It’s hard to say whether clarity in the Big-12 North took a step forward or whether unclarity took a step back. Either way, it is (at best) slightly less murky than it was last week when I wrote this summary. Probably the one thing that pops out is that KU (the preseason favorite by many – including me) is extremely unlikely to win it. Here are the probabilities based on my calculations for each of the six teams for both outright champion as well as co-champion (tie breakers are too numerous to begin to calculate at this point).
| Team | Outright | Share |
| Kansas State | 10.9% | 27.7% |
| Iowa State | 9.4% | 23.4% |
| Nebraska | 6.7% | 19.2% |
| Missouri | 7.6% | 11.1% |
| Kansas | 3.6% | 8.8% |
| Colorado | — | 7.9% |
-
TIDBITS AND WONDERINGS
Reesing vs Oklorado Tech: Last week I blamed his slump for coming on the heels of Mangino’s Heisman promotion, but it was also consistent with my post on how he has compared to Daniel through the same point in his senior year. Both Mangino and ManMartino were clearly WAYYYY premature in their praise.
Shown are the first five games for Reesing compared to the last three.
| Ypg | Com% | TD | INT | FUM | |
| First 5 | 316 | 69.3% | 13 | 3 | 0 |
| Last 3 | 269 | 56.3% | 3 | 4 | 3 |
-
Worse, all three fumbles were either inside the 6 yard line or returned for TDs.
Oklahoma State’s consecutive quarter scoring streak (23) came to an abrupt end in Q1 versus Texas. Interestingly, OSU is still tied for second with 1 consecutive quarter of scoring behind K-State (3). That should put their 23 straight in context.
Despite losing to OU, K-State has still outscored the combination of Oklahoma and Texas 378-371 since 1998.
Baylor hasn’t beaten Nebraska since 1956.
Missouri scored the first 33 points against Colorado. At that point, they had a streak of 139 unanswered points vs the Buffaloes spanning the last three games.
Kansas State’s Brandon Banks returned a fourth-quarter kickoff 98 yards for a touchdown, the fifth time he’s scored on a kickoff return in his career and the fourth time this season—both Big 12 records. He also caught nine passes for 156 yards.
Curtis Brown and Earl Thomas are defensive backs for Texas. They are the ones that let Michael Crabtree slip through their fingers to ruin an otherwise perfect season on this weekend last year. Against OSU, both returned interceptions for touchdowns.
VS THE LINE
Obviously, the situation over the previous three weeks with Tech beating K-State 66-14 (+52), then K-State beating A&M 62-14 (+48), then A&M beating Tech 52-30 (+22)… was extreme to say the least. However, no Big 12 teams are even close to matching the line on any given week.
What is really interesting to me is to take a look at the last four weeks. How did each team do versus the line? Shown is the deviation. For example Tech was favored by 6.5 over Kansas. They won by 21. Therefore, they beat the line by 14.5. That’s what you see below. Notice the many double digits.
DEV – Total deviation from the line for the four games.
| NORTH | G1 | G2 | G3 | G4 | DEV |
| KS | -36 | +53.5 | +9.5 | +16 | 115.0 |
| ISU | +13.5 | +12.5 | +19.5 | -21 | 66.5 |
| NU | +12 | -31.5 | -19.5 | -3 | 66.0 |
| MU | -12 | -9 | -19.5 | +15.5 | 56.0 |
| KU | -13.5 | -13.5 | -14.5 | -14.5 | 55.0 |
| CU | +8.5 | +13.5 | -9.5 | -15.5 | 47.0 |
-
| SOUTH | G1 | G2 | G3 | G4 | Tot |
| TT | +36 | +31.5 | -43.5 | +14.5 | 125.5 |
| AM | +0.5 | -53.5 | +43.5 | +21 | 118.5 |
| TX | -8.5 | 0 | +19.5 | +18 | 36.0 |
| OS | -0.5 | +9 | +17.5 | -18 | 35.0 |
| BA | +2 | +12.5 | -17.5 | +3 | 35.0 |
| OU | -2 | 0 | +14.5 | -16 | 32.5 |
-
Realizing that every game above is duplicated, 17 of the 24 have deviated from the line by at least 12.5 points! Another three by 8.5 or more. Only four games in the last four weeks have deviated from the line by less than 8.5 points. That’s incredible and it shows how completely unpredictable this conference is.
Over this 4-game stretch, Tech is averaging over 31 points difference from what Vegas said they should do. A&M is averaging almost 30 points, Kansas State 29.
Oklahoma has performed the closest to the line over this period. This is the same team that was -23 and +27.5 in their first two games vs the line.
The best is Tech 5-2-1. The worst is Kansas 2-5 (lost five straight).
Even as great as Texas has been this season, they are only 2-4-1 against the spread. They were 0-4-1 before the last two weeks.
Given that, try to predict next weeks’s games. The line will be out later today.