OSU-Houston Big 12’s second-best?
The college football schedule Saturday is awful. The Big 12 is partly to blame. Four Big 12 teams Saturday play Division I-AA opponents. Only Oklahoma plays a team from another major conference. That’s ridiculous.
OU-Cincinnati clearly is the Big 12’s game of the day. ABC-TV quickly picked up that game, early in the summer, after scouring the schedule.
OSU-Houston probably is the league’s second-best game. UH beat the Cowboys two years ago in Houston.
Three other Big 12 games are decent. Kansas hosts Louisiana Tech, and while KU is a big favorite, La-Tech knocked off Mississippi State last week. Texas A&M goes to New Mexico; the Aggies failed to win at home last week against Arkansas State, so this week they’re on the road, against a better foe. And Texas Tech goes to Nevada, which has a history of explosive offense. Tech has struggles on the road, so you never know.
The next best? I guess Texas at UTEP. The Longhorns going to El Paso would be sort of like the Sooners playing a game in Guymon. UTEP showed some flash under Mike Price two years ago but was waxed last Saturday at Buffalo U.
Iowa State hosts Kent State, which upset the Cyclones a year ago in Gene Chizik’s debut game.
The other games are outright dogs. Eastern Washington at Colorado. Kansas State hosts Montana State. Nebraska hosts San Jose State. Baylor hosts Northwestern Louisiana. And in the nation’s worst game of the day, and a game that rivals OU-Chattanooga for the worst in the country all year, Missouri hosts Southeast Missouri State, which struggled last week to beat Southwest Baptist.
So, that’s 12 Big 12 games. One against the Big East. Two against Conference USA. Three against the WAC. One against the Mountain West. One against the Mid-American Conference. And four against Division I-AA opponents.
Awful. Truly awful.
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When I graduated from HS, I had a classmate head to NEMSTC (Northeastern Missouri State Teachers College). They changed their name years ago but I always liked the idea of talking about my college as, “old NEMSTC,” as opposed to OSU or OU or USC or you-name-it.
But that isn’t the point. The point is why not schedule something a little more than cupcakes. Teams like Minnesota (Golden Gofers), Houston, UTEP, UCF, Colorado State, San Diego State, Arkansas, Vanderbilt, usually have decent teams but can be counted on as a “W.” Why not schedule those type teams? Even when the Arkansas’ have superior teams, we usually only have one more non-conference challenges. I would like to see the Big 12 and particularly, OU schedule some teams that at least sound like football teams. I know why we scheduled the Mocs but let’s try to avoid that in the future.