Nothing is as necessary for success as the single minded pursuit of an objective.Even though the game was anything but a beauty contest, Kansas seemed to shake off the last three games with a convincing victory over the former #1 ranked Longhorns. I can’t say I particularly enjoy watching this team play, but who can argue with 23-1 even if the title is Miss Pig Sty...This was a physical game – one of the most physical of the season for KU. Texas plays very good defense and so does Kansas. The result was 22 blocks and sub 40% shooting from the field. Several players took physical punishment – including Damion James – the victim of a Cole Alrich technical foul left elbow. More often than not, this is the type of game Kansas finds itself in – at least in the Big 12. Not a lot of fun to watch – at least not for me, but effective.

No, I don’t mean the Detroit Lions, however that might be the desire of some fans who can turn on a player faster than you can say “interception”. The Lions are in the arena and Manning is the Christian. Throw an interception in the Super Bowl and… its feeding time. I’ve never seen (at least since Favre threw his interception against the Saints two weeks ago) a bigger bunch of arm-chair hyenas then tonight.

As you all know, Kansas came into the game with Nebraska having won consecutive road OT games. Under normal conditions, that would be encouraging. However, when you are the #1 team in the country, you don’t expect to have to work that hard. When you come home and find yourself trailing 43-39 in the second half against the last place team in the Big 12, you wonder if there is something lurking beneath the rock.

The "House" in Vegas: Nice gig!The amount of betting scenarios put out by Vegas on the Super Bowl is almost as many as the number yards that will be gained in the game. It’s incredible. We all know beating the Vegas line is almost impossible on a regular basis. Indianapolis is favored by 5 points. Your wild-assed guess (WAG) is as good as my WAG or anyone else’s. However, suppose you did a bunch of research on the longest gross punt by Thomas Morstead, you might actually have an advantage. Why not spend your time to become an expert on one minor category and put your $10 or $10,000 on that? At least that is what I would do if bet on sports – which I rarely ever do. And, even then, it’s usually only a buck.

Dodged Another OneI’m referring, of course, to the players due to the high altitude and the second straight OT game, however it’s probably just as true for KU fans who had to mine for oxygen in whatever fingernails they had left. There is a lot to get to, but I thought I would unload a cool factoid on you right off the bat. The last time Kansas won back-to-back OT conference games was…

LotsI don’t know much about much. This is something many of you will agree with.

Peyton's Place: Dolphin Stadium

In my previous Super Bowl post, I tried to make the case that Super Bowl (2009, XLIV) has almost as much appeal to the masses as Super Bowl (1984, XIX) – San Francisco vs Miami, Montana vs Marino. Of course, Indianapolis and New Orleans don’t have as much population as those cities, but the size of the local city is probably small potatoes to the Super Bowl ratings – and besides none of these teams are from New York. Anyway, you can check out my prior post to see how I arrived at it. The focus of this story is who is going to win this game.

The Ultimate Revenge?

A few hours ago I was 100% sure what my post would be about today – the Super Bowl, of course. The entire story as to why I changed my mind will have to wait for another time. I want to thank Kolin for bringing this to my attention Monday night. I immediately got excited and, even though I planned on posting about it Thursday A/M, I got itchy fingers. Plus, by then it would be old news. For a KU fan, writing this post was like eating candy!

In addition to Warner, I’m also going to throw in a freebie on the Pro Bowl in this post. These two items have nothing to do with each other except that they are both NFL related. Warner is extremely interesting. The Pro Bowl is extremely uninteresting. I don’t understand why they got rid of the skills challenge (or at least I think they did). That was easily the best part of the “game”.

It's good to see you back!

For starters, I have never in my life seen such a sea of the same color anywhere. There probably has been, but I don’t remember it. The noise and excitement of the fans was also about as amazing as I have ever witnessed. They deserved a better fate. It would have done wonders for the program and... oh how close they came.

The other day on the radio, they were debating what the worst thing to happen to the NBA’s image was. The three choices were the big fight between the Detroit Pistons and Indiana Pacers that spilled into the crowd in 2004, Tim (the worm) Donaghy’s revelations about his fixing of games, or the recent story about Gilbert Arenas pulling a gun in the locker room. This gives me a good excuse for a rant.

Montana and Marino

I wrote this Sunday night, but am just now posting it. So, the intro is a little dated... No doubt there will be a few hundred thousand articles and stories on Super Bowl 44 (or XLIV for you sticklers), and I’m fairly confident I could post this story the day before the game and not fear it having already been written. However, while the two conference games are still fresh in our minds, I thought today would be a good day to at least begin the process. The main question I had was… “How special is this Super Bowl match-up compared to those previously?”

A couple days ago I got an email from a Missouri fan. He basically accused me (and UFR) (and the KC Star) of being KU biased. Actually, his email was very nice and respectful and I appreciate it. But, the reason I appreciate it the most is that it gives me a chance to say a few things I have wanted to say for some time. When Sam got hammered for his post yesterday on Frank Martin, that was the camel that broke the straw.

Frank should decide how long he'll continue to be a WildcatAnother good win for Kansas State last night, and plenty’s been said about needing to give Frank Martin a raise, but here’s the part nobody’s talking about: why would he sign an extension?

… against Baylor. Next up Kansas – the #1 team next week if Kansas State fails on their mission Saturday. As it is, the victory over the Bears was huge for the program. Not only does it prevent two straight losses with a third one looming, but it makes it three straight victories over ranked Texas teams on the road. Hold the fort at home against KU and a ranking of #8 or even #7 is possible.

Knock out a tooth, take off the glasses... and... um... maybe!

In case you were wondering what happened to Swat King Cole, you got your answer last night. He’s right under our nose. Who knew? Aldrich had a monster game (32 EFF, season high) against Missouri and he couldn’t have picked a better time to do it. His compatriot (Collins) had his worst game of the season … of several seasons (-2 EFF). The net result – a surprisingly easy victory.

This is the sixth reader contribution on UFR. The others can be found to the right side of this page. All of them are by different authors. I consider “Failure to Launch” one of the best. Evan makes great arguments. Most mock drafts I’ve seen are predicting the Chiefs will take Russell Okung, the offensive tackle from Oklahoma State.  I understand the logic.  Kansas City needs to protect their $65 million investment, Matt Cassel. After being sacked 42 times last year, it’s quite surprising that he made it through the season relatively unscathed.

The mindless masses.

Favre should be considered a hero in Minnesota and I don’t mean simply because he took the team to the final moments of the NFC championship game – although that’s more than reason enough. He also played a respectable game Sunday. If you want someone to blame for the loss (unless you are a Green Bay fan), there is plenty of blame to go around.

Some road trips are more fun than others!

As impressive as a 23 point victory is on the Big 12 road, there are still a number of things that I’m concerned about with Kansas. Naturally, I will go over those in detail. However, the first thing I want to point out is how rare it is to win in Ames by 23 points (81-64). By the way, this six game win streak at ISU is the longest since the 1950’s.

The one thing all three schools can agree on.

A month ago, I did a story on how these three had the best record of any state – meaning… pick a state and take the top three DI records in that state and compare the states to each other THE LAND OF BasketbOZ. The long and the short of it was that Kansas was first, which was especially impressive considering most of the other states had more than three schools – some many more. With WSU beating #20 Northern Iowa – who has the distinction of being the “1” in the 116-1 Big 12 non conference home record, I was suddenly reminded of just how special the three schools are this season. In this post, I’m going to take a look at the all-time best combined season for the three.