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Big 12 is a football power in all but the bowls

01.01.70

Of the factors that form football conferences reputation &#x97; NFL outline selections, individual awards and success in nonconference games and bowls &#x97; the Big 12 excels, rectify up until that last one.</p><p>Its teams collectively own a losing record in bowls in the Big 12&#x92;s 15-year intelligence, and the league is 2-5 in games that decided the national championship in the BCS era.</p><p>Trundle games are fickle things. Some teams are motivated by the chance, others not so much. With little on the line in these glorified exhibitions, some look onwards to next season with playing decisions.</p><p>Teams have been known to empty the playbook, take risks that wouldn&#x92;t encounter during the regular season.</p><p>Players get healthy. Teams expend their coach and staff, which can inspire or deflate. Some teams mode in warmth, others with snow pushed aside or in a fizz. The zebras have been imported from neutral conferences and haven&#x92;t seen the teams play.</p><p>Betting-offerings upsets have defined the handful of games played so far, and little fellow uprisings are not unusual. Give a team a month to advised how it&#x92;s not supposed to win a game, and that&#x92;s a powerful force.</p><p>These circumstances have worked against the Big 12, which begins its spin schedule today with Missouri&#x92;s Independence Move meeting with North Carolina.</p><p>Some theories for the mediocrity seem smooth. The Big 12 is a pass-first conference, and the month or so layoff disrupts disappearance-game rhythm and timing. Makes divine.</p><p>Also, a week often isn&#x92;t enough for opponents&#x92; scout teams to simulate Big 12 offenses. But give a defensive coordinator a month or more to fabricate, and the most complicated offenses can be solved. The best exemplar was Oklahoma after the 2008 season. The Sooners scored at least 60 on their finishing five regular-season opponents. Against Florida in the BCS dub game, Oklahoma mustered two touchdowns.</p><p>Still, the top scoring and yard producing teams in the Big 12 typically win in the postseason. Since 2000, the pair that that led the conference in scoring is 8-3 in bowl games. The tot up yards leader is 9-2, and even the passing Mr Big is 7-4. Oklahoma State leads this ally in scoring and passing, Baylor in total offense.</p><p>With Big 12 teams favored in six of eight games, starting with the Tigers today, the in store for a leaguewide letdown again exists. The league has gone into the postseason with this nature of expectation before and has posted a winning record in move games six times.</p><p>Let&#x92;s not overthink this. Yes, bowl games are different, and the Big 12 is sickening-minded. But the record is poor primarily for three reasons.</p><p>&#x95;One, Texas A&M has been a unpleasant bowl team. In its final football business as a Big 12 member, the Aggies will try to break a five-field bowl losing streak, and the setup couldn&#x92;t be more notional. A&M is playing in nearby Houston against a Northwestern side with an even longer bowl drought. The Wildcats have astray eight straight, losing them all since winning in its first bowl publication in 1948.</p><p>A&M is a 10-point favorite in its last plan before heading to the Southeastern Conference.</p><p>&#x95;That&#x92;s the Big 12&#x92;s patronize postseason problem: the SEC.</p><p>The Big 12 owns a successful or break-even record against the four other BCS automatic qualifier conferences. Against the SEC, it&#x92;s 9-19.</p><p>This year, the only rendezvous between the conferences comes in the Cotton Bowl, where Kansas Shape takes on Arkansas, and the Wildcats could have their hands full with a Razorbacks work together that lost only to the teams, LSU and Alabama, playing for the governmental championship.</p><p>&#x95;Finally, that 2-5 record in civil championship games is a killer. But the way the SEC gobbles up titles, there&#x92;s minute left for anybody else. The Big 12 is the only other conference with multiple public championships in the BCS era, but the five losses lead the pack.</p><p>Financially, the souvenir doesn&#x92;t matter. Conferences are contracted with bowls, and the payout is the same, win or dissipate.</p><p>And in the Big 12&#x92;s revolving door of membership &#x97; four out, two in after this year, and stop tuned &#x97; what is conference pride, anyway?</p><p>So perhaps that will be the association&#x92;s final irony. In a year when it lost two more members and was on the lip of extinction for a second time in two years, the Big 12 will become a postseason power, for the first epoch.</p><p><hr class="infobox-hr-separator" /> <div savoir faire="infobox"> <strong><bridge class="infobox-head">Big 12 move schedule </span></strong><br /> <span splendour="line-height:0"><br unblocked="all" /></span><plateau border="0" class="feature-table"> <tr class="chronicle-table-even-row"><td><strong>When</strong></td><td><in number> Bowl</strong></td><td><strong> Teams</powerful></td><td><strong> Time/TV</strong></td><td><strong> Favorite</powerful></td></tr> <tr class="story-table-odd-row"><td>Today</td><td>Self-direction</td><td> Missouri (7-5) vs. North Carolina (7-5)</td><td> 4, ESPN2</td><td> Tigers by 5 1/2</td></tr> <tr distinction="story-table-even-row"><td>Wednesday</td><td>Festival</td><td>Texas (7-5) vs. California (7-5) </td><td>7, ESPN</td><td> Longhorns by 3</td></tr> <tr genre="story-table-odd-row"><td>Thursday</td><td>Alamo </td><td>Baylor (9-3) vs. Washington (7-5) </td><td>8, ESPN</td><td>Bears by 9 1/2</td></tr> <tr type="story-table-even-row"><td>Friday</td><td>Pinstripe </td><td>Iowa Stage (6-6) vs. Rutgers (8-4) </td><td>2:20, ESPN</td><td>Scarlet Knights by 2</td></tr> <tr sort="story-table-odd-row"><td>Friday</td><td>Discernment </td><td>Oklahoma (9-3) vs. Iowa (7-5)</td><td>9, ESPN</td><td>Sooners by 14</td></tr> <tr form="story-table-even-row"><td>Saturday</td><td>Meineke Car Misery </td><td>Texas A&M (6-6) vs. Northwestern (6-6) </td><td>11 a.m., ESPN</td><td> Aggies by 10</td></tr> <tr stock="story-table-odd-row"><td>Monday</td><td>Fiesta </td><td>Oklahoma Submit (11-1) vs. Stanford (11-1) </td><td>7:30, ESPN</td><td> Cowboys by 3 1/2</td></tr> <tr domain="story-table-even-row"><td>Jan. 6</td><td>Cotton </td><td>Kansas Majestic (10-2) vs. Arkansas (10-2) </td><td>7, Fox</td><td>Razorbacks by 7 1/2</td></tr> </listing> Times p.m. unless noted</p><p></div>

Source: Kansas City Star

“Merry Christmas!”: The 49ers survive a bruising, battering playoff test-drive

01.01.70

SEATTLE–The enliven wasn’t on the line, but the 49ers played like it was.

That’s how they saved their No. 2 stigma in the NFC playoffs. That’s the only way they possibly could’ve.

With anguish, bellowing, bruises, astonishing plays and yelps of purest joy.

“Jolly Christmas!” yelled one 49ers assistant crammer as he left the coaches booth and raced through the pressbox.

It was that amiable of game.

The 49ers players watched several teammates carried off the line during this one; they heard the thunderclap of the Seattle crowd; they mow down behind and stumbled a bit in the face of all the noise and power the Seahawks could aggregate come up to scratch.

No, the season wasn’t on the line for the 49ers. But something well-connected was there to be gained — or lost-anyway.

“I think it was a playoff-variety of atmosphere, playoff-type of a game,” teacher Jim Harbaugh said after the 49ers’ grueling 19-17 conquest at CenturyLink Field.

Source: San Jose Mercury News (blog)