Bryan Burwell

Now that we have gotten past the obvious unpleasantries of the Big 12 conference championship game (i.e. how Texas got robbed out of being here), there’s one other indelicate story line that can’t possibly be ignored as all the eyes of the college football world focus their attention on this weekend’s Oklahoma-Missouri duel in Kansas City.

Missouri is going to get crushed.

A little clarification before we go much further. This isn’t necessarily what I think. But it sure is what most of you are thinking. Perhaps that’s a bit impolite to put it out there like that, so unvarnished and raw, without a ton of well-placed emotional qualifiers to soften the blow. But you know it, I know it and the Tigers do too: that is what’s on everyone’s mind as we look toward this Saturday night’s Big 12 championship game showdown between the No. 19th-ranked North champion Tigers and the No. 4-ranked South co-champs Oklahoma. It may be just a bit impolite, but we’re all thinking that there are only three logical outcomes to this championship game at Arrowhead Stadium.

Option 1: the Sooners will gangster slap the Tigers.

Option 2: the Sooners will prison slap the Tigers.

Option 3: the Sooners will gangster slap then prison slap the Tigers.

This is the awkward reality of this week as the 9-3 Tigers prepare for the difficult (did someone say “impossible”?) task of upsetting highly-favored 11-1 Oklahoma. With good reason, no one gives Mizzou a chance, and between now and Saturday night, the Tigers players are going to hear this, read this and watch this repeated a million times in print, on line, or crackling across the radio and television.

"Nobody's going to be (expecting) us (to win)," said the Tigers’ junior linebacker Sean Weatherspoon. "I don't even think family members are going to be backing us."

I love games like this, mainly because it allows you to get a peek inside the competitive hearts of the athletes who are being put in the uncomfortable position of the quintessential overwhelming underdog. What happens to the Tigers as they prepare to face a team that absolutely no one thinks they can beat? Will they let these insults eat at their competitive psyches or will they instead feed off them, turning the slights into the emotional fuel for an improbable upset?

On two different national telephone conference calls on Monday, Mizzou quarterback Chase Daniel fielded questions about those overwhelming odds against his underdog football team as they face an OU squad that dominated them twice last year and has been positively destroying everyone in their path for the last month.

Most of the questions were phrased politely, if awkwardly, with the essence being, “So Chase, how are you guys not going to get your skulls bashed in this time?”

Each time it was asked, almost emotionlessly Daniel provided a few variations on a seemingly well-rehearsed theme:

“I don’t think many people are giving us any shot ...”

“It’s a tough task but we think we can play with them …”

“If you think you can (win), you can … particularly when no one gives us a chance in hell of doing this.”

By the afternoon, when he was sitting in an interview room inside the Tigers’ spacious training facility, the dispassionate tone was gone and the attitude of a feisty competitor was re-emerging. When reporters kept peppering him with questions about the Sooners, Daniel interrupted.

’“You want to talk about their guys? How about our guys?”

Daniel began reading from a piece of paper he had brought with him to the podium. “Chase Coffman has the most catches in NCAA Division I-A history. In the history of tight ends, he has the most catches ...

“Derrick Washington, ranked third in Big 12 rushing, eighth in the NCAA in scoring ...

“Jeremy Maclin leads the NCAA in all-purpose yards. I don’t think anyone’s really close to him. He’s third in the Big 12 in receiving yards. You look at their weapons? Well I want to look at ours, and what we have to bring to the table. I feel good about our guys.”