Missouri aiming for another crack at Oklahoma
Expectations rise for Mangino's Jayhawks; Pelini's Huskers start new era
updated 5:10 a.m. ET Aug. 9, 2008
AUSTIN, Texas - For one glorious week, Missouri was on top of college football.
Ranked No. 1 in the country, a Tigers program long relegated to mediocrity was poised to win the Big 12 and earn a chance to play for a national championship.
And they weren’t just taking their program to new heights. They were pulling up the entire North division of a conference that for years had thrown out weaklings to be sacrificed to Oklahoma and Texas.
Alas, the revolution may have started in the North, but it stalled in San Antonio when the Sooners thumped Mizzou in the championship game, 38-17.
With 15 starters returning, senior quarterback Chase Daniel and the Tigers are favored to win the North again and take another crack at the league trophy.
“We haven’t arrived,” Missouri coach Gary Pinkel cautioned reporters this summer. “We won the Big 12 North last year. (The) University of Missouri hasn’t won a Big 12 championship yet.”
The Tigers are expected to be the class of a division that is starting to flex some muscle again.
Kansas, runner-up to Mizzou in the North last season, took a giant leap forward under coach Mark Mangino last season, finishing 12-1 and beating Virginia Tech in the Orange Bowl.
“Expectations are very high for our program in Lawrence, in the state of Kansas, and around the country,” Mangino said. “We embrace those expectations, because there was a time when I first arrived here that there were no expectations for Kansas’s football program.”
Serious talk of lofty goals at places like Kansas and Missouri may cause a few snickers down south, especially at Oklahoma, where the Sooners have a trophy case packed full of Big 12 hardware.
Oklahoma returns 15 starters from last year’s 11-3 squad that beat Missouri twice and will be favored again to win the South.
Since 1999, Oklahoma or Texas has represented the South in every Big 12 title game and the division is still loaded with talent. Sooners coach Bob Stoops has won so many big games that it’s become his nickname — Big Game Bob. But given Oklahoma’s recent pratfalls in BCS games — losing the last four its played — maybe it should be “Big 12 Bob.”
Stoops prefers to focus on what his team has won, not what it’s lost, in recent years.
“We’ve been in six Big 12 championship games and won five of them. We are doing something right,” Stoops said. “We know how to win those games and we’ll manage these others as best we can.”
No league will have a better crop of quarterbacks. Daniel and Oklahoma’s Sam Bradford are two of the best passers in a league full of them: Texas’ Colt McCoy, Texas Tech’s Graham Harrell, Kansas’ Todd Reesing and Oklahoma State’s Zac Robinson all are experienced playmakers.
“I think everyone knows the great quarterbacks that are out there in this league,” Stoops said. “It’s just amazing.”
A capsule look at the teams in predicted order of finish:
Big 12 North
1. Missouri
Key players: QB Chase Daniel, Sr.; WR/KR Jeremy Maclin, So.; TE Chase Coffman, Sr.
Returning starters: 6 offense, 10 defense.
Notes: The feisty Daniel was a finalist for the Heisman Trophy last season ... Tigers must replace Tony Temple, the only running back in school history with consecutive 1,000-yard seasons. ... Mizzou won’t face Oklahoma during the regular season, but face a tough trip to Texas on Oct. 11.
2. Kansas
Key players: QB Todd Reesing, Jr.; LB Mike Rivera, Sr.; DE Stryker Sulak, Sr.
Returning starters: 6 offense, 9 defense.
Notes: Reesing passed for 33 TDs last season against just seven INT ... Jayhawks led Big 12 in defense last season, but lost All-America CB Aqib Talib to NFL ... Schedule gets tougher with OU, Texas Tech and Texas back on.
3. Colorado
Key players: TB Darrell Scott, Fr.; DL George Hypolite, Sr.
Returning starters: 7 offense, 7 defense.
Notes: Scott was the prize recruit and will be expected to make an impact right away .... Coach Dan Hawkins’ son Cody is the starting QB, not that he’s bragging. “He might be the 12th best quarterback in the Big 12,” dad says.
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