Kansas City, Mo. ? Any questions?

Any doubt who has the best football team in the Big 12 Conference now — if ever there were any to begin with?

Oklahoma seemed to have earned the Big 12 trophy long before Saturday’s 42-3 slaughter of Colorado at Arrowhead Stadium. The Sooners’ unbeaten mark against Big 12 South teams should’ve been enough to wrap this puppy up weeks ago.

As a result, Saturday’s Big 12 championship game seemed nothing more than a stage for the Sooners to show the Bowl Championship Series and a national television audience who’s big, bad and belonging in next month’s national-championship game — the Orange Bowl in Miami.

Case closed, according to the Sooners.

OU will learn its fate at 4 p.m. today, when the final BCS standings are unveiled. But they do know, now, that they did all they could to stay among the top two teams in the nation, posting a 12-0 regular-season record, with all of three close games among the dozen.

Saturday’s game certainly wasn’t one of the three.

“There’s no question our team’s embarrassed by our performance,” Colorado coach Gary Barnett said. “We were inept at best.”

The Sooners never once balked at a chance to pop CU in the mouth, and it snowballed to a 28-0 halftime lead, thanks to 100 yards rushing from freshman sensation Adrian Peterson and three touchdown passes by reigning Heisman Trophy winner Jason White.

Like most teams lining up against OU in 2004, the Buffalos were clueless in stopping the Sooner stampede. Once again, Oklahoma’s run-pass combination was too lethal for the opposing defense to handle, with White throwing pinpoint completions when CU expected the run and Peterson breaking to the outside for big gains when the Buffaloes rushed the quarterback.

Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops, center, Dan Cody, back left, and Jammal Brown hold up the Big 12 championship trophy. OU beat Colorado, 42-3, Saturday in Kansas City, Mo.

The statistics backed up Saturday’s dominance: Peterson finished with 172 yards rushing, White finished with 254 yards passing, and Colorado finished with just 46 yards of total offense.

“To play this way defensively was so impressive,” OU coach Bob Stoops said. “The guys were so sound.”

Fittingly, CU’s only source of scoring came from its most reliable weapon — strong-legged kicker Mason Crosby, who had an easy 34-yard field goal in the third quarter to make it 35-3.

It only motivated the Sooners, though. OU answered with a seven-play, 66-yard drive capped by a 32-yard Peterson touchdown run, in which the freshman broke numerous tackles and dragged a Buffalo into the end zone.

That was enough. Oklahoma fans — about 90 percent of the 62,130 in attendance — showered the field with oranges after the Sooners went up 42-3, a message of confidence caught by television cameras and broadcast nationwide.

It’s unlikely the BCS standings will disagree. Of Oklahoma, USC and Auburn, two will play in Miami on Jan. 4, and Oklahoma was the only one to win convincingly Saturday. The Sooners already were ranked second in the standings heading into the drubbing.

Afterward, several OU players were seen gripping oranges tightly, and a few of them took a bite to see what the fuss was all about.

It was just what they expected.

“It tasted great,” Peterson said with a smile. “Real sweet.”