The New Big 12-2: How Does It Stack Up?

With USC and Michigan down it does not appear that we are materially different than those two conferences.

I also think by doubling TV revenue for a couple of the borderline schools (Kansas, Missouri) that it might make someone more competitive than they are now.

A&M needs to stop sucking donkey balls and get with the fucking program.

Good grief. Every conference is full of patsies. This is not the NFL where things are designed to make sure the top teams change from year to year and that most teams barely break even.

The patsies are there so that two or three of the same top teams have a reasonable chance to go undefeated every few years and play in the MNC game.

Playing a bunch of “marquee” regular season games every year is not what this is all about and it is not likely to change in your life times.

Get over it.

How much is this going to change now that everyone gets to play UT and OU every year instead of having the A&M, Baylor,and OSU salad years two out of four years? Didn’t the brief golden age of KU and Mizzou on 07 & 08 coincide with them not play us, OU, and Tech?

What would those teams ranks have looked like with this new round robin format?

- The league has managed 7 Top 10 finishes over the last five years with Texas responsible for 4 of them. The other eleven teams contributed 3 (Missouri 1, Kansas 1, OU 1).

If yer data set is correct, that should be 8 Top 10 finishes with OU having 2 of them.

It implies to me that the excitement surrounding the Pac 16 move wasn’t so much driven by the jump in football competition, since USC was pulling most of their weight – and in an exceedingly dirty way to boot.

Rather, the excitement was more of a perceptually driven situation – most everyone was happy about trading smallish midwestern cities for West Coast destinations with more style, and the upgrade in academic association.

Not exactly a merger of equals, but arguably one of two parties with reasonably compatible strengths and weaknesses. Definitely not a “we’re saving your asses” deal.

Guess you missed the Spring Game.

How could Oklahoma’s final ranking in 2008 be 8th? I’m not an apologist of OU in any way, but in my opinion they played as well as Florida did in that national championship game. So whether if they belonged in the game or not to begin with it seems a little weird that they’d be ranked so low…

How far back would you have to go to find the last aggie team to finish ranked in the top 25? I’m setting the over/under at 10 years.

How could Oklahoma’s final ranking in 2008 be 8th?

They actually finished 5th.

Didn’t the brief golden age of KU and Mizzou on 07 & 08 coincide with them not play us, OU, and Tech?

mu played both TTech and OU (twice) that year.

“They actually finished 5th.”

Scipio cookin’ the books.

1999 — 20th in the Coaches poll

I’m thinking that this arrangement won’t last very long, but if it does the best way of sussing out what it will be like for the Longhorns in this conference is to recall the history of the Big-8. For NU and OU, a couple of dicey contests a year and the potential to get frozen out of the big game owing to an easy schedule.

In the early 1980s NU tried to fix this by playing in a some Kickoff Classic games in the Meadowlands. If this conference sticks together, UT and Oklahoma may wind up needing to schedule a difficult early game in order to gain the pollsters’ respect. This isn’t the safe play, of course, but it will be hard to compare the new Big 12 to the SEC and say that UT and OU haven’t had an easier time of it.

On a Pac-10 note, the new president at Oregon (UT’s former Dean of Liberal Arts) is making noises about reining in athletics there. He doesn’t joke around, so I’d guess that the Ducks are on their way down.

Waiting for Huck to slide in and and tell Scipio to leave the stats to the professionals.

Has anyone read this article by Clay Travis
Senior NCAA Writer

This is what he wrote about Texas, the dude has some issues and pent up fustration about Texas. We didn’t ask anyone to stay or leave we did what was best for us, and fuck the SEC everyone knows we would have beat Bama if Colt would not have gotten injured, and what fucking program would UT be scared of in the Pac 10.

Clay Travis wrote:

Conference realignment died because the Texas football program is made up of cowards who are aware that the Longhorns program can’t compete at the top levels of the SEC or the Pac-10. That’s what your takeaway from the past two weeks of conference realignment really needs to be. Yep, the state that values masculine swagger more than any other in the nation features a top football program that is yella.

All hat, no cattle.

The Longhorns had offers to move on to compete with top echelon talent in the SEC and the Pac-10. Instead, like recalcitrant female cattle, they balked, choosing to remain in a weakened Big 12 that is minus two of the traditional powers in the league.

How bad is Texas’ schedule now even with a round-robin nine-game slate to come in 2012? It’s likely the Longhorns will have one top 25 conference game a season, the annual Texas-Oklahoma tussle in October. Meaning Texas will try and back door its way into the BCS title game each season by avoiding challenges rather than competing with the best in college football.

If Sam Houston had known the cowardice of the Longhorns in 2010, he would have forgotten the Alamo.

What’s more, while Texas is a coward in the larger universe of college football, the Longhorns are a bully in their own conference, the equivalent of a mob boss extracting loyalty payments from the five weakest members. Why did Texas (along with Oklahoma and Texas A&M) take a larger share of contractual payouts owed by Colorado and Nebraska for leaving the conference?

Because it could.

But that’s how bullies always behave, right?

Share They beat up on the weak and then get their asses kicked or turn tail when someone steps to them. Ask Colt McCoy and Texas about that. The Longhorns quarterback threw for 4 billion yards in his career against the sisters of the poor defenses in the Big 12. He lasted for less than a full quarter against an SEC defense. Yep, the SEC and the Pac-10 would have been the barbed wire to Texas’ BCS title dreams.
Full Expansion Coverage

• Pac-10 Invites Utah
• Where Things Stand
• Maryland Was Never Leaving
• Big East Thanks Big 12
• Big 12 Basketball Improves
• Travis: Texas-Sized Cowards
• Ciskie: Figuring Big Ten Divisions
• Texas Stays Home
• Dan Beebe Teleconference
• Small Schools Still Wanting More
• Texas-Sized TV Network?
• Nebraska Joins Big Ten
• Colorado to Pac-10
• Boise State to Mountain West

And that’s what the Longhorns feared more than anything. Once it joined the SEC or the Pac-10, Texas is just another program, packing a six-shooter with no bullets. Waving that gun around in the air and yelling ain’t scaring away Marcell Dareus on the blitz. He’s calling your bluff and slapping you with your own empty gun. People might start to realize that for all the swagger, the Longhorns have just one national title in the past 39 years, nearly two generations of failing to capture the ultimate prize. They might also realize that most years, Texas can’t even get past Oklahoma, the overrated team you’ve last seen being stomped by whatever opponent the Sooners draw in the BCS games, title or otherwise.

That’s because when it comes to Texas football, the perception of success is much greater than the reality of success. Hell, give Texas credit though, at least it’s the best of a bad lot. What can you say for Oklahoma or Texas A&M? Two ostensible rival schools that had the opportunity to prove they could stand on their own in the new world order of college athletics and instead hid behind Texas’ skirt. In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare wrote during his famous balcony scene, “It is the East and Juliet is the sun!” If the bard dove into the mess that is the Big 12, he could adopt the same phraseology, “It is the Big 12 and Texas is the sun!”

Because never in the history of college athletics has one program so dominated the puny conference sisters it surrounds itself with. Texas is not just the sun, but the moon and the stars, while the rest of the teams in the conference are its piddling orbiting satellites. It’s only a matter of time, one would think, before the Longhorns demand the gate for games they play on the other school’s campus.

That’s what mob bosses do, they take and take and take until someone kills them.

You think anyone in the Big 12 has the stones to step to Texas?

Hell no.

And if you’ve cast your conference lot with a program that doubles as the sun, moon and stars, it might be worth asking how you ever compete with that school. Do you think Texas is ever losing a recruit to a program that voluntarily turned over its millions so you could continue to be extorted in the future? Does the mob boss have a smaller house than the poor schmuck he takes down for more money? Those are rhetorical questions. And there’s your answer right there, every other school in the conference has no desire to be number one. They’re just comfortable basking in the penumbra of Texas’ exaggerated greatness.

Of course, the ultimate irony of this entire mess is that the joke is on all college football fans. All of us, the poor sots who tramp to our respective campuses each week in an effort to determine the best team in the nation. Because we’ve actually created a BCS system that encourages bullying cowardice like Texas’. Instead of forcing the best to compete and crowning a champion on the field by rewarding the two best teams, we’ve created a system where avoiding challenges and beating up on weaker programs gives you an automatic invite to the BCS title game.

How else to explain Texas and Oklahoma appearing in six BCS title games between them and racking up a bully-like 2-4 record with an average margin of defeat of more than 18 points in those games? Texas isn’t just a coward, it is gaming the system, rigging the results to allow them a position it can’t earn on the field.

In the end we’re left with only one conclusion: Deep in the heart of Texas lives a football program of cowards.

Time for a new burnt orange slogan:

Hook ’em … unless you can run and hide from ’em.

On a Pac-10 note, the new president at Oregon (UT’s former Dean of Liberal Arts) is making noises about reining in athletics there. He doesn’t joke around, so I’d guess that the Ducks are on their way down.

He obviously hasn’t had a heart-to-heart with Phil Knight yet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NCAA_Division_I_football_win-loss_records

Traditionally, the SEC has 7 of the top 25 winningest programs of all time which is extremely strong. Not to mention tough and pesky regular season outs in Ole Miss and South Carolina.

The Big 10 has 4 of the 25 winningest programss of all time and they all reside in the top 10. On top of that Wisconsin, Iowa, and Michigan State are all teams that play tough year in and year out. Northwestern, Purdue (Joe Tiller exception), Indiana aren’t going to scare anyone long term. Minn used to be successful. I can’t understand why Illinois isn’t successful with their recruiting base.

Pac 10 has 4 of the 10. Oregon has achieved great success recently because of state of the art facilities and Wash is s sleeping giant as is Arizona State. UCLA should be ashamed of their constant underachievement.

ACC has 2 of the top 25. However, recent powers Miami and Florida State increases the conference’s potential as does UNC with Butch Davis manning the helm and their facilities. The conference also has Clemson and few others with potential.

Big 12 has 3 of the top 25 and is top heavy with TX and OU. A&M should be embarrased that they are not a fixture in the top 20. Tech has found recent success and they should also feel good about coach Tubs. Mizzou actually has potential with it’s recruiting base; one which Neb successfully exploited during it’s heyday. It must improve facilities and start winning consistently. It’s also one decent road trip in the conference.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_football_stadiums_by_capacity#Current_list

Big 10 has 6 of the top 25 stadiums by capacity with Iowa just on the outside. SEC has 8, Big 12 has 3 with Mizzouri just on the outside, Pac 10 has 5, ACC has 3 although Miami plays in a professional football stadium.

http://www.collegefootballpoll.com/champions_national.html
  

It’s obvious the Big Ten and SEC are the two best conferences. The current Big 12 is probably on par with the Pac 10 but doesn’t share the same potential as the either the Pac 10 or ACC due to college towns, size of stadiums and if some teams regain former glory that was achieved in the past. The Big 12 outside of A&M and possibly Mizzou doesn’t possess teams that have the infrastructure in place to win a National Title. I’m not saying it’s impossible but it’s pretty damn hard.

It’s been rehashed in the past but because of all the reasons listed above the conference has some serious questions about its viability that both the ACC and Pac 10 don’t share.

In reference to your Nebraska ranking percentage 20% comment, fourth bullet under BigIIXII weaknesses, isn’t that (2) of 5 years or 40% which would raise the average? I understand you included Colorado in the calculation but why take a swing an Nebraska after all they pulled their weight even during their down years. Anyone this they are only ranked 2 of the next 5 years? I don’t think the BigTen is that strong.

Clay Travis is auditioning for a sports talk radio gig and probably loves the NFL.

I don’t know how anyone could make it through that entire “article”.

Interesting stuff. Not sure what it all means. I think it shows what I’ve suspected all along, that population, venues, national appeal aside, the Big12-2 really isn’t as weak relatively as everyone wants to think it is. I would suspect the numbers from the ACC and the Big East would pale in comparison.

At worst it is the 4th best league of the 6 BCS conferences. At best it is probably ahead of the Pac 10 with USC’s coming downturn. That is why I don’t get the handwringing over how weak our schedule will be. Maybe I’m missing something?

Juno,

You obviously missed the bowl season. The Big 10 flexed its muscles.

Also, nice job, Scipio. I know football is driving this train, but I’d like to see something like this with basketball.

“The patsies are there so that two or three of the same top teams have a reasonable chance to go undefeated every few years and play in the MNC game.”

Really BBixby? No offense but that is just dumb.

Oh how the world would be different if not for two shitty running calls by Greg Davis. The 2006 KSU QB sneek was absurd (I put more blame on Mack for not just kicking the FG) and the option play against ’Bama was totally unnecessary.

KU hiring Turner Gill needs to turn out to be a great thing.

I don’t care about OkStU’s actual performance in these metrics if they keep getting it done with mirrors on the perception plane.

The Big 12 is ~ 13-10 in the last 3 bowl seasons. It is imperative to stay better than .500 for perception’s sake.

There is going to be a lot of preseason pub directed toward A&M this Fall (winning the South, J. Johnson, etc). An interesting dynamic of the season will be how well they meet those national-level expectations. A&M is sure to have a short-term impact on the perception scale.

So the Big XII, with Colorado and Nebraska, actually was weaker than the Big 10 and Pac 10: 20%, 36%, and 34.5% finished ranked over the last five years, respectively. But, by adding via subtraction, the Big XII loses deadweight and looks more competitive: 34%, 36&, and 34.5%. However, since Colorado and Nebraska have traditions, they are more likely to improve than all of the new Big XII’s also-rans, with the possible exception of amu.

So, the numbers are better, but the intangibles bode ill for the future. Is that it?

dasj, you are not very bright.

There has never been nor ever will be a viable conference made up of super powers. Without the patsies, no one goes undefeated in the regular season.

Who in the hell is Clay Travis and why should I care about his torn vulva?

One doesn’t need to play super powers every week to significantly upgrade a crappy schedule. Can we not play LaLa, Florida Atlantic, North Texas et al and replace them with someone with a pulse?

What blues said plus one traditional power that makes for fun home and home. tOSU trip was one the better experiences I’ve had following Longhorn football.

The loss of Nebraska hurt the league’s prestige and perception. We will see how the conference holds up in the future and what sort of beating it takes in the media.

Part of what I don’t get…

Before this past year, the Big Ten had been a joke in the bowl season. I remember at various point hearing the talking heads mention how much the Big Ten needed Ohio State and such to win in their bowl games.

Maybe it’s that 2 month long period in between their final games and the bowl season. Maybe it’s just Ohio State getting blown the fuck out in consecutive years.

Perhaps this is all cyclical but citing this past bowl season seems to be the exception rather than the norm for Big Ten football. I’d say Nebraska is no different in that regard.

Nebraska and Colorado out, lots of articles about the “Texas conference” (leaving aside the extremity of Travis, an SEC blogger playing to a specific audience), Brown’s publicized comments about an easier path to a BCS MNC game without a conference championship game….

Put it all together, and the post-non-expansion rhetoric is beginning to harden into something a little dangerous — a one-team league, a rigged league, a league that’s seeking less competition, not more. I’m not agreeing with this growing chatter, but if it continues, it could turn into a chorus.

I see where Scipio is going with this. Time to counterpunch .

The perception of conference is strength is driven by the Big Boys. You can argue the merits of Missouri vs. Arizona St vs. Purdue vs. South Carolina, but the Big Boys are going to beat them 90% +of the time, so no one cares.

The Mack-10 now has only two teams that have been the top ten in wins over the last 10 years. Over the last 20 years, A&M squeezes in at #20.

Some pretty important comparisons that might help flesh out this study: (1) Big 12-2 to Big 12 (i.e. w/NU and CU vs. w/o) and (2) Big 12-2 to SEC.

One victory that is clear from this thread:

scribd > huckleberry’s freehand HTML.

Now let’s see a table on the SEC.

Old Time -
 
Thanks for the correction. Fixed. Also please swap OU 2007 and 2008 rankings. Net effect is the same, obviously.
 
Levander -
 
More exciting venues, yes. But also we were dropping perpetual dregs in Baylor, K State, Iowa St etc. It’s also my belief that Washington, A&M, Arizona St, UCLA have much better upsides than most of the Big 12.
 
parlin -
 
I’m thinking the same thing as srr50. He and Phil Knight will have an interesting chat. Oregon’s issue is actually more along the lines of thug recruiting. They need to cut that shit out.
 
GroundHog Day -
 
Yes. Yes to all.
 
juno -
 
We lost those two teams. If you resent having Nebraska getting lumped in with Colorado, you’ll have to play better football and stop losing 70-10 to people. Nebraska didn’t pull its weight at all, other than selling out its own stadium. It played bad football, provided few television sets, and embraced a welfare agenda that would make Che Guevara blush.
 
spider -
 
Yes, you nailed it. If I gave you cards to play, would you rather have UCLA, Arizona St and Washington in your hand or Kansas, Oklahoma St, and Kansas St?
 
Hector -
 
The Big 10 has had 11 Top 10 finishes over the last five years to the Big 12’s 8. However, ask the man on the street who plays better football over the last half decade and most say the Big 12. Kind of interesting. Demonstrates the hold that Texas and OU have as well as how Ohio State’s publicized losses hurt their rep.
 
Perceptions -
 
Right. I’ve embraced our new reality. Now we need to make sure our non-con scheduling reflects enough national interest and risk such that we can build up our bona fides so we’re not left out in the rain. An extended home and home with Notre Dame is a good start.
 
Brick -
 
I think Spider covered the former with the data I provided. I’ll do the SEC chart when I get the chance.

Scip,
Can you run and post the numbers for the SEC as a yardstick?

Clay Travis posts on this board as Bill Bixby.

Updated with SEC data. Very interesting stuff.

No ACC? They always seem to have a lot of teams ranked 15-25.

Very nice, Scipio. This basically reinforces what we already know, people don’t like us and will demand a solid OOC schedule if want to go to the MNC.

I’m glad that from here on out our non-con schedule isn’t as embarrassing as it has been. It’s still not great, but UCLA is a name with some history at least. It’s likely they simply look better with USC getting the NCAA equivalent of mono for the next couple of years. They’ll be back, but hopefully UCLA looks good for the years we play ’em. Cal and Minnesota are upgrades over Wyoming and Rice too.

I wouldn’t mind seeing us schedule a big one like USC typically does, but that’s as a fan. Mack needs to identify the perennially overrated teams (VT, Clemson, etc.) and schedule them for a big non-con game to begin every year and ride it to a MNC. Strategery may get us to the MNC yet…

Laughing at The Incredible Sulk telling someone else to “Get over it.”

I haven’t read all the comments so forgive me if this is a repeat. I think the problem with much of the analysis going on is that much of it is short sighted. Seriously, what would the Big 12 have looked like if you did the same analysis in ‘94? You’d be recognizing that NU/CU were on top of the college football world, KSU/Kansas were up an comers (all 4 finished Top 10 in ’95) and UT/OU were wandering in the college football abyss.

Any analysis needs to take long term view. I think you hit on the key word: “potential”. How do you define “potential”? I’d start by looking at the all-time wins list. That more than any other metric shows that over the long haul teams have been successful. Sure, UT/OU were down in ‘94 when the initial B12 was formed but there was a VERY high likelihood that they’d rebound. Unless college football has fundamentally changed (i.e. Post-WWII) schools in the top 10 wins WILL rebound. Michigan and Nebraska fall into the same situation as UT/OU in ’94. As we saw with the latter two, simply getting the “right” coach in place can pull back a historical powerhouse fairly briskly.

Should…no, when those two rebound what will the B10 look like then? That’s where some claiming the B12-lite is strong are completely missing the point. Of the remaining B12-lite schools who has that potential? A&M is probably the closest but even they don’t remotely approach the historical success of schools like Michigan. No, the B12-lite is now a 2-team league with limited potential for adding a 3rd leg in the conference.

Bottom line, we’ll be second only to the SEC if TTub does ok and Our Friends in the Brazos Mudhole finally get their act together.

P16 would be preferable, but give us a +3 playoff after the bowls and I think this can work.

seattlehusker – to somewhat respond to your concern, here are my uninformed forecasts for the remaining Big 12 teams (in no particular order):

1. Texas – will maintain the status quo of consistent Top 5-15 finishes for the foreseeable future. Mack will retire within the next 5 years, but the longterm effects of his moving on will not start to show for another 3-4 years.

2. OU – the Sooners will likely fall into a more stable role as the conference’s #2 team behind Texas. OU’s recruiting has slipped in recent years compared to the program’s heyday in the early 2000’s, but it will be good enough to challenge Texas and take 40% of the conference titles.

3. Texas A&M – three are no signs of a significant turn-around for the Aggies. Their recruiting is lousy, and their coaching is inconsistent at best. But the loss of Nebraska and Colorado raises their intraconference status by default. I expect the Ags to compete for 3rd place on a fairly regular basis, but to generally languish between 4th and 7th place in conference.

4. Tech – this may be the hardest program to evaluate at the moment. Tuberville’s a proven coach, but he’s a fish out of water in the Big 12 generally and Lubbock specifically. Tub’s a defensive-minded coach, but Tech has a horrible track record of recruiting defensive talent. If he plans to win by counting on his defense to dominate and compensate for his trademark SEC-style clunker of an offense, the Raiders will find themselves in a world of hurt.

5. OSU – I see the Pokes competing with the Ags for 3rd in conference, with the occasional opportunity to unseat either Texas or OU for 2nd place. But OSU is in constant peril of losing its coaching staff to more appealing programs, so it’s difficult to project their future prospects for success.

6. Mizzou – The Tigers have a history of mild success in spurts. I don’t expect that to change. Mizzou will challenge for the conference title once or twice every decade, and spend the other seasons bouncing between doormat and mediocre status.

7. Kansas State – I don’t think Bill Snyder is the answer in the modern game. He is a master of the 90’s-era defense. But so was Carl Reese. And recruiting will be more difficult now. With Colorado and NU bolting for greener pastures, K-State has little remaining appeal-by-association.

8. Kansas – Perennial doormat.

9. Iowa State – See Kansas, only worse.

10. Baylor – Briles is a good coach, and I generally think that Baylor more than any other team will benefit from the ineptitude of K-State, Tech and (to some degree) Aggy.

In sum, I don’t see the conference getting better. Texas and OU will nearly always find their way into the Top 25. That’s especially true now that their conference schedule will prove easier. The teams most likely to join them are OSU, A&M, Mizzou and Baylor, but among these schools, only Baylor shows clear promise of improving relative to the entire D1 field. Tech is a wildcard, and it depends on how adaptive Tuberville proves to be.

Burnt Orange Wookiee reminds me of a soapbox I haven’t gotten up on in some time.

Best OOC strategy for national attention (as opposed to recruiting, which is why UCLA was added) would be:

- take the biggest names, regardless of recent performance
- from the coldest climates in the north

Watch those storied, northern programs wilt in the September sun for half of that home and home, then soak up the press attention. Repeat.

You want good pub about your OOC? Give those silly sportswriters a chance to mail in their lame-assed content, blathering about “tradition” for weeks on end. Garbage in garbage out means feed them their favorite swill.

At least once a season, the OOC schedule should include one of the following:

Washington
Oregon
Iowa
Minnesota
Wisconsin
Notre Dame
Michigan
Ohio St.
Penn St.

Second tier: less “tradition” payoff, but still good press opportunities:

Oregon St.
Boise State
Utah
Colorado (!)
Nebraska (!!!)
Boston College

Right away, you can see why this won’t happen on a regular basis. No one wants to give the Big-10 recruting opportunities in Texas.

But I can dream, can’t I? The Ohio State series was epic, and Wisky is coming up soon.

That Clay Travis dude is pretty funny… I don’t watch American Idol, so I didn’t get to see him on that… Too bad, sounds like a real hoot. One of those guys who gets his panties all up in a wad and can’t even keep the ‘facts’ of his story factually correct.

So we’re cowards, bullies, mob bosses and pussies… and I’m pretty sure he believes injuries are a sign of moral weakness. Are we sure he’s not an Aggie?

My favorite is when he proves his Texas history bona fides by referencing Sam Houston, but then misses the straight-up parallel to the Runaway Scrape. Where Houston bought himself time and ignored dumbasses like Clay muttering about his cowardice, until it was the right time and place and he pulled the trigger and remade the landscape. Of course, if somehow a decade from now this remade Big 12-2 is still an ongoing concern, and we’re still stuck in it, then please disregard this whole paragraph as it obviously wasn’t quite the comparison I thought it was…

spider – are we scheduled to play Wisconsin in the future? I don’t see them on the schedule. Only decent names I see are UCLA, BYU, Ole Miss, Minnesota and Cal, all between 2010 and 2015. There are still at least 5 open OOC spots during that time period.

Horncasting:

Gack, I meant Minnesota.

Whiskey was just my liver talking.

meant schedule between 2010 and 2016

My favorite is when he proves his Texas history bona fides by referencing Sam Houston …

If William B. Travis had read that butthurt bitchery, he’d yank his rail out of every trim ’till he died to make sure Clay and his whole subsequent family line were Jackson Pollocked on the stucco.

Just in case.

CloseToJumping posts as a bitter old barker that has had his dreams of football glory in distant lands totally crushed by some really smart people in Belmont.

CloseToJumping would readily concede that Texas giving his like scholarships is a quick recipe for 4-8.
 
However, Bill Bixby, you should stick to one name.

“Texas is the dominant power in the league, Oklahoma 2nd, Texas Tech a clear, surprising 3rd.”

That should only be surprising to people who don’t watch Big 12 football. Go back 10 years and the story is the same. Go the full 15 years of Big 12 play & Tech has the 3rd most total wins. Mack Brown is rightfully proud of his streak of 10 win seasons at UT. Here are the total football wins for Texas Tech over the last 8 years:

9,8,8,9,8,9,11,9

That might not be top 10 material, but it isn’t far back. It’s also consistent as Hell. Mike Leach should be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame for winning so consistently with recruiting classes ranked well below Texas A&M and even Oklahoma State, never mind the top 10 classes garnered by Oklahoma & UT.