Big 12 Media Day

Today in San Antonio, Texas the Big 12 kicks off it’s annual media day. Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and Baylor will get things started this afternoon. As of right now, Oklahoma is in the driver’s seat to win the Big 12 title for the second year in a row. The only thing they need right now is a quarterback. Coach Bob Stoops will have his work cut out for him with the hole that former QB Rhett Bomar left the program in at the start of last season. The Sooners will have a redshirt freshman in Sam Bradford, true freshman Keith Nichol or junior college transfer Joey Halzle to choose from. The Texas Longhorns will be the other contender in the South (hey, what else is new?) with sophomore QB Colt McCoy coming back for his second year under center. Well, maybe not too much time under center with the Horns’ style of offence being out of the spread. Another team with a lot of offensive firepower in the South will be the Oklahoma State Cowboys. The Cowboys will travel to Lincoln on October 13th.

Up North, Nebraska is not picked to repeat as champions of the divison. The Missouri Tigers have been picked by nearly a two to one margin to take the North title over the Huskers. The Tigers have an open week to prepare for Nebraska before the Huskers come to Columbia. Nebraska has not won at Missouri since the Eric Crouch era in 2001. Clearly, the Big 12 North is Missouri’s to lose, on the other hand, the Tigers haven’t posted a better conference record than going 4-4 under head coach Gary Pinkel. Kansas State may be a sleeper pick if sophomore QB Josh Freeman can cure his turnover woes and if second year coach Ron Prince can win in Lincoln against the Huskers. They have their North rivals at home in the Kansas Jayhawks and Mizzou. The only road game in the North this year will be against rebuilding Iowa State.

Nebraska has set the bar fairly high with their schedule in 2007. If (and this is a HUGE if) the Huskers can win two early in a row against Wake Forest on the road and USC at home, that should provide enough confidence and momentum to carry them through Missouri on the road and to the October 27^th rematch with Texas in Austin. If Nebraska wants to get serious and reestablish themselves as a national title contender and not just a contender for the Big 12 North division title each year, they need to either beat USC or Texas. Beating Missouri on the road will be nice on a conference level, but not what Husker Nation is expecting. From what I can tell, it may be another couple years of being a tier under teams like USC and Texas before any realistic resurgence back into the national spotlight.

QB Sam Keller may be the make or break factor in Callahan’s complicated West Coast Offence. As long as skill players can stay healthy, like junior RB Marlon Lucky and other players can either stay out of trouble and get serious about learning routes and plays. A good example of the latter would be senior WR Maurice Purify who was reinstated to the team earlier this week after plea bargaining his felony charge down to a misdemeanor. Purify will sit out for the season opener against the Nevada Wolfpack. Nebraska has a fragile position this season, and one game, quarter or series could change the momentum to having a breakout year, or yet another mediocre one based on the standards set by players and coaches of the past.

In other Husker news of note today, oft criticized athletic director Steve Pederson was granted a 5-year contract extension. Pederson has taken a lot of flack from Husker Football fans, but has done an admirable job as far as I'm concerned not only with the football program, but with all aspects of the athletic department and putting them all in a better position to win in their respective sports. Back to the football topic, it's not an easy thing to replace everything that has worked in a system for over 35 years of winning to evolve into a more modern team and program. For all intensive purposes, the turnaround time back to respectability hasn't really been that bad or extensive considering that the past 10 seasons have been spent trying to find an identity after replacing a college football legend in Tom Osborne.