Picking Missouri over Oklahoma, should the two meet again this season, remains a bridge too far. Kind of like ever picking Texas over Oklahoma used to be.
On paper, it might make sense, but everybody’s going to be wrong at least once before taking the other side.
So the Tigers have that to deal with. They may look like the best team in the Big 12. Objectively, they may be the best team. But to nail down their first conference championship since the Nixon Administration, one of two things must happen.
Somebody will have to blow Oklahoma out of the water on the way to the conference championship game or Missouri will have to do what it failed to do a year ago in San Antonio.
That’s the Tigers’ burden, an albatross around their neck. Yet at the same time, the resurgent Big 12 North has become the South’s cross to bear.
Missouri is really, really good. Kansas figures to be very good again with another cupcake non-conference schedule (though the Jayhawks’ conference slate is much tougher).
Nebraska should be on the upswing now that Bill Callahan (and the athletic director who hired him) has been chased out of Lincoln. Some folks think Colorado’s a northern sleeper. Kansas State and Iowa State have work to do.
It’s a solid division.
The programs have changed but it’s not unlike the Big 12 of yesteryear, when powerhouses reigned at Nebraska and Kansas State, Larry Smith had a decent thing going at Missouri and Colorado wasn’t terrible.
It makes the Big 12 tougher to navigate if you’re OU. Still, it’s just what the South’s best should want.
It can always go the wrong way. An upstart North squad can beat you. But it’s just as likely — and in the Sooners’ case, more likely — some other established southern foe will play the victim. Further, play in a conference this good and maybe one loss doesn’t have to kill.
Two losses didn’t kill LSU last season only because the Tigers played in the Southeastern Conference. And here everybody was saying an SEC team will never win a national championship because it’s just too tough.
Recall that very rare is the season two undefeated teams meet in the national championship game.
Just the same, when it comes to conference championship games, they less tend to be thorns in the side of unbeaten programs having to scratch out one more win than they tend to be a proving ground for a one- or even two-loss team wanting to show the nation what it’s really about.
Play out every scenario and you’d rather be a top-5 bunch of Sooners having to beat good teams every week than be Florida State in the old ACC or Miami in the old Big East or Texas A&M; in the not-yet-dead SWC.
Winning may be its own reward, but it’s nice to know, and nice knowing others know, just what it takes to win.
Asked about things he can’t possibly avoid like an end-of-season Bedlam matchup, a conference championship game offering little to gain, or an off-week arriving at the wrong time, Bob Stoops inevitably says, “I love it.”
Perhaps he will say it again in Kansas City when he takes his turn with the conference media Wednesday. Not one who frequently takes pleasure in the pleasure of his rivals, perhaps he won’t.
But he should.
A resurgent North makes for better Saturdays, a bigger national profile and a better chance to turn the season back around should the Texas State Fair become an unpleasant experience.
The very next Saturday, Oct. 18, Missouri is at Texas and Kansas is at OU. Everything could change all over again.
Who wouldn’t want to play in such a conference?
Clay Horning
366-3526
cfhorning@normantranscript.com
OU Sports
North catching up good news for Sooners
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