the regular season.

“It is a challenge, a great challenge, because every week’s a little bit different. It’s a spread offense, but it’s different,” Burnham said. “If there’s eight teams in the Big 12 out of the ten playing the spread, there’s eight different spreads, and that is a challenge.”

Saturday’s game between the Cyclones and Red Raiders gets underway at 6 p.m.