The battle for the Big 12 South is shaping up to be quite a doozy.
With four teams ranked in the Associated Press preseason poll released Saturday, the chase for the division title could come down to the last weekend of the season when Texas travels to Texas A&M the Friday after Thanksgiving.
The North? Well, let's just say respect has to be earned.
After last season's dismal showing and little faith among pollsters the North can produce a team to challenge for the league crown, no North teams are ranked in the AP preseason poll.
Texas tops the league at No. 2. It marks the Longhorns' highest preseason ranking since 1970. Texas also was ranked No. 2 entering the 1962 and 1965 seasons.
"We're really excited to be ranked second and feel like it shows great respect for our football program, the way we finished last year, and the number of guys we have coming back this year," Texas coach Mack Brown said. "We also understand that where you finish at the end of the year is important; where you finish at the first of the year is simply respect."
Oklahoma running back Adrian Peterson speaks to the media. Peterson, shown Aug. 5 in Norman, Okla., returns in 2005 as the leader of the Sooners' offense.
With Vince Young at quarterback behind a veteran offensive line, the Longhorns are early favorites to not only win their first Big 12 Conference title since 1996 but to earn another bid to the Rose Bowl, where they could meet defending national champion and preseason No. 1 Southern California.
Texas beat Michigan, 38-37, last season in the Rose Bowl. The Longhorns open the 2005 season Sept. 3 at home against Louisiana-Lafayette. After that, it's a showdown with No. 6 Ohio State on Sept. 10 in Columbus, Ohio.
Then comes the annual matchup with Oklahoma on Oct. 8 in Dallas. The Sooners have won five in a row over their hated rivals in a series that has all but determined the division crown since 2000. The only exception was in 2001, when the Sooners lost their last game of the season to hand the crown to the Longhorns.
After consecutive appearances - and losses - in the Bowl Championship Series title game, Oklahoma enters the season ranked No. 7.
Despite five straight victories over the Longhorns and the return of sensational sophomore tailback Adrian Peterson, too many questions at quarterback and too many new starters kept the Sooners from edging Texas in the rankings this time.
Texas A&M, which is counting on the third year of coach Dennis Franchione's rebuilding project to pay big dividends, starts the season at No. 17 despite last season's horrible finish with a 38-7 loss to Tennessee in the Cotton Bowl. The Aggies haven't won more than seven games in a season since 2001.
Texas Tech, which beat California in the Holiday Bowl last season, is No. 21 as coach Mike Leach searches for his latest record-breaking quarterback. That's a few notches lower than last season's finish at No. 18, the highest for the Red Raiders since 1976.
In the North, the division that dominated the early years of the Big 12 when Nebraska was a perennial power, three teams were in the "others receiving votes" category.
Defending division champ Colorado, Iowa State and Nebraska all picked up votes but were well short of enough to crack the rankings.
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