Monday, September 8, 2008

Big 12 perfect 12-for-12, but so what?

By Associated Press

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Dallas — So the Big 12 went 12-for-12 this past weekend, a first in the league's 13 seasons. Sounds great.

But what does it really mean?

Not much, considering that's what it was supposed to do. After all, 11 foes were from non-BCS conferences, and the only legitimate opponent, Cincinnati of the Big East, had the misfortune of playing at Oklahoma.

Thus, give credit to the schedule-makers for doing a heck of a job, including the four that dipped into the Championship Subdivision for competition.

And give a few light pats on the back to the coaches and players for taking care of business - like Kansas shutting out Louisiana Tech, Baylor flexing some muscle against lowly Northwestern State and Texas handling a wild atmosphere on the road against Texas-El Paso.

"We passed the test," said Longhorns quarterback Colt McCoy, whose team faced a Sun Bowl record crowd of 53,415, the culmination of two years of hype summed up in a popular T-shirt that read: "New Brand of Texas Football" and "09-06-08: Where will you be?"

Sunday, the conference got more good news with some minor improvement in the national ratings.

The Sooners moved up a spot to No. 3, Texas moved up two spots to No. 8 and Kansas moved up a notch to No. 13. Missouri remained sixth and Texas Tech stayed at No. 12. All told, that's five of the top 13. (The SEC, by the way, has five of the top 11.)

Texas A&M and Texas Tech were the only Big 12 teams on the road.

Playing New Mexico in Albuquerque, N.M., A&M made slapstick mistakes like wasted timeouts, too many guys on the field and only one first down in the third quarter.

And Tech's defense gave up a whopping 488 yards to Nevada, but managed a 35-19 victory.

Comments

plasticJHawk (anonymous) says...

Texas' game against UTEP was pretty much a road game. I don't know what the fan breakdown was, but El Paso is El Paso.

September 8, 2008 at 8:10 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

KU (anonymous) says...

The UT/UTEP game had to be mostly UT fans because all the illegal aliens in El Paso were at the soccer game instead.

September 8, 2008 at 8:56 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

BigTamale (anonymous) says...

KU...

Is your Minuteman Patrol shift over yet on the Rio Grande?

I bet you're borderline racist aren't you?

September 8, 2008 at 10:06 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

number1jayhawker (anonymous) says...

Btamale, please turn your sarcasm meter on. :-)

September 8, 2008 at 10:22 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

justanotherfan (anonymous) says...

I watched the UT/UTEP game on Saturday night. The crowd was probably 75% UTEP fans, and they were pretty loud early on, until Texas jumped out to a quick lead.

Hopefully the Big XII shows up strong again this weekend. Besides KU's game at USF, Texas has Arkansas. Wins in both of those games would put the Big XII a leg up on the Big East and even with the SEC.

September 8, 2008 at 10:43 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

BigTamale (anonymous) says...

number1

Its monday...I apologize. There...the sarcasasm meter light is "on". :-)

September 8, 2008 at 11:19 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

rockchalk_dpu (anonymous) says...

I hope that you meant the Big Ten when you mentioned the Big East. This is not basketball season and the Big East really has no clout in football.

September 8, 2008 at 11:19 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

JayViking (anonymous) says...

By "you" do you mean the Associated Press?

September 8, 2008 at 1:06 p.m. ( | suggest removal )