Who would have seen the incredible ride of the Big 12 South coming this year? Texas started with OU and has ended up with Tech for a Saturday night mano a mano shootout. This will be the third time College Gameday has followed the Horns on the road to a BCS Championship and the first time to see Gameday in Lubbock. Graham Harrell vs. Colt McCoy - high flying and high scoring. Matt Williams, the accidental kicker who's living every college guy's dream life.

Who do you think will win and why? Is this the end of Texas' road to the BCS Championship? Is the Big 12 South overrated?

Damn this Texas Tech team is so fun to watch. And the defense(yes Texas Tech's defense) is playing terrific football so far.

Texas managed to roar back but what an amazing ending! It'l be really interesting to see where Texas Tech is ranked this week. Texas and Georgia both lost. You have to assume Alabama and Penn State will be 1-2 but do the pollsters put Tech at 3 ahead of Oklahoma and USC? Tech won't have time to relax as they have Oklahoma State come to town and then travel to Oklahoma.

Tech will penalized, because they are not OU, UT, USC, michigan, etc. Those types of schools always get more votes for number 1....
Great win for Tech last night!

Boy, that was a fun game to watch. Right now, Texas Tech looks like a more complete team than Penn State or Alabama, but I'm sure both those teams will come out above them in the rankings this week.

I have no doubt that Penn State and Alabama will be ranked ahead of Tech but will the pollsters be bold enough to put them ahead of 1 loss "name" programs like Oklahoma, USC and Florida? We'll see in a few minutes!

The USA Today poll is out and Texas Tech is indeed #3 with 6 first place votes and only 28 points behind Penn State. But this is something I hate about these polls. Oklahoma actually got a #1 vote. Didn't they lose to texas who lost to Texas Tech? Yeah Oklahoma is great and may well beat Tech on 11/22 but at this moment how do they get a #1 vote?

Edited to add...the AP poll has Texas Tech at #2 just 3 points ahead of Penn State. Tech got 12 first place votes while Penn State got 6. Florida is #4 and received the only other #1 vote.

Holy shit! That was the most riveting game that I have seen this season. Excellent ending. I was on the edge of my seat the entire last quarter.

Saw the new polls this morning. Someone please explain to me how Texas drops below Florida. Both have one loss. Texas lost to an undefeated team on the road by a last second score (not to mention Texas had the game won if its DB simply holds on to the easiest interception he'll ever have). Florida lost at home to an unranked Ole Miss team.

That's a great question. I don't understand the love affair with the Gators. I don't agree with the mentality that it's better to lose a game early in the season rather than late. It really shouldn't matter when you lose. But it should matter to whom you lose and where you lose. Texas Tech is better than Ole Miss. And Texas lost on the road while Florida lost at home.

That Texas-Texas Tech game was incredible... definitely the best game so far this season if you ask me.

I have finally recovered from the Texas-Texas Tech game and know the Horns were beaten by a better team. Heck, great game, great comeback, great catch. How can you get any better than that? Texas is finally at the end of their 4 game run of top 10 teams and the last one finally did them in. You gotta hand it to a team that had to play that kind of ball for four games in a row.

Now Tech is at the beginning of their hard run. OSU is in Lubbock but OU will be in Norman. I hope they endure it. It would be great to see them in the National Championship game. It would be such a shame to see Penn State make it in without having to play a conference championship.

What's up with that crap? Big 10 and Pac 10 get a clue and join the rest of the nation in deciding your top team. Quit skating on your lame system.

I would argue that it's "skating" not to have to play all the other teams in your conference. Round-robin is a fairer way to determine a regular-season champion than a divisional system with a championship game. Ask USC how easy it has been to get through their round-robin Pac 10 schedule every year.

Remember Colorado in 2005? The Buffs made it to the Big 12 championship, where they were destroyed 70-3 by Texas, without having to play Texas Tech or Oklahoma, the #2 and #3 teams in the conference and both in the top 25 at the end of the year. Talk about a "lame system."

Conference championship games can add a tough game at the end of the year, but that's often NOT the case and it typically comes at the expense of one or more "lost" tough games during the regular season. The only reason these add-on pre-bowl bowls even exist is $$$$$.

So you are making the argument against a playoff system at the end of the season. Besides Big 10 teams don't even play all the teams in their conference anyway. So how do you reconcile the true winner of the conference? The Pac 10's a different story but who else is there really in the Pac 10 besides a few good teams?

Regarding the championship games it's the only way to determine a champion when you have 12 teams in a conference. Oh, and 2005? Wasn't that the year Texas won the National Championship? Oh yea, it was wasn't it.

I didn't make any reference to inter-conference competition or a D-I playoff system. That can of worms is not relevant to this discussion.


I agree, the Big 10/11 does not have a true round-robin structure and they should. Things could have gotten sticky in 06 when Wisconsin didn't have to play Ohio State.


Nice Pac-10 bash, but that's irrelevant to this discussion.


Not any more. When the extra game was added a couple years ago, teams easily could have used that slot to add a conference game and move to round-robin.


Good for them. That doesn't mean Colorado was better or more deserving than Texas Tech or Oklahoma.

The fact is that the fairest, most intuitive, most obvious way to determine the best team among a finite group is for each one to play all the others. Conference championship games exist not for the sake of fairness or competition, but for money. I don't know why you are defending them.

Actually having each one play all the others still leaves uncertainty in the air when teams tie in records. Even though there are a gazillion tie-breaking scenarios does it really tell who was the better team? Championship games are the first aspect of a playoff system so that's why I made the reference.

The real bottom line is that the entire football championship system is screwed up badly and means we'll never have anything closely resembling a fair system. We'll always have these debates and we'll always feel our team is getting shafted.

It's going to be VERY interesting to see how Penn State ends up throughout the rest of the season in the BCS. Texas actually can't benefit very much any more since the Horns have played the toughest part of their schedule. OU could vault past Texas since they have Tech and OSU ahead in their schedule. The BCS could provide for some very interesting discussions in the coming weeks.

Leach is quite a character and I've been watching his Texas Tech teams for years down here.

It's nice to see the rest of the nation discover what we've known about down in these parts for a while now.

Can we just say that Texas Tech had the holy CRAP beat out of them by the sooners last night??????


I mean... the score was something like 58-7 in the third quarter!!!


Aby talk about this offense (QB and receiver) and this team being the best in college-ball is stopped right now. The Red Raiders couldn't get anything going. The Sooners were basically scoring at will.

This puts Texas in quite the pickle. If OU loses, then TT has the tiebreaker--but if OU wins, they are almost sure to jump to #2 in the BCS. Maybe it's divine retribution for Mack Brown's pathetic politicking for a spot in the 2005 Rose Bowl.

Maybe. I also wonder that if Texas beats the heck out of A&M and OU squeaks by OSU if Texas will retain their slot in the BCS. It will also depend on the polls, more specifically the Harris poll. Yes, the lobbying has begun. Texas is making the case called 45-35, the score of the win over OU.