Jeff Roberson / AP

Don't try to tell Missouri quarterback Chase Daniel that the No. 19 Tigers can't upset No. 4 Oklahoma in the Big 12 championship game on Saturday.

The Tigers seem to be preparing to carry a bit of a chip on their shoulder as they head into the conference championship game, which if you are fan of the underdog, that’s a good thing.

But here’s why no one thinks Mizzou can win. Over the past two seasons, they have faced big, fast, physical and athletic teams like Oklahoma and Texas three times and lost by an average margin of nearly 19 points. Last year, OU beat the Tigers by 10 in the regular season (41-31) and in the ’07 Big 12 championship game, the Sooners blasted Mizzou 38-17. This year, when the Tigers traveled to Austin to face Texas, the Longhorns dominated the Tigers 56-31.

And now let’s add a little more bad news for the forlorn Mizzou fan: as impressive as the Sooners were offensively last year, they’re probably even better this year.

“I wouldn’t have said that at the beginning of the year,” said Bob Stoops, the OU coach. “But we just scored 60 points in our last four straight games and in one of those we had 55 at half against K-State.”

So how can the Tigers do it? How can they pull off the improbable upset?

History. The Sooners are an imposing force when they get to the Big 12 championship game, having won two straight and five of the last seven conference title games. But the last time the Sooners arrived in Kansas City as a heavy favorite for the Big 12 championship game in Arrowhead Stadium, they were upset 35-7 by Kansas State.

When someone brought up the K-State upset, Daniel tried to give it little credence. “That was five years ago,” he said. “Half a decade. That’s quite a while ago, and a totally different team. There are probably guys on their team that just don’t care about that (K-State game).”

But Daniel and the Tigers ought to care about that K-State game and the other evidence that says the Sooners are capable of not showing up in big games. They should remember K-State. They should remember Boise State (OU was a 43-42 loser in ’07 Fiesta Bowl). They need to remember West Virginia (OU loses 48-28 in the ’08 Fiesta Bowl). They need to remember how the Sooners showed up at the ’05 Orange Bowl and were blown out 55-19 by Southern California.

So do the Tigers have a chance?

You better believe they do. As the late Jim Valvano once said before pulling off one of the greatest upsets in college basketball history, “we must have a chance because we’re the only other team here.” On Saturday night, This is the same mission for Missouri. Believe it is an improbable, but not an impossible mission. Strange things can always happen on a cold night on a chewed up field in a stadium that is less than two hours away from Missouri’s Columbia campus and is clearly not going to be a neutral field.

One way or another, Saturday night is shaping up to be a defining moment for Missouri football. I know how most of you think it’s going to turn out. Now I’m anxious to discover if these highly motivated Tigers will let these bad expectations eat them alive or feed their competitive hearts and souls. And the sight of that chip on Chase Daniel’s shoulder might be the first indication of how Missouri is going to respond.

“(It’s) not necessarily a chip,” Daniel said. “(But) we want respect, and it’s not going to be given to us. We’ve just got to go out there and get it.”

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