Honestly- the Big 12 is just awful

I’m sorry, but the Big 12 is just awful.

Alright, the conference has never been great, but after years of mediocrity, not even the conference’s biggest proponents can muster up a defense.“Oh, the conference is terrible,” said Rick Sciro, a Texas A&M graduate. “We struggled to beat Army and Kansas and look where we are.”

A&M, which was 8-2 coming into the game, led Nebraska 27-21 at the time of that statement. The Aggies had just scored the go-ahead touchdown.

And it’s true.

The Big 12 is 3-9 versus BCS-conference schools this year, having had Oklahoma beat Washington, Kansas beat South Florida, and Missouri beat Ole Miss, all at home. The only currently-ranked team to even be challenged was Oregon, a game in which Oklahoma would have won had it not been to botched replay rulings. However, Oregon will fall out of the rankings after its loss to Southern California on Saturday; the Ducks would not be ranked now if they had lost that game. Additionally, the teams are 4-10 against 1-A programs with winning records.

Kansas State beat 1-AA Illinois State by one; Kansas beat Louisiana-Monroe by two and lost to Toledo; Oklahoma beat Alabama-Birmingham by seven and lost to Oregon, albeit it was decidedly screwed; and Texas A&M held at the goal line to beat Army 28-24. And these are teams that have been competitive in the conference.

Colorado lost at home to Montana State 19-10, who lost to a D-II school the following week. They also lost to Colorado State, whose other three wins have come over Weber State, Fresno State, and UNLV. Weber may be the class of that competition: they are 3-7. FSU is a meager 2-7 and UNLV is an even worse 1-9. Colorado already has two wins in the conference.

Iowa State actually beat Toledo by two, although Toledo is a meaningless 4-6. They also beat the Runnin’ Rebels and somehow held off 1-AA Northern Iowa by one, 28-27. UNI is in the middle of its conference.

Then there is Baylor, a team so bad that it lost to Army at home, 27-20. Yet the Bears managed to beat KSU 17-3. They also beat Kansas and Colorado in close games.

And people still have the nerve to call this a power conference?

“This conference is a joke,” Sciro said. “Only in this conference could Dennis Franchione be a candidate for coach of the year.”

A&M was still winning 27-21. The Aggies were just about to miss a field goal.

The Big XII is a laughable joke. The Mountain West conference is 3-8 vs. BCS conference schools this year. BYU lost competitive games at Arizona and Boston College. Air Force lost by one at Tennessee. Wyoming lost by one score or less to Virginia and Syracuse on the road, as well as losing by six to unbeaten Boise State. And Iowa State, the worst team in the Big 12, held off UNLV, the worst team in the MWC, 16-10 in Ames.

Oh, and all three wins versus BCS-conference schools came against the Big 12, a conference it sports a 3-2 mark against.

“I don’t know how this team is 8-2- they’re just so bad,” Sciro said as Nebraska was about to score the game winning touchdown.

Nebraska would win 28-27, clinching the North division title, which is fortunate, because the Cornhuskers are at least competitive.

But Iowa State, Colorado, Kansas, Baylor, Texas Tech, and Oklahoma State are not, being more characteristic of teams you would find in the middle of C-USA or the bottom of the SEC or PAC-10. And A&M and Missouri are nothing special, both finding ways to win games they should before losing to the better teams in the conference.

Those are eight teams that are proven lousy or mediocre-at-best. Eight- out of 12.

And when your other four teams lack a defining win, when your other four teams lost their biggest non-conference games, with only one even being competitive, something is wrong.

Texas got annihilated by top-ranked Ohio State in Austin, 24-7; Nebraska got steamrolled by one-loss USC in Los Angeles, 28-10; Kansas State got pounded by formerly-unbeaten Louisville in Manhattan, 24-6; and Oklahoma lost to Oregon 34-33. And even though the Sooners were screwed, Oregon is hardly the top-tier competition that the second-best team in the Big 12 should lose to.

The Big 12 isn’t not good this year: it’s sheer awful. The conference lacks any meaningful non-conference win and has been killed in all but one of its big games played by its best teams.

“Honestly, these teams are so bad.”

Honestly, they really are.