Dallas ? The big game this week in the Big 12 Conference features Colorado and Iowa State battling to determine supremacy in the North division.

Yet even the loser still will be headed to a bowl game.

That’s not the case for Oklahoma vs. Texas A&M or any other conference game this weekend, all of which will feature at least one team clawing for the sixth win needed to earn a postseason berth.

“You look at our league right now, and there are four teams qualified for bowls — and nobody is unqualified,” Colorado coach Gary Barnett said Monday.

Linguistics aside, he’s right. Even Oklahoma State (3-5 overall, 0-5 Big 12) could make the postseason by winning its last three games.

The game Saturday in Norman between the Sooners and Aggies is the only one guaranteed of producing a sixth win.

Joining Oklahoma and A&M on the five-win bubble are Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska. The Sooners have three games left, while the others have two. For the Aggies, they have the challenge of trying to beat the Sooners and-or No. 2 Texas.

“I don’t think we sit around and dwell about it,” A&M coach Dennis Franchione said. “Everyone knows what we’re trying to do.”

Nebraska coach Bill Callahan arrives for his weekly news conference Tuesday in Lincoln, Neb. The Huskers will face a pivotal Big 12 North game today against Kansas State.

Kansas State and Baylor each have four wins. That means a 2-0 finish is a must to make the postseason.

There’s no stock attitude among coaches toward this fight to the finish. For instance, Missouri coach Gary Pinkel said his club knew what was at stake, so it was not worth talking about, while Baylor coach guy Morriss can’t stop talking about it.

Heck, Morriss’ team already has made progress simply by having a bowl berth to play for this late in the season. The Bears’ last postseason appearance was 1994, when his freshmen were in first grade.

“It would mean a lot to us as a program,” he said. “We talk about it all the time. At this particular point, I think it’s good to talk about it and keep them focused on that.”

Nebraska coach Bill Callahan noted that the best part of chasing six wins is that getting it means clinching a winning record. Last year, his first Cornhuskers squad went 5-6, marking the program’s first losing record since 1961.

“We’re really focused on a winning season,” Callahan said. “Anything with it is a bonus. … The way I see it is we have two ballgames left, and we’re going to put ourselves in position for that opportunity.”

For the programs that already are bowl eligible, the dangling carrot is getting to the best possible bowl. Texas can play in the very best one, the national-championship game, by winning out, but the North champion can prevent that and clinch a BCS berth for itself by knocking off the Longhorns in the league championship game.

A trip to San Diego for the Holiday Bowl and a spot in Dallas for the Cotton Bowl also are available to the best-of-the-rest finishers.

While Texas Tech coach Mike Leach prefers to “just try to win the next one, then after that just go where we end up,” Iowa State coach Dan McCarney knows it’s not that simple.

McCarney said 99 percent of this week would be spent preparing for Colorado, but he’ll use some of his free time to talk bowls with his new athletic director “to make sure we’re on the same page with some things because we all know there’s some posturing and positioning behind the scenes.”

“The exciting thing is we know we’re going somewhere,” he said. “I’ve said before, there’s no such thing as a bad bowl game.”

Colorado already has clinched a tie for the North title and can win it outright by beating Iowa State. A win by the Cyclones would put them in position to reach the league championship game if they can win their finale, too.

¢ Vote of confidence: Nebraska athletic director Steve Pederson is standing firmly behind coach Bill Callahan, the man he hired to return the program to excellence.

“I see progress in the program every day,” Pederson said. “What I see happening is this team and this program evolving, and I feel very good about the future of this program.”

The Huskers (5-4, 2-4) play Kansas State (4-5, 1-5) this week in Lincoln in a game that could determine who finishes last in the conference’s North Division.

A 40-15 loss to Kansas on Saturday ended Nebraska’s 36-year winning streak against the Jayhawks.

“I understand that its easy to measure everything by what happens on the scoreboard. That’s human nature,” Pederson said. “None of us like to lose games, but what I think we’ve tried to do is creating some positive momentum for this team and this program.

“So I believe absolutely in this coaching staff and players and what they’re doing,” Pederson said.

¢ Lopsided weekend: Congratulations to Kansas, Texas, Iowa State, Colorado and Texas Tech for producing one of the most lopsided Saturdays in Big 12 history. Those schools each won by at least 25 points last weekend, marking the first time in the league’s 10 seasons that there were five games decided by such a wide margin.

The only Saturday that comes close to matching it was Nov. 13, 1999, when six teams won by at least 21.

For the record, Kansas beat Nebraska by 25, Iowa State beat Kansas State by 28, Colorado beat Missouri by 29, Tech beat A&M by 39, and Texas beat Baylor by 62. That’s an average margin of 36.6 points per game.

¢ Consistently frustrating: From 1993-2003, consistency for Kansas State meant winning between nine and 11 games.

Now, the only thing they’re doing consistently is messing up.

The Wildcats have lost four straight games, doing so with a jumble of turnovers, penalties and other mistakes. The latest debacle was a 45-17 loss at Iowa State that featured more excruciating ways to combine those errors.

“We kind of repeated what has been our M.O. the last few weeks — slow start, catch up and give it away,” coach Bill Snyder said. “We’ve shot ourselves in both feet.”