Quarterbacks

1. Oklahoma (Sam Bradford--for now; if not...?)
2. Texas (Colt McCoy--for now; if not...John Chiles?)
3. Oklahoma State (Zac Robinson)
4. Baylor (Hot Tub Griffin III)
5. Texas Tech (Taylor Potts)
6. Texas A&M (Jerrod Johnson)

Obviously, there's a lot of "if" here.  If Bradford's gone, OU falls to #6 because they don't have another QB who's taken a single snap.  If McCoy's gone, you figure Chiles gets the first shot at the job, and while he's decent, UT still falls to #5 on this list.

Running Backs

1. Oklahoma State (Kendall Hunter, Keith Toston)
2. Oklahoma (DeMarco Murray, Chris Brown)
3. Texas (Fozzy Whitaker, Vondrell McGee)
4. Texas Tech (Baron Batch, Aaron Crawford)
5. Baylor (Jay Finley, Jeremy Sanders)
6. Texas A&M (Mike Goodson--for now; if not...Bradley Stephens?)

I firmly expect Goodson to go pro if he's healthy enough for the combine.  Even with him, though, it appears that every other South team has better depth at RB than ATM.

Wide Receivers/Tight Ends

1. Oklahoma State (Dez Bryant, Damian Davis, DeMarcus Connor)
2. Texas (Malcolm Williams, Dan Buckner, Brandon Collins)
3. Texas Tech (Detron Lewis, Edward Britton, Tramain Swindall)
4. Texas A&M (Jeff Fuller, Ryan Tannehill, Terrence McCoy)
5. Oklahoma (Ryan Broyles, Brandon Caleb, Jameel Owens)
6. Baylor (David Gettis, Ernest Smith, Kendall Wright)
   

I am 99.999% sure Michael Crabtree is going pro, so we're not even going to pretend with an "If he's still at Tech" scenario.  He's gone.  As are a lot of the other proven WRs in the South.  OSU ends up on top here, though Texas almost looks to have a better WR corps next year despite losing Cosby and Shipley.  OU's unit could be solid, and you know they have plenty of good recruits to plug in the holes, but losing Iglesias and Manny Johnson will hurt them.  Broyles could be a major stud, though.

Offensive Lines

1. Texas (OT Adam Ulatoski, C Chris Hall, OT Kyle Hix)
2. Oklahoma State (OT Russell Okung, OT Brady Bond, OG Andrew Lewis)
3. Texas A&M (OT Michael Shumard, OG Evan Eike, C Kevin Matthews)
4. Texas Tech (OT Marlon Winn, OG Brandon Carter, ...?)
5. Oklahoma (OT Trent Williams, ...?)
6. Baylor (OG James Barnard, C JD Walton, OG Chris Griesenbeck)
   

It might behoove Sam Bradford to seriously think about entering the NFL draft this coming year...as his stock could fall in the '10 draft after running for his life all season long in '09.  You know OU's O-line will still be reasonably competent, but this appears to be a 2005-esque rebuilding year for OU in the trenches.

South Offenses, 2009

1. Oklahoma State (21)
2. Texas (20)
3. Oklahoma (15)
4. Texas Tech (12)
5. Texas A&M (9)
6. Baylor (7)

You know Tech and OU (if Bradford comes back) will have competent offenses in 2009--they just will.  But continuity at OSU and UT appear to give them edges here.

If Colt McCoy goes pro

1. Oklahoma State (22)
2. Texas (17)
3. Oklahoma (15)
4. Texas Tech (13)
5. Texas A&M (9)
6. Baylor (8)

If Sam Bradford goes pro

1. Oklahoma State (22)
2. Texas (21)
3. Texas Tech (13)
4. Oklahoma (10)
5. Texas A&M (10)
6. Baylor (8)

If McCoy AND Bradford go pro

1. Oklahoma State (23)
2. Texas (18)
3. Texas Tech (14)
4. Oklahoma (10)
5. Texas A&M (10)
6. Baylor (9)

This does show the strength of the South--Baylor's got their most exciting QB, possibly ever, and ATM has a nice, young QB with some nice, young WRs...and they're still bringing up the rear in just about every scenario.

One thing's for certain: Mike Gundy better start googling "How to handle the hype" right now, because I see no way OSU isn't a preseason Top 6-8 team next year.

That's right, boys and girls (mostly boys)...it's that time of week again.  It's time for BTBS Box Scores!

I'll save most of my thoughts for tomorrow, but...holy crap, those are just universally atrocious numbers from Colorado.  Their best down (2nd) was not even half as good as Mizzou's best down (2nd).  Their success rates on Non-Passing Downs (30.0%) were 10% worse than Mizzou's success rates on Passing Downs (40.0%).  Missouri's close-game S&P was 2680% that of Colorado's.  I don't mean to pile on, really (I like the folks at Ralphie Report), but...SEMO's offense looked about twice as good as Colorado's on Faurot Field.  Coach Nick Nolte's got some work to do.

Other Big 12 games after the jump.

Continue reading this post »

1 - What did last week's string of upsets tell you about the current state of college football?

2 - A month into the season, where do you think Joe Ganz ranks among Big 12 QBs?

3 - For those who have seen Nebraska play at all this year, what do you think gives Nebraska the best opportunity of stopping the Mizzou offense enough to win?

4 - Big 12 Picks!

Texas @ Colorado
Kansas @ Iowa State
Texas Tech @ Kansas State
Oklahoma @ Baylor
ATM @ OSU

And finally...

Mizzou @ Nebraska

5 - Finally...on average, which game do you usually see as a bigger game in football: MU-NU or MU-KU?  (For Doug, change that to KU-KSU or MU-KU)  I think I've asked a question like this before, but...screw it.  I'm asking it again.

Continue reading this post »

A few quick Big 12 recaps and comments for you...

• Nebraska 35, San Jose State 12 - SJSU got it to 14-12 early in Q4 until NU finally kicked it into gear.  Marlon Lucky's Heisman campaign isn't going well.  Nor is his All-Conference campaign.  Corn Nation looks at the goods and bads.
  
• Colorado 31, Eastern Washington 24 - Well...I guess almost losing to EWU is better than losing to EWU.  Darrell Scott struggled to get going, but I'm wondering how much of that is the O-line.  Ralphie Report looks at CU's first-down struggles.
  
• Iowa State 48, Kent State 28 - REVENGE!!!  Though for the second straight week, ISU's scoreboard blowout didn't match the stats.  Clone Chronicles analyzes what's up.
  
• Kansas 29, Louisiana Tech 0 - If I'm a KU fan (and I'm very much not), I'm starting to get really, really worried about the running game.  3rd-stringer Angus Quigley did well after Jake Sharp and Jocques Crawford combined for 39 yards on 14 carries.  But the defense is obviously looking good.  A nice recap at Rock Chalk Talk.
  
• Kansas State 69, Montana State 10 - Three return TDs + really bad opponent = 59-point win.
• Oklahoma 52, Cincinnati 26 - Cincy acquitted themselves relatively well, but my buddy's predictions of greatness for Ryan Broyles turned out to be pretty accurate.  CC Machine has some initial reactions...
  
• Texas Tech 35, Nevada 19 - Graham Harrell was only 19-for-46, and Colin Kaepernick had 350+ total yards, which means I'm looking forward to next week.  I'm not scared of a loss, but I'm looking forward to an interesting challenge.  Double T with thoughts and links.
  
• Texas 42, UTEP 13 - Watched some of this one.  Colt McCoy is at his best when he's running around and improvising, and he looked good last night (as did Quan Cosby).  The defense still has some improving to do, but they continuously came up with big hits when they needed to.  Nothing postgame-ish at BON yet, but I'm sure it's coming...
• Oklahoma State 56, Houston 37 - Nothing like putting up 42 points in the second half to blow open a tight game.  Kendall Hunter (210 yards rushing) and Dez Bryant (236 receiving) looked, shall we say, solid.
• Texas A&M 28, New Mexico 22 - The Jerrod Johnson era begins.  A&M's defense confused UNM's QB (Porterie) pretty well, making up for the injuries to Stephen McGee and Mike Goodson.
  
• Baylor 51, Northwestern State 6 - Check out Robert Griffin's numbers.  Even against a 1-AA opponent, he looked pretty outstanding for a true freshman.  I'm not saying Baylor's an emerging threat or anything, but they might at least resemble a real team soon.