Big 12 Conference Week 3 awards

While I was working Saturday night, a buddy of mine sent me a text message. It read: “Haha, Auburn 3, Mississippi State 2. Final.”Surely, he was kidding. College baseball ended months ago, so this couldn’t be true. I checked the wire and there it was, in all its ugly glory: 3-2. Feel free to call it SEC smashmouth football or good defense. I’m simply calling it boring. If that’s a knock on the SEC, so be it, but a 35-yard field goal and a safety rounding out the scoring summary is in no way good football. In total, four fumbles and an interception is not good football. And Auburn’s ranked No. 9. Look, the SEC is loaded: Georgia, Florida, LSU, Auburn, Alabama (all in the top 11). That was just awful, that’s all.Onto the Big 12 winners and losers for Week 3. Performer of the week: Sam Bradford, Oklahoma The sophomore quarterback was a ridiculous 18-of-21 for 304 yards and five touchdowns. He also ran one in for the Sooners, which improved to 3-0. And how sweet must this one have been for OU coach Bob Stoops, who showed no mercy in OU’s 55-14 stomping of Washington. Why should he have shown mercy, though, after this horrid call from Pac-10 refs in 2006?Yeah, not so much in 2008. Give me Oklahoma against anyone in the country right now and I’m confident.Big 12 victory of the week: Baylor 45, Washington State 17 I know, it’s Baylor. But bear (no pun intended) with me for a second. Baylor is the alleged worst team in the Big 12, while Washington State is near the bottom in the Pac-10. This victory showed how much deeper the Big 12 is than the Pac-10. Furthermore, check out this cool feature by the Bleacher Report on how the Pac-10 is overrated. Tough third week for the west coasters, minus USC.A close second victory of the week had to be Missouri, which put up an insane 651 yards of total offense in its 69-17 drubbing of Nevada. If Missouri faced Auburn in the battle of the Tigers, I’m guessing the final wouldn’t be 3-2. OK, I’ll drop it. Surprise of the week: Three different Oklahoma State running backs rushing for at least 100 yards Granted, it was against Missouri State, but come on: Keith Toston 11 rushes for 148 yards and a TD; Beau Johnson 13 rushes for 138 yards and two TDs; and Kendall Hunter 11 rushes for 132 yards and two TDs. That’s more balance than any coach could ever dream of. It’s also interesting that Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy said an ideal number of rushes per game for the Cowboys would be in the low 40s. OSU rushed the ball 54 times on Saturday. This is an explosive offense.Random shout-out of the week: James Hetfield, lead singer of Metallica Thank you for this new album. It didn’t disappoint me like “St. Anger” did. Reminds me of a lot of old-school stuff that would appear on the albums “Master of Puppets” or “Ride the Lightning.” Thoughts on the best Metallica album ever? I’m going with “… And Justice for All.”That’s all for now, friends. As always, discuss.