Big 12 Preview--(KC Star)

[LongJim]

JOE POSNANSKI

The Kansas City Star

Ten years is a long time in college football. If you go back one decade, to the opening of the first Big 12 football season, you see what now looks like an upside-down world. You see all the dominant football teams in the North Division.

Nebraska was in all its glory then. Kansas State was ascending. Missouri seemed to be, as well. Colorado was a national power. That first year, to give you an idea, Kansas beat Oklahoma 52-24, and barely a month later Nebraska put up 73 points on the Sooners. Of the 22 every-down players on that first All-Big 12 team, 15 were Northerners. Three Big 12 teams were in the top 20. All three were from the North.

Yes, 10 years is a very long time in sports. The Big 12 has turned inside out. Now, you look hard at this conference and you have to wonder if the Northern teams will ever be competitive again. Since Kansas State's stunning upset of Oklahoma in the 2003 Big 12 championship game, the three Southern powers - Texas, Oklahoma and Texas Tech - have not lost to a single Big 12 North team. That record is 20-0.

The average score in those 20 games is 41-16.

But the dominance goes way beyond that. Last year, the top three scoring teams in the conference were from the South. The two best defenses were from the South. Ten of the 14 offensive players and nine of the 13 defensive players on the All-Big 12 team were Southerners. And more than any of that, Rivals.com has already ranked Oklahoma's 2006 recruiting class as the ninth best in America (the fifth straight year the Sooners have been in the top 10). Texas's class is ranked fifth. The dominance goes on.

When you look hard at this conference now, you wonder how it can ever turn back again. Over the next couple of weeks, we will look hard at the conference, its successes and failures, the way it brought out the potential in Texas but left Missouri searching for its own personality, the battle for bigger facilities and the difficulties of cost cutting.

But for fans, I think the biggest question heading into the next decade is this: Will the Northern teams ever break through again? I'm talking football here. In other sports, like baseball, the North has made big strides. And there have been all kinds of twists and turns, and I suspect that will continue. When you look at men's basketball - and consider that both Oklahoma schools lost near-legends as coaches while Kansas State and Missouri hired different but promising new coaches - we might see a major shift there.

But let's not kid anybody: The Big 12 was put together for football. And football has flown South. There are probably a million reasons - money, luck, facilities, timing - but I think there are two major causes for the South dominance:

1. Coaching and identity. When the conference was formed in 1996, the best coaches - Tom Osborne, Bill Snyder, even a young Rick Neuheisel - were in the North. The Northern schools had a clear idea what they were about. They had a direction.

At the same time, traditional powers Oklahoma and Texas struggled. In college sports, much more than pro sports, coaches define the team.

Well, you know the story. Osborne retired, and Nebraska has been in an identity crisis. Neuheisel flamed out. This year Snyder said goodbye, too, and while Ron Prince is an impressive presence there's really no knowing now which way Kansas State will go.

Meanwhile, Texas hired Mack Brown, the best CEO in college football. He immediately made Texas a recruiting power. It took the Longhorns a little while to quit stepping on themselves, but those recruits were too good. The Longhorns became good, then great, then a national champion. Now they look unstoppable.

At the same time, Oklahoma hired Bob Stoops, who immediately re-instilled Oklahoma pride and won the national championship in his second year. Texas Tech hired a gunslinger, Mike Leach, who isn't afraid to run up 70 points on any team that won't stop him. Those teams know exactly what they're about now.

2. Recruiting. This one's pretty obvious, but how does the North overcome? The state of Texas is obviously the richest recruiting region in the Big 12. Everybody recruits Texas. So when Texas was floundering, when Oklahoma couldn't get its act together, coaches could go into Texas and take some of the best players.

Not anymore.

"I can't even begin to tell you how big an advantage Texas has," one former Big 12 coach says. "I mean, some of the best players in America are right there. Mack can just throw a net out his office window and pull in four blue-chip prospects. How can you compete with that?"

It's a good question. Our own Blair Kerkhoff, the dean of Big 12 reporters, thinks that the only way schools like Kansas, Missouri and Kansas State can compete is to recruit more nationally. They cannot hope to win in this conference by going into Texas and taking the players that Texas and Oklahoma don't want.

I would agree. You can't be a coach in the Big 12 and not recruit Texas, of course. But I think to compete the Northern schools do have to expand their vision and try to find players in less hotly contested places like the Northeast. They have to find Texas-caliber talents in other parts of the country.

That will be hard. It will cost a lot of money. And, in the end, it might not even work - heck, everyone is trying to win out there. But it had to go this way. Ten years ago, a few powerful thinkers built the Big 12, America's first super conference. And in a super conference, the big rule of nature applies: Only the strong survive.