Big 12 Sports Blog by Big 12 Fans

Now Missouri knows how Kansas St. must have felt in 1998 and 1999.

The Tigers were ranked #1 in the BCS heading into the Big 12 title game against Oklahoma, but fell 38-17, and went from potentially having a shot at playing for a national championship to the Cotton Bowl.

It’s the same thing that happened to Kansas St. in 1998, when the Wildcats were #1 heading into the Big 12 title game. After their classic 36-33 double-OT loss to Texas A&M, K-State only fell to third in the BCS, but instead of getting a BCS berth, went to the Alamo Bowl, which they lost to Purdue. The next year, the Wildcats finished sixth, with a loss to Nebraska the only blemish in a 10-1 regular season, but went to the Holiday Bowl. So, in case anyone’s wondering about Nebraska and Oklahoma getting into the national title game through the back door, maybe it was just karma making up for Kansas St.’s misfortunes.

Fast forward back to 2007, where another Big 12 North team is hurtin’. While the Tigers got the short end of the BCS stick, two teams that they beat in the regular season, Illinois and Kansas, both received invites to BCS bowls. Both of those teams were also ranked lower than Missouri in the BCS - the Tigers were sixth in the final BCS standings, while Kansas was 8th, and Illinois was 13th.

The Kansas snub might have been the most painful to take, not only because the two are bitter rivals, but also because Missouri had beaten Kansas just a week earlier to win the Big 12 North title.

But, the same could be said for Illinois getting a BCS berth as well (Arizona St. could have a gripe too, being 10-2 and two spots ahead of Illinois in the BCS standings), because the Tigers beat the Illini in the season opener, one of Illinois’ three losses.

But, given the fact that OU received the automatic berth, and Kansas received the at-large berth, that left Missouri as the odd man out, due to the rule against having more than two teams from the same conference in BCS bowls.

Unfortunately, as deserving as Missouri may be, they picked the worst time to lose. Things don’t usually bode well for your fortunes if you go down in a conference championship game, but if you lose the week before, it might not be so bad, as Kansas and the 2001 Nebraska team can attest to.

Should there be a change in the BCS rules, that allows three teams from a particular conference to be in BCS bowls? In some years, that wouldn’t be a bad idea, especially when the conference in question is tremendously strong.

There still might end up being some situations where the individual bowl committees might pick the team they want for their matchup, and not necessarily the team that may be most deserving.

This isn’t to say that Illinois isn’t deserving - the Illini beat #1 Ohio St. on the road and also beat #5 Wisconsin and #21 Penn St. And, because they fit the necessary criteria, they made the perfect candidate to give the Rose Bowl its desired Pac-10 vs. Big Ten matchup.

And as for Kansas, they likely would have been in the same position as Missouri had they beaten the Tigers then lost to Oklahoma - the only better situation for Missouri than to have won the Big 12 title game was to have lost to Kansas, because the loser of that game was going to be in a better position than the winner, if things shook out as they wound up doing.

But, in the end, if you want to assure your place in the elitest of the elite New Year’s and post-New Year’s games, you’ve got to take care of business week in, week out - or at least avoid the ill-timed loss.

This week could have been one of great celebration for Missouri. But, on the way to the national championship game, Oklahoma happened. And, instead of playing Ohio St. for the national title, the Tigers will have to settle for the Cotton Bowl (which isn’t too shabby, but come on, national championship or Cotton Bowl? No contest!), while seeing their fiercest rival - who they beat the previous week - play in a BCS bowl.

After Oklahoma’s 38-17 win over Missouri in the Big 12 title game, you could say order was restored after Mizzoui and Kansas dominated headlines recently, and rose past the Sooners in the national polls. But, even though OU wasn’t a national title contender anymore, they certainly played spoiler to Missouri’s hopes, and got a BCS berth out of it.

Oklahoma, Missouri, and Kansas are three of the eight Big 12 members to be playing in the postseason. OU will look to reverse last year’s disappointment in the desert when they play Big East champ West Virginia in the Fiesta Bowl on Jan. 2. Kansas, a BCS first-timer, will take on ACC champ Virginia Tech in the Orange Bowl the next day. As for their unhappy rivals, they’ll have to find a way to slow down Darren McFadden as they tangle with Arkansas on New Years’ Day.

As for the other matchups…

Gator Bowl (Jan. 1): Virginia (9-3) vs. Texas Tech (8-4)
Insight (Dec. 31): Oklahoma St. (6-6) vs. Indiana (7-5)
Independence (Dec. 30): Colorado (6-6) vs. Alabama (6-6)
Alamo (Dec. 29): Penn St. (8-4) vs. Texas A&M (7-5)
Holiday (Dec. 27): Arizona St. (10-2) vs. Texas (9-3)

There are a lot of intriguing matchups in the mix - Arkansas-Missouri because of the regional implications, Arizona St. and Texas because the Holiday Bowl is always a treat, and promises to be again, with two excellent offensive teams on display - I’ve always thought that the game could be on a different day, but with it being the only bowl game on the 27th, it’s got the spotlight to itself, which it deserves), and Penn St. and Texas A&M because of the two big names looking to finish disappointing seasons on a high note.

The regular season may be over, but the season is far from it. So, superglue yourself to your sofa, load up on the Tostitos and your favorite beverages, put the pizza places on speed dial, and get ready for a bowl seasons that, if it’s anything like the regular season was, will be worth watching all the way through.

With only a couple of weeks left in the regular season, the bowl picture is beginning to take shape.

The conference may have as many as ten bowl opportunities (seven direct tie-ins, three other potential opportunities) - an assured BCS bowl berth for the conference champion, then the Cotton, Independence, Insight, Alamo, Holiday, and Texas bowls for direct tie-ins, and then the Sun and Gator bowls, which will choose between a Big 12 and a Big East team for one of their spots, and a BCS at-large berth.

And, as it stands, nine conference teams may be able to hit the magic six-win mark needed to qualify for bowl participation.

In the North, Kansas and Missouri are locks, and in the South, Oklahoma, Texas, and Texas Tech are locked in. Texas A&M is already bowl-eligible at 6-5 with a rivalry game against Texas left, but the Aggies will be sputtering towards the postseason (but that’s another story entirely).

The only teams actually eliminated from postseason contention are Baylor, who is 3-7, and Iowa St., who has knocked off two potential bowl teams in a row, but is still only 3-8.

That leaves four teams - Kansas St. (5-5), Nebraska (5-6), Colorado (5-6), and Oklahoma St. (5-5).

Ron Prince’s Wildcats looked all set to wrap up a bowl bid a couple of weeks ago, as they were 5-3 with Iowa St. and Nebraska looming.

But, they lost 31-20 on the road to the 1-8 Cyclones, and this past Saturday, were on the short end of a 73-31 beatdown against Nebraska.

Oklahoma St. was 5-3 two weeks ago as well, with two tough, but very winnable home games upcoming. And they were a quarter away from that all-important sixth win, taking a 35-14 lead into the fourth quarter against Texas. But, the Cowboys wound up losing 38-35, and on Saturday, couldn’t make any early lead stand up in a 43-28 loss to the Jayhawks.

The Nebraska-Colorado game will decide if the conference winds up with nine bowl-eligible teams.

But, will all of those teams be suiting up for the postseason?

Whether or not that happens depends on a few things - if the Big 12 gets two teams in the BCS, if the Sun and/or Gator bowls go with Big East teams, and if the first two don’t work in the conference’s favor, if another bowl in need would want to take a chance on a 6-6 Big 12 team, or perhaps a 7-5 or better team from another conference (like the Big 12, Big 10, ACC, SEC, or one of the non-BCS conference that might have more bowl-eligible teams than tie-ins).

CBS Sports currently has the Big 12 getting two BCS bids (Oklahoma and Kansas) and eight bids overall, with Kansas St. being the lone bowl-eligible team left out (and Nebraska getting in over Colorado).

In Stewart Mandel’s projections on SI.com, he has nine conference teams getting in (Oklahoma and Texas in the BCS), including Kansas St.

Kansas St.‘s fate rests on beating either Missouri at home this week or win at Fresno St. in two weeks to be bowl-eligible, which isn‘t an enviable position to be in.

In the end, the Big 12 should be more than well-represented in the postseason, no matter who gets in and where they go.

Where will they go? Well, we’ll know after these next few exciting weeks of action.