Des Moines, Iowa ? If Gary Barnett is right, it’s no wonder the South has been so dominant in Big 12 Conference football.

While some shrug it off as merely the cyclical nature of the sport, the Colorado coach thinks the teams in the South have a head start.

“I don’t think there’s any question the resources, the traditions of those programs are such that it pays off,” Barnett said Monday. “We all go to Texas to recruit. The resources and facilities there are second to none in the country, so they have all of that.”

Teams from the South have won 11 of the 14 games between the two divisions, with Baylor having all three losses. All of the Big 12 teams in the Top 25 are from the South — No. 2 Oklahoma, No. 8 Texas, No. 16 Texas A&M and No. 20 Oklahoma State.

North teams have won four of the eight Big 12 championship games, but the best record in that division this season is the 2-2 mark shared by Missouri and Nebraska.

Contrast that to the South, where Oklahoma and Texas A&M are 4-0, while Oklahoma State and Texas are 3-1.

Barnett said he thought some other factors were at work in the disparity. He said his program will always go in cycles and Nebraska is adjusting to new coach Bill Callahan and a different offensive system.

“Kansas State has been on such a high for so long, every once in a while you have a bump in the road. It’s going to cycle through,” Barnett said. “But I think there is a natural sort of advantage that exists in the South part of our league.”

Kansas coach Mark Mangino subscribes to the cycle theory. The Jayhawks are coming off a 41-10 loss to Oklahoma, but in their other game against a South team, they lost to Texas Tech 31-30 on a late touchdown.

“I’m not sure there is a scientific reason for it, frankly,” said Mangino, a former Oklahoma assistant. “It’s just things going in cycles.”

Kansas State coach Bill Snyder said the disparity tells him nothing other than what he always believed: From top to bottom, the Big 12 is as good as it gets.

“Even though the South has some very talented football teams, I think you see some of the scores between the North and South teams are very close,” Snyder said. “I think some of those ballgames could have gone either way.

“The records between the two divisions, will it remain that way? I have no way of knowing. The tide turns sooner or later.”

• Championship Implications: The Missouri-Nebraska winner Saturday in Lincoln, Neb., will have a leg up in the North race. Each team controls its own fate in that regard, and Missouri coach Gary Pinkel is reminding his players of that.

“I think that’s something you definitely do,” Pinkel said. “You have to look at what’s there. We’re fortunate to be in the situation we are, as Nebraska is. That’s a plus. We also have to play better.”

Pinkel didn’t feel the Tigers played their best on Saturday, when they blew a 17-0 lead and failed to score after halftime in a 20-17 loss to Oklahoma State.

“We did not play as well in the second half on offense or defense,” Pinkel said. “Give Oklahoma State some of the credit, but I’m responsible for that.”

MU has the more favorable schedule after Saturday. The Tigers get K-State and Kansas at home before finishing at Iowa State. Nebraska has to play at ISU and Oklahoma, then has a week off before playing host to Colorado.

• Score One For The BCS: Oklahoma’s last-minute touchdown pass in its rout of Kansas apparently gave the Sooners just what they wanted — a boost in the Bowl Championship Series standings.

Oklahoma moved from third to second in those standings on Monday, in part because its computer ranking improved from fifth to fourth.

The Sooners could have settled for a 34-10 victory over Kansas, but starting quarterback Jason White threw an 8-yard touchdown pass with 35 seconds left to make it 41-10. And yes, Stoops was thinking about the BCS.

“It’s just the way things are,” he said. “In all likelihood, when we were playing (Texas) Tech and were on the 1-yard line, we probably should have scored then.”

The Sooners allowed the clock to run out in that game, which they won 28-13.

“I like Mike Leach’s analogy,” Stoops said of the Tech coach. “In basketball if you’re up big you don’t start shooting airballs. In golf, you don’t start shanking drives and missing putts on purpose.

“As long as it’s within reason and you’re not running trick plays and doing things that are unnecessary — you never want to humiliate or embarrass anybody. I don’t think in either situation that was the case. We were just running our offense in the regular way.”

• BCS Part II: Stoops might be thinking about the BCS, but Texas coach Mack Brown insists that he isn’t.

Utah is sixth in the BCS standings, a position that would guarantee the Utes a spot in one of four big-money bowl games if they stay there.

Asked what that meant for his team, which is 10th, Brown replied, “There’s always so much talk about the BCS in the next six to eight weeks, and it’s always changing weekly. I think anybody talking about the BCS today is not coaching.”