Not you, Mizzou

Missouri’s football team, 11-2 and Big 12 North champions, was passed over by the BCS and instead will go the Cotton Bowl in Dallas.

So did KU’s players feel sorry for Missouri at all?

“No,” linebacker Joe Mortensen said.

Mizzou certainly has reason to cry foul. It beat the Jayhawks, 36-28, just two weeks ago and was ranked sixth in the latest BCS standings to the Jayhawks’ eighth.

But the Tigers’ 38-17 loss to Oklahoma in Saturday’s Big 12 championship game probably damaged their resume enough to take them out of the picture – even though they beat Kansas to get that far.

“We had the opportunity to take one of the two one-loss teams that were available,” Orange Bowl CEO Eric Poms said. “With Oklahoma’s convincing victory, we thought that an 11-1 team would be very appealing, not only nationally but in the South Florida marketplace.”

A little history

The Jayhawks are playing in the Orange Bowl for the third time. Back when the bowl was affiliated with the Big Eight, Kansas played in the 1948 and 1969 editions.

The ’69 game was the classic “Twelfth Man Game,” a 15-14 Penn State victory that was made possible by a second-chance two-point conversion with 15 seconds left. That was because KU had too many players on the field.

Tastes good

KU junior defensive tackle James McClinton was asked what he did when athletic director Lew Perkins tossed him an orange Sunday.

“Want me to show you?” McClinton replied.

He then threw the orange up in the air, caught it, and took a giant bite out of it.

Already ‘dogs

Just hours after the bowl pairings were announced, the Mirage in Las Vegas opened Virginia Tech as a three-point favorite over Kansas.

Long-term plans

Kansas practiced Sunday, but will take the beginning of this week off before working Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

“After that, I haven’t worked anything out,” KU coach Mark Mangino said. “I just wanted to make sure where we were going.”