With a big assist from unranked Iowa, the Big 12 has stacked the deck in the race to place one of its teams in college football’s Big Game.

No one should have been smiling more broadly Sunday than commissioner Dan Beebe when the latest BCS standings were released, showing the Big 12 holding three of the top five spots. Texas Tech (10-0) continues to lead the charge, at No. 2 in the BCS, with Texas (9-1) lurking at No. 3 and Oklahoma (9-1) perched at No. 5.

Rounding out the top five are the two teams destined to meet in the Southeastern Conference title game, No. 1 Alabama (10-0) and No. 4 Florida (8-1). What this means to college football fans is that, barring some serious meltdowns by frontrunners against lesser teams in remaining regular-season games, the dream matchup of the 2008 season – Big 12 champion vs. SEC champion – should unfold Jan. 8 in Miami, with the winner claiming a national championship.

As long as one of the Big 12’s Big Three – Tech, Texas or Oklahoma – runs the table the rest of the way, that team should play the Alabama-Florida winner for the BCS’ crystal football. The humongous gap in the latest BCS average between No. 5 Oklahoma (.844) and No. 6 Southern California (.790) confirms that because the Trojans’ soft closing stretch is not conducive to playing catch-up in the computer rankings, the area where USC lags behind the Big 12 trio.

Bottom line: Sunday’s standings, for all practical purposes, limit the national title race to the top five teams, barring stunning upsets. From Beebe’s standpoint, the Big 12 even has a pair of mulligans to spend in pursuit of a berth in the Big Game, if necessary.

That much became clear when Iowa (6-4), a middle-of-the-pack team in the marginal Big Ten, removed the last significant impediment standing between the Big 12’s best team and a berth in the BCS title game. Iowa took down Penn State, 24-23, on Saturday, ending the Nittany Lions’ hopes for an undefeated record and dropping Penn State (9-1) to eighth in the latest BCS standings.

With Penn State and USC safely in the rearview mirror, the path is clear for the best team from this season’s best league, the Big 12, to have its moment in Miami. Now comes the hard part: identifying that school.

The standings point to Tech, which is 10-0 for the first time in 70 years. History favors Oklahoma, which has won five of the last eight league championships. But the only contender without a meat-grinder game remaining on its schedule is Texas, which beat OU and lost to Tech.

Tech and Oklahoma are idle this week before hooking up Nov. 22 in Norman, Okla. In Tech’s football history, the Red Raiders never have beaten Texas and Oklahoma in the same season. Tech’s last victory in Norman came in 1996, three years before the arrival of current OU coach Bob Stoops. None of that matters to Tech quarterback Graham Harrell, a Heisman Trophy candidate who threw for 456 yards and six touchdowns in Saturday’s 56-20 rout of then-No. 8 Oklahoma State.

“We feel like we’re good enough to beat any team in the country,” Harrell said. “But we’ve got to continue to improve.”

As of Monday, the Big 12’s Big Three all harbor legitimate national title hopes. But only Tech controls its destiny.