It's official: The North finally caught the South in Big 12 football

As a Kansas Jayhawk undergrad grad, this aggrivates me no end but massive kudos to the Kansas State Wildcat football program for daring to be better than Nebraska.

Perhaps because they never had the chance, but the Wildcats never played the victim card as members of the Big 12 and ran east to play its equally slow-footed members of the Big 10 like the University of Nebraska did.

Instead, Kansas State just got better and now have officially become the best team in the Big 12 conference. The Big 12 is  no longer split by North/South regions, but the Wildcats are proof you don't have to live in Texas, or be bordered by Texas, to win this league.

Since the league was formed in 1996, the North won the conference title game a total of four times, and not once since 2003. (The league dropped the title game last year).

The conference that was born out of football and all but catered to its members in the south - Texas, Oklahoma - now is officially looking up at Kansas State.

Texas Tech got run out of the state by Kansas State over the weekend.
Had Texas played any other team but Kansas on Saturday the Horns would have lost.
Oklahoma is in denial.
Iowa State is Iowa State.
Baylor and Oklahoma State are both rebuilding.
TCU is too young, and not nearly deep enough.
West Virginia has to at least fake defense before it can become a serious threat.

The Wildcats host No. 24 Oklahoma State on Nov. 3 before traveling to TCU and Baylor and finishing the season on Dec. 1 at home against No. 23 Texas.

The Wildcats should have the Coach of the Year in Bill Snyder and the Heisman winner in QB Collin Klein. If all continues to go according to plan, the Wildcats will be the team to reach the BCS title game for the right to get crushed by Alabama.

The Wildcats may be boring led by their boring head coach, but they do deserve credit.

 

 

@MacEngelProf
tengel@star-telegram.com
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Comments

[Fact Check]

Good article. I hate K State too but mad props to them for getting it done. Your article is correct. K State is there and has frankly been building to this for some time. I hope they get knocked off their pedastol soon but I don't see it happening.

[Vic]

Big 12 is weak this season, simple as that, dude

[Derek Johnson]

Admittedly, I'm a Nebraska fan, but I want to make a few points. First, Nebraska didn't just run away from Texas, as conference affiliation is based on more than just competitiveness. If it were, Boise State would stay in the MWC and more teams would fight to get in that conference. Don't pretend that K-State, Kansas, or Iowa State wouldn't rush to join the Big 10 if they'd been offered the slot that Nebraska got, and all those schools would join in a heartbeat because of the money and because it is the Big 10. Winning on the field doesn't equate to winning in conference politics. In fact, K-State's former president misread Texas when the Big 8 was negotiating with the SWAC schools.

[When Snyder leaves?]

Nebraska had the vision and foresight to rebuild without begging their only competent coach to comeback. We know where we're going with Bo. Does K-State have a plan B? Loving the B1G by the way.