What an amazing start for the Big XII. Going into week 7, an unprecedented 5 teams were unbeaten. Two of the five had to lose, but each contest was played literally until the final minute of the game, or OT for Texas Tech. The top ranked Sooners fell three places after a hard-fought match against the now-#1 Longhorns; Mizzou dropped out of the top 10 but their OK State opponent rose from #17 to #8. Tech remains at #7.
The teams account for four of the top five (six of top ten) scoring offenses. The Heisman watch is simply a cut and paste from the list of Big XII QB's (that list shouldn't change: Bradford threw 5 TD's, although Daniel dished out 3 picks...) Coaches Mark Mangino, Gary Pinkel, Mike Leach have been at their schools for 7, 8, and 9 years, respectively, with barely average records before breaking out into national prominence.
The B12 is the reason this college season is interesting to watch.
There are some negatives:
It's hard to win *every* week. The Longhorns' next three games are Mizzou, OK State, and Texas Tech. Holy shit. Oklahoma is going to make damn sure they don't lose again. The Cowboys and Red Raiders have to face the whole south half yet and I can't see one of these two fresh faces having the poise win out in such a bruising environment. Mizzou has the easiest path, but still a long road.
Clearly at this point in the season it looks like the BCS championship should be the B12 vs. SEC champs, but the caliber of the two conferences can easily become a curse. Unlike the reigning champs, a two-loss team won't make it all the way this year and a one-loss team better have a great showing in Kansas City on December 6. Will only one loss and a final convincing win be enough? USC blew off their own foot and have no chance at redemption with their pillow-fight remainder of a schedule, but weak-scheduled Penn State and BYU/Utah could win out with more of a claim to meet Alabama or Georgia than last year's Hawaii Warriors.
The BCS standings will begin next week and give a better idea of what one loss might do to a team with off-the-charts strength of schedule. On the other hand, maybe an 8-team playoff isn't such a bad proposition...
I have been vocal about the unquestioned dominance of the SEC, but I'm very happily having to reconsider. The biggest reason why the SEC still reigns is that even their weakest teams are formidable. The two 2-4 SEC teams got their scars from playing Florida, Georgia, LSU, Auburn, Georgia Tech, UCLA, and LA Tech, not a set including Iowa, UNLV, Arkansas State, Miami OH and Baylor.
Here's hoping the 'clones start to pull their own weight. On one hand, it's getting tougher to win as the conference becomes Heisman Central but hopefully playing in such a marquee conference helps Gene Chizik field some great recruits.
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Here is a good article on how SEC faithfuls fear USC is NOT out of the title picture:
http://msn.foxsports.com/cfb/story/8677992/It's-an-SEC-nightmare:-USC-in-title-discussion?MSNHPHMA
I can't help but agree.
It is scary; barring freak losses by every undefeated team or teams that lost to top-10 teams, USC doesn't come close to deserving a shot at the BCS NC.
In some ways I feel sorry for the Trojans. They know their conference sucks and schedule worthy opponents to bolster their strength of schedule. But they get hosed when the teams that had been powers tank, such as last years wins over the 5-7 Cornhuskers and 3-9 Fighting Irish. That being said, each Saturday becomes that much more important when you don't have chances at redemption.
Last year LSU sli into the BCS NC with losses to two sub-par teams because 1) *every* team had upset losses, 2) the huge list of #2's all DQ'ed themselves in the final 7 weeks, and 3) LSU beat something like 7 ranked teams. None of those three conditions apply this year (as of the halfway point).
Say Texas gets a loss from an undefeated OK St or TX Tech but still ends up winning the B12 championship. Let's also say Georgia beats Vanderbilt, LSU, Florida, Kentucky, Auburn, Georgia Tech and then Alabama in a rematch to win the SEC. If Penn State is undefeated, I think it's PSU and UGA. If PSU has a loss, I don't see how any result other than a Bulldogs/Longhorns match-up is just.
It's all speculation on my part, there's still the most exciting half of the season to be played. But I'm just saying, I might burn down some shit if a joke loss USC team makes it in over a deserving B12 school.
Random point: being a Big 12 fan in exciting SEC country, it's easy for me to see why conference winners who prevail in a conf. championship game should get some 'bonus points' in the human and computer polls. If the Big 10 and Pac 10 want to hedge against lackluster years such as this, it seems like they'd add a nice strength-of-schedule premium to their candidate(s) for BCS games with a simple contest on a December Saturday.
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