 "Photo: Associated Press")
The real low point for the Big 12 North was in 2005.
Texas came in to the championship game undefeated and with Vince Young at the helm of the second-best offense in the nation. On the other hand, Colorado came into the game 7-6, with the third worst offense in the conference.
As many Texas fans remember, the Longhorns steamrolled the Buffalo 70-3, earning a trip to Pasadena and embarrassing a once proud division.
That year the teams in the Big 12 North were so bad, even Baylor had a win against them. Nebraska was 4-4 in the conference, got walloped by an even worse Kansas team, and clocked out as second best in the North.
Kansas State, who just two years before had upset Oklahoma in the conference championship, was 2-6 in conference play. And Colorado? Before being stomped out by Texas, they lost 30-3 to a bad Nebraska team.
The top three offenses in the conference belonged to the South. The best running backs were in the South. In the NFL draft that year, only Fabian Washington out of Nebraska got picked in the first round, and turned out a bust. Things were not looking good.
But the next year, things started to pick up a little. Nebraska was 6-2 in the conference, and would have been 7-1 had Aaron Ross not forced that fumble in Memorial Stadium.
Kansas State upset a good Texas football team. Up in Missouri, a sophomore quarterback named Chase Daniel was learning the spread behind super-athlete Brad Smith.
There were good vibrations scattered throughout the division. But when the championship
game came along, like always, the South’s representative beat on the North’s. Oklahoma was off to the Fiesta Bowl, while Nebraska was left wondering what happened.
And then came last year, a Northern renaissance. All of a sudden, the tough edge that used to be a badge of the Big 12 North was coming back. These teams weren’t the bowdown cupcake teams that they were in 2005.
New coaches like Dan Hawkins in Colorado and Gene Chizik at Iowa State were preaching very physical defense. That’s why the Buffaloes upset Oklahoma, a topfive team. The emphasis on defense for the North’s bottom-dwellers was pushing these teams in the right direction.
But for Missouri, everything was coming together. They had all the pieces in place to make a run for the title: a Heisman-caliber quarterback, dynamic skill players and an opportunistic defense.
And then Kansas came out of nowhere, torching defenses across the Midwest. Nobody had 5-feet-11-inch Todd Reesing, the Austin native, penciled in for 3,400 yards and 33 touchdowns. Or that its pass defense would frustrate the best in the conference.
But that’s what happened, and that’s why Kansas went to the Orange Bowl and beat Virginia Tech. All across the North were little moments of hope for the teams that had spent the past few years in a state of losing — like Kansas State walloping Texas. Every team (except for Nebraska) in the North had its high point.
This season, the North looks like it will continue the upward trend. The best quarterbacks in the conference are in the North with Daniel or Reesing. All of the defenses, from Colorado to Kansas State, have been stealing players that usually wind up at the bigger schools. No longer is the North the punching bag for the South.
With two Big 12 North schools in the top 15, they have two more than 2005.
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