Rapid Fire Previews

OK, fine.

I tried it…I didn’t really like it, so I’m not doing it.

As we've done in previous years...previewing the North from time to time, with an inner-sprinkling of hate was always fun. Yes we touched on your proverbial crappy teams (ISU and Kansas)…your proverbial should-be-better-but-for-some-reason-aren’t teams like KSU and Colorado. And then you had the 11 month long pissing match between Missouri and Nebraska fans. Now, as I’ve stated for quite a while on the old blog…I often times have to stop myself in mid-plan, because I realize during the journey that I’m getting away from what I really want to do. Know what am I trying to say?

Analysis and breakdowns are easy when everybody has their familiar role. However, try and break down the entire conference in a concise and semi-professional way? Uhhhh not gonna work. Hey, I gave it a good try last week.

So instead, here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to preview the remaining nine teams in the conference in sort of a speed-dating type rapid fire. After that, we’ll be done with the formal “previews” and get to what you people come here to read….me ranting and raving about things that piss me off, or things that are just plain stupid here in the middle of America’s least understood and least respected football conference.

So fine..let’s get this over with. And remember, the official prediction threads…the one that cause all the panty bunching and hissy fits will be coming up at the end of the month. Hey, we can speed things up and change course…but it’s still only July…and as I’m sure you’ve already figured out…there’s absolutely nothing new to preview until Media Day in Dallas in a week or two.

TEXAS TECH – Tricked out step-brother of OU and UT. Mike Leach, always the freak always seems to find ways to remain in contention…but still remains to wear a bridesmaid dress. One minute, they’re beating Texas on a last second thriller....the next minute they’re struggling with a horrible Nebraska team at home. This year? Who the hell knows. They’ll be good. They won’t be great. They’ll beat a team they shouldn’t and lose to a team they should beat. Same old Tech...why change this year?

KANSAS STATE – God I love the KSU fans. Always proud, my poor friends from Manhattan don’t have the age-old “history” card to fall back on when people rip on their team’s current state of affairs. Instead, the Cat fans simply take it on the chin and scribble down the names for later retribution. Bill Snyder’s return is either absolutely brilliant, or possibly the dumbest move in the history of the game. Turning back around a program like KSU is going to be tougher than most schools, simply for their geography, and the fact that Missouri and Kansas are up recently. I have no real idea what to expect form this team.

OKLAHOMA STATE – I caught a lot of flack last year with my statement that Okie State last year really didn’t impress me. Oh sure, they beat Missouri on the road, and fought Texas and OU to the death. But there was just something about them that I simply couldn’t put my finger on…something just not right. Their game with Georgia will tell us a lot about them…although I have to admit…I’m still not sold just yet. Good team for sure…9 win team perhaps. But not great just yet in my eyes.

COLORADO – My proxy brothers in arms head into another season with the usual question marks and unknowns. Somewhere I read that 17 starters missed games with injuries for CU last year. Yes, I’ve predicted their return to glory for several years now, and I’m still not sure they’re quite ready. But after getting assrammed by Missouri and squeaking by lowly Iowa State, they actually put together a couple of pretty nice games in late November. Their schedule is again pretty tough with a trip to West Virginia and pesky Toledo…but something tells me CU will be hanging around at the end. We shall see.

KANSAS – OK Beakers...you redlegged civilian women and children pillaging freaks: With all the banter between Missouri and Nebraska lately, people still overlook the decent amount of returning firepower KU brings to the table. They get Nebraska at home...Mizzou on a neutral field and their toughest non-con test is mighty Texas (El Paso). (OU, @Texas and @Tech don’t’ sound fun though.) So other than that… why aren’t people taking KU more seriously? Because they weren’t that good to begin with, that’s why. Todd Reesing is a scrapper and hands down the best returning QB in the North. (Hell, he’s the only one isn’t he pretty much?) But if a football team sucks in the woods and nobody hears from them…are they still good? KU will be a non-factor by late October due to their tough Southern schedule and gigantic holes on the defensive side of the ball…just as the fluke that was 2007 floats further and further away in the rear-view mirror.

OKLAHOMA – I view the Sooners pretty much the same way I view the New England Patriots. Solid and successful…a gold Standard organization that is as dirty as the Mississippi and as crooked as a Baobab root. The Sooners are the quintessential villains of the Big 12, somehow yanking the title away from Texas who…let’s just face it…give us much harder coaches/players to hate than Bob Stoops and the team from Norman. OU will be good. OU will always be good. And as always, I hope they fall on their face, and suffer a Boise-type embarrassment week after week after week. Did I mention they were really good?

MISSOURI – Some “experts” have Missouri competing for a North title with a few returning cogs of a good-yet-not-super season in 2008. Other “experts” have them finishing 5th in the conference, and even that is contingent on Mizzou beating Iowa State to stay out of the cellar. Everything for the Tigers is going to hinge on the play of former Husker wonder boy Blaine Gabbert…especially in week’s 1 and 4..where the Tigers take on a decent Illinois team in St. Louis, and a scary Nevada team in Reno. (Which great Columbia Tribune beat writer Dave Matter noted last week….barely got “squeaked out” by the Tigers in a 52 point loss last season.) I could see Mizzou winning 10 games. I could see Mizzou winning 6 games. Somewhere in between..the truth lies. Regardless, no team can afford injuries less than MU. Time will tell.

TEXAS – I think it would kinda suck to be a Texas fan. Oh sure, you have the greatest facilities on earth..the most fertile recruiting grounds anywhere and more money than God….but even with all that…OU and Bob Stoops seem to always stay a step ahead. It will be interesting to see how UT bounces “back” from their apparently “snub” in the Big 12 title game last year…where they pissed and moaned about the right to smack and uninspired Mizzou team in the Championship game and therefore leapfrog into the BCS title game. Colt McCoy shows some pretty good guts and moxy late in the season last year, and it will be interesting if he handles himself with the same sort of toughness. It will be interesting to see if their joke of a non-conference schedule catches up with them in the end. (And I must admit..it would be kinda funny after the crybaby antics last year.)

NEBRASKA – To my old friends in red....just because you don't have a specific corner of cyberspace dedicated to your extreme suckage, doesn't mean you don't deserve the verbal lashing that you subconsciously crave. Truth be told, I'm not surprised by this summer's version of Husker fans...because quite frankly, they're exactly the same version of Husker fans over the past 10 years or so. Extreme confidence in unproven players, an over-abundance self-satisfaction in supporting a coach that has done nothing ...and good old-fashioned myopia have clouded your soybean crusted minds into something that...quite frankly...never shocks me.

Somehow...in some strange way...not having an experience quarterback is only a problem for other teams. Somehow, if that quarterback is indeed as good as you just KNOW he is (Juco coaches told you so)...his receivers will suddenly not be the bench warming underachievers they've been over the previous three years. SOMEHOW, a mediocre running back who ran up gaudy yards against crap teams and Oklahoma's fourth string defense is going to show the rest of the big 12 that "I-Back University" isn't going anywhere. SOMEHOW, a fat and overrated personal foul machine is going to be the greatest defensive lineman the world has ever know....all because a couple of passes hit him in the chest.

Yes, same old modern day Husker fans...with your wild visions of Johnny Rogers, Christian Peter and Eric Crouch...all while the soundtrack of Kent Pavelka's voice still booms through your brains. Yes, you're partying like it's 1995....again. And yes, you will soon celebrate the fruits of mediocrity (if that)...again.

Road games at KU, Colorado, Va Tech and Missouri? No problem. Oklahoma and Tech at home? Pfffft they suck. All of this is playing out like a sad and twisted reality show, and you bumpkins are once again the unknowing stars. (While the audience at home laughs at your predictions of conference titles, BCS bids and repetitive claims that you are once again....BACK. "No, this time we mean it!")

We will get more into this I'm sure...but if you're a regular reader of the old blog...you already know what I'm going to tell; just as you already know how this is going to end. So yeah, I'll make sure to remind everyone else, as we continue to laugh at you...not with you. Then in late September when the Sun Belt conference title is in hand and the rest of the season goes to shit..you can once again...look to me to see why it all went wrong...yet again.

Ho hum.

Mythbusters coming this week.