Last week, I tried to make sense of a mess of unexpected results in the Big 12 Conference. After this weekend, it’s a bit clearer. This much, I know:1. Texas is the undisputed best team in the country right now. Earlier in the week, UT coach Mack Brown said he didn’t think the Longhorns should be ranked No. 1 after beating OU. Hmm. What about now, coach? Alabama and Penn State are ranked second and third, respectively. Alabama’s key wins? At then-No. 3 Georgia (now No. 9) and at then-No. 9 Clemson (now unranked). Penn State’s key wins? …(crickets) …. (crickets) … OK, _ maybe_ vs. then-No. 22 Illinois, but the Fighting Illini are presently unranked. Let’s see what Penn State does Saturday at Ohio State.Texas’ key wins? Oklahoma (then-No. 1) at a neutral site in Dallas and Missouri (then-No. 11) at home. It doesn’t take a BCS system computing square roots or whatever the heck it computes to figure out who the clear-cut No. 1 is right now.2. Texas quarterback Colt McCoy is the front-runner for the Heisman Trophy. This is rather indisputable as well. There’s not a more efficient quarterback in the country. McCoy is completing 81.2 percent of his passes – and it’s not like Texas runs all the time, either. How does 29-of-32 for 337 yards and two passing TD’s vs. Missouri sound? Second on the Heisman ballot is probably Oklahoma’s Sam Bradford and we all know what happened at Red River.3. So much for the Big 12 North division catching up to the South this season. Before the season, I really thought it’d be possible. I have no problem admitting I was off. OK, way off. The South is 7-1 against the North this season. The North’s two best teams just got rocked in Norman and Austin. Colorado and Nebraska are not progressing at the rate I thought. Iowa State and Kansas State are, well…not good. Did anyone put themselves through that Colorado-Kansas State game Saturday night? Painful.The first week of the BCS rankings were released Sunday afternoon. Let the numerous cries for a playoff continue. Here’s the Top 10: 1. Texas 2. Alabama 3. Penn State 4. Oklahoma 5. USC 6. Oklahoma State 7. Georgia 8. Texas Tech 9. Ohio State 10. Florida 15. Missouri 23. Kansas Four in the top 10 – not bad for national title hopes, unless everyone beats up on each other.Now onto regularly-scheduled blogging: Here are the week 8 awards:Performer of the week: Sam Bradford, Oklahoma When in the name of Bob Stoops and Brent Venables did Oklahoma turn into Texas Tech? Kansas went wild for 491 total yards on a weakened Sooners defense. It’s not often you see a line like Dezmon Briscoe’s (12 catches, 269 yards, 2 TD’s) against Oklahoma. Bradford bailed Oklahoma’s defense out with a school-record 468 passing yards and three TD’s. OU’s defense must improve. Most significant win of the week: Texas 56, Missouri 31 The game wasn’t even as close as the score indicated, as the Longhorns jumped out to a 35-0 lead in the first half. Texas converted 10 of 12 third downs in the game. I think that can be paralleled to McCoy’s precision and accuracy from the pocket. This was important for Texas to prove to the nation that the Oklahoma victory was no one-week fluke.This also goes back to what I said in [last week’s blog][1] about Kansas representing the North in the Big 12 Championship game. It’s still very possible. Forget about the loss to Oklahoma, which improved to 58-2 at home under Stoops. That was relatively expected. The Jayhawks are still 2-1 in conference play, with everyone else in the North at 1-2 and Iowa State at 0-3.Biggest surprise of the week: Texas A&M leading Texas Tech at the half Overall, not many surprises last weekend, but this one was scary for a while in College Station, Texas, with the Aggies clinging to a 23-20 halftime lead.Now onto the Sorrentino Scale for the grand finale. The number that follows in parenthesis is what place the team was ranked last week.1 (1). Texas (7-0): Showdown city next Saturday: Oklahoma State at Texas. 2 (3). Oklahoma State (7-0): Playing better defense than OU and TTU. 3 (4). Texas Tech (7-0): Any guesses on what the over/under in Lawrence will be this weekend? 4 (2). Oklahoma (6-1): Defense a huge concern if it wants to contend for a national title. 5 (6). Kansas (5-2): See Oklahoma and change “national title” to “Big 12 North title.” 6 (5). Missouri (5-2): What the heck happened in Austin? 7 (7). Nebraska (4-3): Should carry momentum at home vs. Baylor. 8 (8). Colorado (4-3): Freshman QB Tyler Hansen providing spark with red-shirt removed. 9 (9). Baylor (3-4): Have lost three of four. 10 (10). Kansas State (4-3): 3-of-15 on third downs vs. Colorado. 11 (11). Iowa State (2-5): Struggling. 12 (12). Texas A&M (2-5): Struggling mightily.Random shout-out of the week: Jin Shan Buffet This may be the most underrated Chinese buffet around. It’s out on East 23rd St. as you’re heading out of town approaching K-10 East. Very affordable and better quality food than any other Chinese buffet, except maybe Jade Mongolian Barbecue.That’s all for now, friends. As always, discuss.