John Walters

To anyone who ever subscribed to the adage, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression”, welcome to the Big 12 South. This is the division where last impressions may come first, where the first to lose may be the last to be in first.

Oklahoma. Texas. Texas Tech. That would be the alphabetical order. What will be the BCS standings order, which determine the Big 12 South champ in the event of a 3-way tie, come Sunday?

In the last seven weeks this trio of sublimely talented Big 12 South teams have pulled off the greatest mutually assured destruction sequence since the final scene of Reservoir Dogs. In October Texas defeated Oklahoma. Three weeks later, on the first day of November, Texas Tech defeated Texas. And just last Saturday night Oklahoma defeated Texas Tech. All three teams were 10-1 heading into their final regular season games.

Sooner than you can say USA Today coaches’ poll, the Big 12 South title (and possibly a berth in the BCS championship game) is a math geek’s riddle. A>B>C>A.

Sub in Longhorns, Sooners and Red Raiders for A, B, and C and you have the type of riddle that the ancients would need to solve in order to cross back over the river Styx. The type of quandary that led Solomon to order, “Cut it in two.” The type of contradiction that once caused the Lost in Space robot to moan, “That does not compute” shortly before smoke bled out of his back and overall system failure occurred

The simple answer is that there is no simple answer, and anyone who tells you different says so simply because their prize calf is up for the blue ribbon. You think you can prove which of the three teams is most deserving. I’ll meet you at the intersection of parallel lines where you can explain it to me.

Here in the oversized, rhinestone-studded buckle of the Bible belt, people have a way of equating faith and truth. And don’t think for a moment that the Sooners, Long Horns and Red Raiders don’t each have their own congregation of true believers.

Texas. Texas Tech. Oklahoma.

The politicking that will transpire this week — the Longhorns literally sent reporters emails reminding them that the Longhorns had beaten the Sooners during the Tech-OU game Saturday evening — has been likened to the recently completed presidential campaigns. I would argue that it is more akin to religious evangelizing. To a battle of faiths.

Why? When two politicians hold conflicting policy views, we, the populace, often have an opportunity over time to learn whose idea was more beneficial. Here, though, each pastor will praise the indisputable glory of its likely soon-to-be 11-1 team and the congregation will respond with a hearty “Amen!”, which will only sound like “Hook ‘em Horns!”, “Guns up!” or “Boomer Sooner!”

The difference, however, is that we will never know. Whichever team wins the Big 12 South, whichever one clobbers Missouri and advances to the BCS championship game, no matter how that team fares in Miami on January 8th, it will have no bearing on whether we can discern whether one of the other two schools would have done better.

In that way, the Big 12 South is like faith. Blind faith.

First, however, let’s pay due homage to the assumptions. Texas took care of business against Texas A&M on Thursday, while Texas Tech is likely to defeat Baylor in Lubbock, and Oklahoma needs a Bedlam Bowl victory in Stillwater versus Oklahoma State. That last game is no given, despite how unbeatable (or maybe because of) the Sooners looked in Saturday night’s 65-21 win against Texas Tech on Saturday evening.

Then, if and only if all three teams win, one of them is going to play Missouri in Kansas City. That is tantamount to a home game for the Tigers, whose campus is located just a two-hour drive east. Mizzou is the gadfly in the ointment, but for the sake of argument, let’s assume that Jeremy Maclin is merely mortal and that the Tigers’ assortment of Chases and Ziggys will succumb to the Big 12 South for a second straight year.

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