KANSAS CITY, Mo.—The first weekend of conference action showed how dominant the ranked half of the Big 12 teams are compared to the unranked half.
Only the plucky Iowa State came close to pulling off a victory against a ranked squad. But No. 16 Kansas still won the game 35-33 by making one of the most stirring comebacks in school history.
Half the Big 12 was ranked in the Top 25, which is uncommon in its own right. But adding to the rareness was the fact that the ranked 50 percent found 100 percent success against the unranked this weekend.
Heading into the meat of the conference schedule, there is a clear divide between the Big 12’s haves and have-nots, between the frantically rebuilding and the already solidly built and—in one notable case—between the dazzling and the disintegrating.
Along with Iowa State, the rebuilders include Nebraska, crushed 52-17 by No. 3 Missouri, and Colorado, victimized 38-14 by No. 5 Texas.
Obviously improved but far from ready to take on a national championship contender is Baylor. The No. 1 Sooners of Bob Stoops’ Oklahoma did their part to set up this week’s titanic clash with Texas by dismantling the Bears 49-17 and coming to the doorstep of an unprecedented college football threshold.
No. 17 Oklahoma State, the only ranked team at home, had no trouble with Texas A&M. The Cowboys captured a 56-28 victory over a once-great program that’s just begun crawling out from under the mess left by Dennis Franchione.
And in an ominous sign for Kansas State coach Ron Prince, No. 7 Texas Tech got six touchdown passes from Graham Harrell and crushed the Wildcats 58-28 as fans streamed out of the stadium.
The Red Raiders’ third-year starter was ultra-impressive, distributing his passes to 10 different receivers behind a huge offensive line. He practically had enough time to write a term paper while knifing time after time into the porous secondary of what looks like the weakest Kansas State defense since the arrival of program savior Bill Snyder in the late 1980s.
The crowd at Bill Snyder Family Stadium was not a sellout and had thinned considerably by the end. Harrell threw for 454 yards and wiped out the school career record of Kliff Kingsbury. The nation’s leading offense rolled up 626 yards on the Big 12’s worst defense.
If they gave out an award this week to the Big 12’s most troubled coach, it would go to Prince. In his third year, critics are saying the program overall has plunged even deeper into mediocrity than when Snyder retired. It was the third consecutive game the Wildcats had allowed more than 500 yards, and Prince seemed to acknowledge his mounting problems right after the game that dropped him to 3-2 and 0-1 in the league.
“First of all, those folks who were there today, who came out and stayed, I appreciate that and I thank them,” he said. “This is a very challenging time for all of us and all that I can tell them is we will fight and compete and we will get this thing turned around.”
Now the spotlight shifts to Dallas and the renewal of the Texas-Oklahoma rivalry, one of the most colorful in all of sports, not just college football. It’ll be the fourth time in eight years the Red River Shootout features a top-five matchup.
“It’s what these two teams should have at midseason,” said Texas coach Mack Brown. “It’s two Top 5 teams that are both playing really well. We’ll have everybody in America talking about the game next week, and that’s what we want.”
This time, there’ll be something added. The Sooners, when they score their first 10 points, will become the first team in college football history to reach 30,000.
They’ll probably get it in the first quarter. So far in five games, Oklahoma has won the opening period by a collective score of 103-3. The Bears found themselves in a quick 28-0 hole.
“We played well in all parts of the game,” Stoops said. “I loved the way that we started off.”
In the other Big 12 game this week matching ranked against ranked, Missouri hosts Oklahoma State. Kansas gets to stay home and go against Colorado while Texas Tech is home against Nebraska.
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SALIVA TEST: Much was made of the fact Missouri had not won at Nebraska in 30 years. But so as anyone knows, no Nebraska player had ever spat on the Missouri quarterback until Chase Daniel wiped spittle off himself on Saturday.
“Walking out before the game, I got spit on. By a player,” Daniel said. “I’ve never really experienced that before. I’m not going to say who it was. That’s blatant disrespect. It happened and we settled it out on the field.”
Nebraska coach Bo Pelini said he didn’t hear about Daniel’s comment Sunday morning.
“I’m going to try to get ahold of coach Pinkel today and find out exactly what he’s talking about. I didn’t know anything about that,” Pelini said. “Usually you’d know about something like that. But I’m going to investigate it and find out because that’s unacceptable if something like that happened and I would hope that the opposing coaching staff would let me know if something like that happened.”
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AP Sports Writers Stephen Hawkins in Dallas, Jeff Latzke in Norman, Okla., Arnie Stapleton in Denver and Eric Olsen in Omaha contributed to this report.
