You say we play teams without their paired rivals early (mentioning that we play Cincy without playing WVU) and then say we play paired rivals later (mentioning Iowa St and WVU).

It's an interesting thing for sure, especially with the note that those two were apparently 'rivals' before this, but I just don't think we can read THAT much into it, especially when it doesn't apply to other teams

There's actually 3 teams (Texas Tech, TCU, Texas) that play BYU and Kansas St back to back... which is more than the number of teams that play Kansas/Kansas St back to back or TCU/Baylor back to back or Oklahoma/Oklahoma St back to back... so should we take that as evidence that BYU/Kansas St will be paired as rivals?

I think it's more just something that happens when we as humans look too closely for a pattern