Woodling: Big 12 North up for grabs
While whiling away the dog days of August, many a Big 12 Conference football aficionado utilized the idle time by trying to guess which league games would be televised each Saturday during the season.
For example, in studying this Saturday’s conference slate last summer, the armchair pundits surely would have discarded Iowa State at Baylor and probably Colorado at Texas A&M, although any game involving a Texas school cannot easily be dismissed because the Lone Star State has more television sets than jackrabbits.
Two games appeared to be locks — Nebraska at Kansas State and Texas at Texas Tech, with NU at K-State likely for the more lucrative 2:30 p.m. ABC slot. The third TV assignment seemed most likely go to either Kansas at Oklahoma or Oklahoma State at Missouri.
Well, you know how it turned out. Who would have believed the Nebraska-Kansas State game would not be televised for the first time since 1992? And who would have guessed that Oklahoma State-Missouri would be chosen over Texas-Texas Tech for the prime ABC offering?
Then again, who could have known that not a single member of the north division would be ranked in the Top 25 midway through the season?
So unremarkable is the Big 12 North that every one of the six teams still has a legitimate shot at representing the division in the Big 12 championship game Dec. 4 at Arrowhead Stadium because a 5-3 record very well could be good enough.
Kansas State and Iowa State would have to win out to do it while Kansas and Colorado would have to capture four of their last five. Both scenarios are possible, but not probable. At the same time, both Nebraska and Missouri need three more wins to reach 5-3.
One thing is certain. Nobody in the Big 12 North has to fasten seat belts because nobody is in the driver’s seat.
Speaking of driving, how would you like to be tooling down the road in a spiffy “We Whacked Woodling” T-shirt? You can win one if you outguess me in the weekly “Wanna Whack Woodling?” contest at KUsports.com. Go to that Web site, follow the prompts and, in order to break ties, pick the score of the Kansas-Oklahoma game.
X-Factor Week 7: OU 78, KU 33