Stoops doesn't like Big 12 divisions

John Shinn

For the third straight season, the Big 12 Conference is being dominated by the South division. Monday, OU coach Bob Stoops said it might be time to get off the North-South set up.

“It would probably be great, throwing out the Big 12 championship game and play everybody like the Big Ten does, or the Pac-10, play an extra conference game and get away from the divisions,” he said on the Big 12 coaches conference call.

The response was brought on by questions about the South’s superiority over the North again this season. Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech and Baylor have gone a combined 13-3 against teams from the North.

The Longhorns (No. 4), the Sooners (No. 18) and the Aggies (No. 21) are the only teams currently ranked in the Associated Press Top 25.

Only three North teams (Nebraska, Missouri and Kansas State) have winning records. In the South, every team but one (Baylor) has more wins than losses.

Stoops said he’s never viewed the conference as being split.

He sees a 12-team league where others view it as two six-team divisions.

“I don’t segment the conference like everyone else. I don’t think any of us (coaches) do,” he said. “There’s good players and good coaches in both divisions. We look at it as one big league.”

One perceived benefit of eliminating the division set would be to allow OU and Nebraska to renew their long-standing rivalry. The two teams dominated the old Big Eight Conference for the latter part of the 20th century. But since the Big 12 began in 1996, they’ve only met six times and aren’t scheduled to play again until 2008.

“I think those are the kinds of things we have that we would be able to have each and every year,” he said. “It’s been diluted now that we only play every couple of years. I don’t know how fair it would be, but that’s the way it is. It seems like we have more rivals than everybody else.”

Currently the division teams each play each other and alternate playing three teams from the other every two years.

You’d think the Bears would be the one team anxious to get away from having to play OU, Texas and Texas A&M every year.

But Baylor coach Guy Morriss strongly disagrees with the idea of breaking up the divisions.

“They knew it when they got in the conference what the competition was going to be like,” Morriss said. “I don’t see it as unfair. For us, I see it that we’ve got to catch up to those guys.”



Tough week for Kelly

OU receiver Malcolm Kelly went through a difficult time last week due to the death of his grandfather, Alphonso Smith.

Kelly left Norman Thursday to be with his family in Longview, Texas, and planned to miss the Missouri game to attend the funeral.

“I talked to my grandma and she told me how he was looking forward to watching me play in that game,” Kelly said.

Kelly was OU’s leading receiver with four catches for 40 yards, but didn’t do much celebrating afterwards.

“It really hit me after the game because that was the time the funeral was going on.”



Wait and see

OU is still waiting to find out what time its Nov. 11 game against Texas Tech will kick off. ABC has invoked its third and final six-day selection for the 2006 season.

That means Sooner fans will not know until Saturday or Sunday the starting time for the final home game of the season.

The game has three potential starting times. If ABC selects the game, it will begin at either 2:30 p.m., or 7 p.m. If ABC passes on the game, it will be picked up by FSN and start at 6 p.m.

ABC will choose between the OU-Tech game and the Texas A&M-Nebraska game. The game not selected by ABC will go to FSN.

John Shinn366-3536jshinn@normantranscript.com