Big XII North vs. South

One of my favorite times of the year is fast approaching. The beginning of College Football will soon be here. The Big XII is having their media days this week and the 2009 season kicks off 5 weeks from this Thursday. The conference enters its 14th season since it began in 1996. I thought I would take a look back at its brief history and compare the North and South divisions and how they have compared against one another and as a whole as well.

The perception in recent seasons is that the South is superior to the North and that is certainly the case. The two divisions play a total of 18 regular season games against one another on a two year home and home rotating schedule. There is of course a conference championship game as well at the end of the regular season. The South leads the all time regular season 132-102. The first two years of conference play 1996 and 1997 had the North with a 12-6 advantage each year, since that time they have only won the season series twice and those were by a 10-8 margin. The South has dominated of late as they have won the season series 6 of the last 7 years and two of those including last year was by a whopping 15-3 margin.

Things don't get much better for the North regarding the conference title game either. The South holds a 9-4 advantage with a current five game win streak in that annual game. The conference championship has to this point been dominated by seven of the twelve league members as far as participants are concerned. Oklahoma almost owns it going 6-1. Nebraska and Texas have each gone 2-2, Colorado was North champ in four out of five years stand 1-3, followed by Kansas State 1-2, Texas A&M 1-1 and Missouri representing the North the last two years stands at 0-2.

The conference can be proud that is has been in six of the eleven BCS championship games since the Bowl Chanpionship Series began in 1998. Oklahoma and Texas have each won that game once with Nebraska being the other team to play in it from the Big XII. The conference is 6-9 overall in BCS bowl games. The Big XII stands 45-47 in all bowl games since their conference inception in 1996.

At the end of last season ESPN rated an historic top 25 based on a multitude of data and accomplishments since 1936 which was the first season of the AP poll. The Big XII was well represented placing five teams in the overall top 25. Colorado was tied for 22nd, Texas A&M was 20th, Texas finished 7th, Nebraska 5th and Oklahoma finished as the number one team in historical context.

Early thoughts 2009 BIGXII Football season

The Texas Longhorns last season put together a real media blitz trying to convince voters in the polls to put them ahead of the Oklahoma Sooners. This of course failed in the end but some in the media lapped up everything that the Longhorns fed them, so to some degree it must be considered a success. In looking back it was something of an embarrassment to Texas and their fans. It took on the feel of a political campaign that just focuses on the same talking point over and over again. 45-35 ad nauseam. Any mention of a 3 way tie or losing to Texas Tech and the minions returned to the familiar refrain. The thing is if the South somehow ends in another tie in 2009 we could witness it all over again. With Texas coming out on the short end.



The biggest reason this year is the same as last, that being strength of schedule for 2009. This season may be worse as the Longhorns have a non-conference schedule that would make Bill Snyder blush. Home games against Louisiana-Monroe, UTEP and UCF along with a visit to Wyoming make up the pillow soft out of conference. None of these teams went to a bowl last year or even had a .500 mark among them. It is not like you even have a traditional power in a down era here. If you want to edge out the others in this BCS era you have to schedule better than this. If your goal is playing in BCS bowl games year in and year out you have to have a better SOS if you expect to have any chance of getting an advantage over other similar programs and ultimately to the title game. It also makes for more excitement for we the fans when quality programs face off in September.



Oklahoma State opens against Georgia. An intriguing matchup and follows with 3 teams that had a combined 29-10 record last season. Oklahoma opens with last years 10-3 BYU at Jerry Jones new football palace in Arlington. They travel to the University of Miami along with home games against 11-3 Tulsa and cream puff Idaho State. The Sooners, Longhorns and Cowboys appear to be the cream of the South this year.



In the North most prognosticators are talking about Kansas and Nebraska as being the 2 teams to watch for. Phil Steele is the only one to this point to mention Kansas State. I think there is merit to including the Wildcats in the talk of the North. There are 2 reasons for this. The first being the return of Bill Snyder. I don't care if he is 100 years old. Until he falls flat I am willing to give him all respect just based on what he did in his first tenure in Manhattan. The man and his teams simply work harder than everybody else. Second reason just take a look at the Wildcats schedule for 2009. Yes Kansas State has 2 road out of conference games and one of them is against a UCLA squad that Bill Snyder generally would not want on his schedule. But this is a down time for UCLA and if Coach Snyder can pull off some return magic and start 3-1 or 4-0 who knows what that momentum could mean for the Wildcats. The conference schedule has 3 likely losses but the other 5 are certainly within reason for wins.



The Jayhawks have a cupcake out of conference but a brutal league schedule. They should be 5-0 after the 4 cupcakes and opening with Iowa State at home. Then it gets really difficult. Home games are Oklahoma and Nebraska. Visits to Colorado, Texas Tech, Kansas State and Texas before closing against Missouri in KC. Hard to argue against any number of losses in conference for KU. Nebraska deserves credit for traveling to Virginia Tech in one those September out of conference meetings that we all look forward to. They should be 3-1 worst case scenario going into league play. The conference opener at Missouri should tell a lot about how the North will shake out for Nebraska. They do get Oklahoma, Texas Tech, and Kansas State at home which helps. Visits to KU and Colorado at the end will be tough. It is hard to imagine Missouri being in the thick of the North after all of the talent they lost last year to graduation. But this is the North and I would not count them out completely. Gary Pinkel has strung together some good recruiting classes. The Tigers out of conference is not particularly difficult, the opener in St Louis to Illinois being the one of note. The conference opener against Nebraska in Columbia will tell us if Missouri can compete for the North again this year. No Oklahoma on the conference schedule which should be something of a relief as the Sooners have been something of a boogieman for the Tigers in recent years.