Sunday Hangover: Texas? Oklahoma? Big 12 South Is Season's Biggest Winner

Miss any of Saturday's action? Get the storylines and implications every Sunday morning with a shot of humor, two of vermouth and a pot full of what's suspected to be either coffee or the pureed remnants of the Georgia's hype.

And so, like any good championship fight, after 12 rounds of haymakers in helmets and point totals higher than stock market losses, we turn to the scorecards.

Three Big 12 South teams needed a win in Week 14 to keep their title hopes alive, and unlike Plaxico Burress, this trio managed not to shoot themselves in the thigh.

There's Oklahoma, which scores in the 60s more than Tiger Woods. There's Texas, which slowed the Sooners on a neutral field and held Oklahoma to an Auburn-like moment of 35 points. And then there's Texas Tech, the unlikely team led by the kooky coach with permanent bed-head that shocked the No. 2 Longhorns in Lubbock before becoming road kill in Norman, Okla.

And after a series of tiebreakers including head-to-head, record against lower-ranked division teams, and, we think, a swimsuit competition, this is what we come to: A knot tied so inexorably tied MacGyver couldn't untangle it with a blowtorch.

But the question is, do we even want to?

Because, like any boxing decision or the Lions on Thanksgiving, you just know this love triangle with Oklahoma and Texas is going to end ugly.

And that's a sad turn of events in a Big 12 South season that should be remembered as a triumph, and not controversy.

Even with 12 rounds in the books, there are arguments for both Red River rivals and each fan base is as likely to cede an inch to the other as the Boomer Schooner is to drape itself in burnt orange. You can even make the argument that Texas Tech is the best team in the nation outside of its Big 12 South rivals.

The only argument you can't make on a weekend in which Georgia and South Carolina were smacked by ACC also-rans Georgia Tech and Clemson, is that the Big 12 South wasn't the nation's finest division.

Oklahoma made its closing statement last and did so with all the subtlety of Chris Brown crashing through the Cowboys' line for the final score in the 61-41 road stomp of rival Oklahoma State. The Sooners got just enough defense and a soaring performance by Sam Bradford, literally, that saw the quarterback take to the skies on a third-down end-zone dive and stay there so long he probably got hit with a checked bag fee when he landed.

If that victory seemed a little bit like a pistol shot when the Sooners' needed a cannonball of a win, remember that the Longhorns struggled to a 28-24 win in Austin and consider that no matter how good Oklahoma has been or how bad the Cowboys have performed in the past 27 years, the Sooners had not beaten Oklahoma State by that many points in Stillwater, Okla. since a 27-3 win in 1981.

Of course, that score a score looks as quaint and outdated as Notre Dame's legacy or a telegraph next to a cell phone compared to this version of the Sooners.

Which is exactly the last impression Oklahoma left in the mind of those who will attempt to untangle college football's Gordian knot.

Texas, meanwhile, romped its hard-luck rival Texas A&M 49-9 on Thursday, ladling on the style points like gravy over a Thanksgiving turkey. They threw for 320 yards and ran further than a Hummer on a full tank of gas, with Cody Johnson providing the Longhorns' roulette wheel of a ground game with its legs. Then coach Mack Brown went to the airwaves, the radio and the Internet pleading his case, doing everything short of a last-ditch political effort this side of bringing in an Alaskan governor as his sidekick.

And Texas Tech, who likely eliminated itself from everything except the Big 12 South title with its trip over the footlights and into the orchestra pit against Oklahoma, fumbled with Baylor before Graham Harrell orchestrated the kind of bailout GM could only dream of.

So we end all tied. Eleven wins and one loss all around.

Unfortunately, we don't get another 12 rounds to duke it out and there is no re-match clause in the contract.

So the knot-cutting between these three will happen. And it will the BCS that does it, a figure that spent the weekend being so villainously cast that you can only assume that it's twirling its waxed mustache as we speak with a distressed damsel tied to a railroad track somewhere.

One-hundred-fourteen Harris Poll voters, 64 coaches and six computer rankings will solve this.

(When you guys figure that one out, get to work on explaining how Alex Rodriguez is dating a woman old enough to be an Oklahoma score.)

As for the Hangover, a week ago we wrote at length as to why Oklahoma deserved to go to Kansas City over Texas and after with another look at both teams, there's not much in the way of incontrovertible proof to overturn this, even in our best Pac-10 official impersonation.

Certainly, Texas owns the head-to-head advantage, a fact a few thousand signs in Austin and one conspicuous flying banner above Stillwater were plenty happy to mention. But while the Longhorns might want to stick Texas Tech in a box with a send-to-Abu-Dhabi sticker attached, the Red Raiders are indeed a part of this championship discussion by the rules of the Big 12. So in the round-robin between the three teams, Oklahoma comes out far ahead by a margin that might make Bill Belichick blush, 100-66. Against common opponents, it's even more of a landslide, 286-138, even with the Sooners treating style points like they're on a diet. In their four lopsided wins against Kansas, Texas A&M, Baylor and Texas Tech, Oklahoma tied in the fourth quarter 21-21 before slapping an extra coat of style points on with the final touchdown against Oklahoma State. Add in two non-conference wins over top-25 teams, including BCS-bound Cincinnati and the only road win over the Cowboys this season, and to us, the decision is as clear as the nose on Bevo's face.

But you don't have to summon the spirit of Johnie Cochran to make a persuasive case for the Longhorns. And that underscores just how great a season these two rivals had and makes it oh-so-unfortunate that this photo-finish of a season is likely headed for a car-crash of a finish well before Victory Lane.

So if we can agree on only one thing this season, let it be the enjoyment college football nation got out of this six-team division.

Just how great a season was it for the Big 12 South?

The division's fourth best team only lost three games all season, to teams that peaked at No. 1 and No. 2 in the nation and all happen to play in the Big 12 South. The Cowboys then beat Big 12 North champ Missouri on the road. Kansas, which knocked off Missouri on Saturday, lost to every Big 12 South team it faced, by a combined 85 points. Oklahoma beat a conference champion in Cincinnati and a team that could've won its conference, BYU, if only it didn't have a kicker less reliable than an '82 Yugo.

Baylor and Texas A&M had about as much of a chance in this group as you and your dog might have playing best ball with Woods and Phil Mickelson, but the Bears' Robert Griffin set an NCAA record for consecutive passes without an interception. And Texas A&M? Well, they tried.

So as we wait for the final decision to come from the jury, instead of bickering between Texas and Oklahoma, let's spend our last few hours appreciating just how good the Big 12 South's season was.

Even if the decision had to go to the scorecards.

The Big 16

Find out who the nation's top teams are each week as we rank the best 16 and set up something heretofore unheard of in college football, a play... wait for it... off. At season's end, the top 16 will compete in two brackets - the Fairburn, Ga. division, ancestral home of Hangover mancrush Eric Berry, and the erstwhile Fort Myers, Fla. division, ancestral home of the pizza bagel.

• 1. Alabama Crimson Tide: Has there ever been a more under-the-radar No. 1 team? Saturday's Iron Bowl win proved just how complete a team this is, even against the lowly Tigers. If the Gators see the high 30s against 'Bama, we'll be surprised.
• 2. Oklahoma Sooners: The Sooners still have arguably the most impressive victory of the season, the rout over Texas Tech, and even a 13-point win over Oklahoma State (if you subtract the gratuitous final touchdown) is still a resume builder; the Longhorns certainly didn't fare any better against the Cowboys. And as for the 41 the Oklahoma defense allowed, subtract out six that should've been disallowed after an obvious fumble in front of the umpire went uncalled. We can only imagine he was thinking about his dwindling 401(k) or Charlie Weis in a bikini or something that made him shut his eyes. But of legitimate concern is the now-vacant linebacker spot left by Austin Box's injury, who himself was playing in place of starter Ryan Reynolds.
  
• 3. Texas Longhorns: Whichever of these two Red River rivals makes it to Kansas City and, likely, Miami, it will be awfully hard to muster an argument against them. We're still a little concerned about the Longhorns' every-day-a-new-star running game, but Brandon Collins' emergence as a third receiver against Texas A&M puts the bite back into the Longhorns' four-wide sets.
• 4. Florida Gators: The rain couldn't slow Florida's high-octane defense, so will Alabama's defense fare any better? That depends on Florida's offensive line, which will run into the kind of physicality it hasn't seen all season, or at least since Ole Miss rumbled through their trenches. If Percy Harvin is out, that will drastically change the equation.
• 5. USC Trojans: The Trojan defense held Notre Dame to under 100 yards in total offense and didn't allow a first down until the end of the third quarter. That's impressive, even against the Irish. Meanwhile, it seems that Ron Pawlus' tutelage is complete in South Bend as Jimmy Clausen has morphed from top prospect to bust in two short years.
• 6. Texas Tech Red Raiders: Rallying on the road against Baylor without star wide receiver Michael Crabtree is the kind of gut-check victory every team needs during the season. Fortunately for the Red Raiders, they'll have plenty of time for Crabtree to heal before a likely Cotton Bowl bid.
• 7. Penn State Nittany Lions: Assuming the Trojans beat UCLA next weekend, the Lions will get a crack at SC in a game we think will be much closer than the Big Ten's last two Rose Bowl trips.
  
• 8. Utah Utes: The Mountain West champs have to wait another week before figuring out where they'll be celebrating the new year.
  
• 9. Ohio State Buckeyes: As much as USC cheered Oregon on in the "Civil War," Ohio State was likely cheering even louder. The Beavers fall from BCS grace probably opens up the door for yet another BCS bid for the Buckeyes.
  
• 10. Boise State Broncos: There's no BCS prize at the end of the trail for the Broncos, but give credit to a program that's been able to build a BCS contender year after year despite coaching changes and more blue turf jokes than college football has players on probation.
• 11. Oklahoma State Cowboys: Sure, the Cowboys lost to one of the best teams in the nation but would you take Ball State over the Cowboys on any field?
• 12. Ball State Cardinals: Give it up for the Cardinals, who crush Michigan directional schools like Ryan Howard crushes batting practice fastballs.
  
• 13. Cincinnati Bearcats: They're Big East champs and headed to the Orange Bowl, but now the Bearcats face the curse of being just a little too good. Every program in need of a head coach will take a run at Brian Kelly.
  
• 14. TCU Horned Frogs: Remember, they held Oklahoma to 35 points. Some bowl opponent is going to wish they'd made other plans with the Horned Frogs take the field.
  
• 15. Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets: Two weeks ago, we wrote that Rich Rodriguez should be earning Paul Johnson a pay raise. Now we'd argue that he should be helping Johnson polish his coach of the year award and maybe hit up the former Navy coach for a few pointers on integrating a new offense and winning over a fan base.
• 16. Boston College Eagles: Cincinnati will vouch for how far an opportunistic defense can get you. The Eagles lead the nation with 25 interceptions.