Didn't see a thread for the Big 12, so thought I'd start one - tho I personally don't have much to talk about. Ugh. Iowa State dropped their second game in a row - to 1AA Northern Iowa 24-13 in Ames. While this doesn't come as a huge surprise to me (I picked UNI for my weekly office pool and UNI is ranked in the 1AA top 10), it IS disappointing.

If we were gonna pay a coach $1.1 million to do this, we may as well have kept Dan McCarney. Blah, blah, blah, growing pains, blah, blah, blah, new system. It's going to be a long season here.

Of course, most of the other conference teams rolled over their competition today. Even Baylor won big. Two months 'till basketball... two months 'till basketball...

Woo-hoo!! Iowa State made ESPN's "bottom ten" list this week! I knew we were that bad!!

Btw, congrats to Bobby on your team beating us badly this coming weekend. We all know it's gonna happen.

I guess ISU will be out of the 'bottom ten' this week - we beat Iowa yesterday (an 18 point favorite) 15-13. Sorry about that, Bobby - never saw it coming.

so does this mean that Northern Iowa is the state champ???

Hmm. Good question. They just might be. Of the three D-1 scholarship schools in the state, they're playing the best when you average out the three games they've all had so far. Of course, that's not counting Drake, which is ranked #1 in the country amond D-1AA non-scholarships colleges. I think Drake and UNI play one another later in the season, so we'll find out.

Texas Tech's Defensive Coordinator has resigned for "personal reasons" following last night's loss to Oklahoma State. I guess when your offense scores 45 points and you still lose, someone's head has to roll.

ESPN Story

If Tech can find a quality DC, they can be scary good. Will be interesting to see if Leach searches out for a bigger hire after the season or if he'll stick with the interim DC.

Dan Hawkins gets his signature win at CU with a 27-24 win over OU

Colorado deserves alot of credit...they hung around and put away OU in the second half. Congrats to the Buffs...

On a related note, I have decided to burn my OU flag in the front yard at sunset as a symbolic gesture of my disgust with OU's consisent inconsistency in football over the past 5 years.

Just joking...actually I'm going to burn it at sunset atop the 50th street bridge over I-235 here in OKC so more people will see it!

has the big 12 north caught up to the south? they've certainly made some inroads. tough day for the sooners and my horns. next saturday's matchup has lost a lot of its luster.

the horns have been overrated all year, imo. i DID think the sooners were the real deal, however.

I think Colorado and Kansas State have recharged and caught back up with the Big 12 south, at least this week. That's this big problem for the Big 12 in my opinion: there is just no consistency amongst the teams, which is going to make it really interesting come bowl season. I will be curious to see where all the teams are in a month.

Nice to see big wins for CU and K-State....

It'll be interesting to see how the season shakes out. Based on the way the teams have played up to this point, my Huskers could finish 5th in the Big XII North. And the Big XII North could turn out to be the much better half of the conference, top to bottom, than the South.

And to OKC -- can we please get our athletic directors together so that Nebraska - Oklahoma is an annual Thanksgiving weekend game? There are many things I dislike about the Big XII, but the thing I hate most is that the OU-NU rivalry disappeared. I know realistically it won't happen, but playing Colorado just isn't the same.

A big win today for the Jayhawks, who beat the Wildcats 30-24 in Manhattan. I didn't see the entire game, but what I saw was extremely exciting. Both teams played well. KU is now 5-0 for the first time since 1995, I believe. Maybe the days when KU football was a joke are coming to an end.

GO HAWKS!

And what about Missouri defeating Nebraska? That was a huge win too.

Probably a much bigger win, actually. Mizzou didn't just win, they won BIG. I think that game may have ultimately introduced the conference to the winner of the north division.

Iowa State gets to host Texas Saturday. Will be head coach Gene Chizik's (Cheez-It) time to face his old team from last year. Like most games we'll play this season, it won't be pretty. Pretty ugly, maybe, but not pretty. After the big step back they took last week against Tech, I'm not expecting much. Then again, I said Iowa would hand our asses to us on a platter and look what happened there...

Didn't get to see any of the game, but really happy that KU football is on the upswing...gave a little jab to all my K-State friends down here...

The Horns are 0-2 in conference for the 1st time in like 50 years...and my Aggies are 2-0 in the lead right now (who in the hell woulda thunk that??? ). Even though we don't have a snowball's chance of winning the Big 12 South, it's nice to see the Ags win their first 2 conference games, unlike those crappy Horns in Austin. HAHA!!

Ah, good times. Looks like Bevo took a big crap...all over that TX football team!!!

Looks like ISU was just what the doctor ordered for UT - a nice 56-3 pasting that might get them back on track. It looked like the upper deck was pretty well cleared out by the third quarter - or the students just never came back after halftime.

Nebraska got blown out again for the second week in a row - at HOME, no less. They've been outscored something like 86-20 in their last two games. Wow. Couple more games like that and Callahan can start getting his resume' ready.

...and KU rolls to another big win against an inferior opponent...
KU doesn't play OU this year, so a pretty major bowl bid could be in the cards for them...

They may play OU in the conference championship.

KU continues to march onward with a victory over CU Saturday in Boulder, which should convince the naysayers that the Jayhawks are for real this year. After 20 years of enduring lackluster or worse football teams, the tide is beginning to turn for us KU fans.

The skeptical side of me is still wondering if and when this "miracle" will continue, but the rest of me is just enjoying the ride as long as it lasts.

This has to be the end for Bill Callihan. I, honestly, don't see how he makes it through another week after this Kansas game!

Iowa St. now has a pulse, in the last few weeks taking OU to the edge, hanging with Mizzou, and now beating K-State.

After bottoming out against Texas, ISU has seen measurable improvement each week since. I thought they would cough it up today in the second half, but they held on and claimed the first Big 12 win for Gene Chizik. They kept the mistakes that cost them against OU and Mizzou to a minimum this time around. K-State is heading in the wrong direction, but ISU is really starting to look like they've turned the corner.

It may still be a year or two before you see us in a bowl game again, but it might not be too long before you see us in a bowl game that actually matters. THAT would be a first for Iowa State!

Oh yeah, and Kansas absolutely CRUSHED Nebraska 76-39. Some interesting stats: KU scored touchdowns on TEN CONSECUTIVE possessions during this game. Nebraska has now lost five in a row for the first time since 1958. The 76 points scored against Nebraska is the most ever in 117 years of football in Lincoln.

Iowa State managed to give Coach Chizik his first winning streak, beating Colorado today on senior day in Ames 31-28.

Nebraska must've been pissed after coughing up 76 points to Kansas last week because they hung 73 on Kansas State today. Kansas won at OSU to go to 10-0, their best start now since 1899. Missouri also managed to win against A&M setting up a really good game between KU and MU at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City on the 24th - but they (KU) have to get through us first (insert laugh here).

I wonder if this was the first time a team has allowed 70 or more points and then scored 70 or more points in back to back weeks?

Someone get Elias Sports Bureau on the line...

I'm looking forward to the KU/MU game tonight, but unfortunately, I've got a date at 7:30 p.m. (The game starts at about 7.) So I'll have to be content with sneak peeks at the game (we're meeting at the local sports bar) and a day-after account in the Wichita paper.

Go KU!!!

A discouraging night Saturday, as KU fell to Missouri 36-28. KU looked terrible in the first half and didn't really get going till late in the second half. Still, the Jayhawks mounted a great comeback and almost made it.

It's depressing to lose to Missouri, of all teams, after going unbeaten for so many weeks. I'm still proud of the Jayhawks, however, and pleased and astonished that they had such a successful season.

A bad weekend for the Jayhawks, but an awesome holiday for my Aggies. They beat the Longhorns again AND got rid of that dead weight, Franchione...what a great combo!!!

Got to see the second half of the KU/Mizzou game. Was pulling for KU (which I loathe in basketball, but like in football just because they've sucked nearly as bad as Iowa State for so long - it's nice to see them do well for a change) and thought they had a real chance to do it at the end there.

The Jayhawks should still go somewhere warm for their bowl game - if not have the chance to be invited to a BCS bowl if either MU or OU gets blown out of the water by the other. They didn't fall all that far in the rankings, so maybe there is a chance (?).

KU's season gives me hope that if they can do it (as KSU did years ago also), so can ISU in a few years. I mean, who woulda thought the Cyclones could win 9 games in 2000 under McCarney (or any year, for that matter)?

I was impressed at how Mizzou played. Although a lot of college football pundits are now flip flopping & piling on the Jayhawks, I still think they're a great team.

And although the score got out of hand at certain points in the game, I thought it & the atmosphere was electric. I know the series is set to return to KC next year. They should keep it there.

Matt,

Are you optimistic re: Chizik?

I know it's probably too early to tell, but do you think he's an improvement over McCarney?

Heck yeah, I'm optimistic. IMO, I think Chizik is a HUGE improvement over Coach Mac. I don't remember ever seeing and ISU football team actually improve over the course of the season. They either started hot and faded as they season went on or started out like crap and continued that way or got worse.

The first half of this season, you could tell the team was floundering. Not everyone was buying into what Chizik wanted and it showed on the field. The bottom fell out during the Texas game when we lost 56-3 or whatever, but then a miracle happened - they learned from their mistakes and improved each of the next three weeks.

After Texas, ISU played OU and lost 17-7. Had it not been for dumb mistakes we made (interception in the end zone, another in the red zone and a missed field goal), we might have actually won that game. The next week we played Missouri and managed to score 28 points on them and again, were in it until the 4th quarter when mistakes cost us and Mizzou capitalized on them. Then we played Kansas State and looked like a team on a mission. We got up on them big early and held them off in the second half for the first conference win of the year. Then we managed to get another win by beating Colorado, which had beaten OU. The game against Kansas was sort of and odd duck, since we looked terrible and couldn't get anything going at all, managing only one touchdown.

I don't know if it will be next season or the season after, but I think Chizik will be able to get ISU to the place were McCarney couldn't - able to be competitive with the big boys of the conference (UT, OU, etc.). Mac never had that killer instinct to be able to put teams away when ISU was in the lead and never once beat an honestly good team. He might have been a "great guy" as nearly everyone has said, and he certainly raised ISU football well above the level where it had been before, but the improvements stopped once we reached the middle of the pack. You gotta aim higher than that and between AD Pollard and Chizik, we should get there. Like I said above, if Kansas can win 11 in a row, why not us?

If Kansas can schedule 11 cupcakes in a row, why can't Iowa State? ;-)

Exactly - except the trick is that we would actually have to BEAT them.

For once, I actually watched an entire college football game (It helped that my date didn't show up that night) and was reluctantly impressed with MU's domination of KU. However, I will defend my Jayhawks by saying they made it a game in the second half and came damn close to mounting a successful comeback. I think if the game had lasted another 15-20 minutes, they would have tied it up.

Regardless of the criticisms of KU's easy schedule, etc., I still think the 'Hawks had an amazing season given their previous history of bad football teams. I hope it bodes well for the future.

Also in defense of Kansas, they didn't have a say in OU and UT not being on their conference schedule this year. It's just the way the rotation happened. Every team in the north gets a break at some point by not having to play the top southern teams. Regardless of how "easy" the schedule was, most schools do not run through 11 games without a loss - even the best teams get tripped up and embarrassed from time to time by someone they have NO business losing to (Michigan, anyone?).

Thought Mizzou would give OU a better game than they did last night. So after all the kudos and props to the north teams for having such an amazing season, it's Oklahoma who gets the Big 12 title anyway. It was fun while it lasted. Congrats to OU.

Why couldn't Missouri have beaten Oklahoma just this once? And they lost by a larger margin than they had the first time. Oh well.

Working on getting Orange Bowl tickets to see KU play in person. Might have to sit with Va Tech alum, but it'd be worth it to see the Hawks play in person for the first time in over 20 years....

My ticket source came thru for me, so I'll be going to the game. Sitting with a bunch of Va Tech alum, but that's ok....
Any other Jayhawks or Hokies going to the game??

http://archive.columbiatribune.com/2007/de...1217news005.asp

I take it getting tickets to the Orange Bowl wasn't a problem...

wow...what a shock coming from the Colombia Tribune....don't think there might be an AGENDA there, do you????

Have fun in Dallas!!!

Hahahah...Still, figured it would be worth the read ;-)

...and frankly, Mizzou should have been playing in the Rose Bowl over Illinois....the Illini are the ones the really messed it up for the Tigers...I thought KU and Mizzou both deserved BCS games this year....Illinois should be playing in Dallas this year....

Congrats to Kansas, which beat Virginia Tech 24-21 tonight. Thought they might cough it up, but they held on. I think I saw my cheerleader there also!...

Your cheerleader?

Yeah, I'd talked about him last year under the women's basketball thread. Just a KU cheerleader who's so my type, it's not even funny.

Link to said cheerleader's pic please?

Seconded!

Had a great time at the game...KU really impressed me with the way they played...
A bit cold, tho, for my standards...