NCAA Football texas Longhorns

For a game that used evoke so much emotion on either side and often divided homes and friendships down the middle, this Texas-Texas A&M rivalry has strangely morphed into that just-another-game feel.

Maybe it's the fact the Aggies haven't seriously challenged for the Big 12 South championship this decade, while the Longhorns have seemingly been part of the division title conversation most seasons. Perhaps, it's because Oklahoma, in most years, has been the most dominant team in the South so Texas has directed its energy toward toppling the Sooners in their annual Red River Rivalry Game every October.

Some would might even suggest Texas Tech and --gasp -- Oklahoma State have become greater rivals to the Longhorns than A&M.

Leave it to Texas Tech coach Mike Leach to come up with a brutal assessment of the issues surrounding Kansas coach Mark Mangino and the allegations last week he has been both physically and mentally abusing his players.

Kansas athletic director Lew Perkins has launched an investigation into Mangino's actions after one of his players reported that the head coach poked him during a walk-through practice a couple weeks ago. Since then, several former players have come forth to discuss Mangino's alleged abusive behavior and sometimes mean-spirited verbal attacks.

Leach has never been guilty of playing the politically correct game and he certainly didn't disappoint during this week's Big 12 football coaches call when the subject turned to the storm Mangino is facing.

AUSTIN, Texas -- Usually one the most straight-laced and reserved of the Texas Longhorns, senior quarterback Colt McCoy finally stopped to take it all in late Saturday night.

AUSTIN, Texas -- For 21 University of Texas seniors, Saturday night was their last time playing at Texas Memorial Stadium. So they made it a night to remember.

The second-ranked Longhorns overpowered Kansas en route to a 51-20 victory that cemented them as the Big 12 South division champions and sealed senior quarterback Colt McCoy's place as college football's all-time winningest quarterback with 43 career wins.

But the Texas Longhorns, who are well positioned for their first BCS national championship game bid since 2005, still have quite a bit of business to finish. They will have to get past rival Texas A&M on Thanksgiving night and then North division champ Nebraska in the Big 12 title game.

AUSTIN, Texas -- Okay, so let the debate began.

Vince Young or Colt McCoy.

Which is the greatest Texas Longhorns quarterback of all time? Young led the Texas Longhorns to a season of perfection and the BCS national title in 2005 as a junior. McCoy, a four-year starter at Texas, has a chance tonight to become college football's all-time winningest quarterback with 43 wins should the second-ranked Longhorns make it past Kansas here at Texas Memorial Stadium.

AUSTIN, Texas -- University of Texas coach Mack Brown usually doesn't like to live in the past, but this week he broke out some old film for his team.

He showed the Longhorns how teams from 2006 and 2007 finished in comparison to 2005, when Texas won the BCS national title, and last season when many agree the 12-1 Longhorns should have been given the opportunity to compete for the national championship.

Brown's point to his second-ranked,10-0 squad is simple: stay focused these last two regular-season games, the Big 12 championship game in two weeks, and then biggest of prizes await the Texas Longhorns in Pasadena. A slip up anywhere between now and the Jan. 7 BCS national championship game will lead to great disappointment for Texas.

The Big 12 North remains a ways from returning to the prominence it enjoyed when the conference first formed in the late 1990s, but if Saturday's matchup between Kansas State and Nebraska for the division title is any indication then better days are certainly on the horizon.

After years of struggles by the Kansas State Wildcats and the Nebraska Cornhuskers, which have coincided with a dip in the North's strength, the two meet Saturday in Lincoln for a winner-take-all showdown. Neither team has had quite the season it anticipated but each has won enough for the right to play for the Big 12 championship, likely against No. 2 Texas, Dec. 5.

"Certainly we've been in this position before, probably in different ways," said veteran Wildcats coach Bill Snyder, who broke out of a three-year retirement to return to the sidelines this season. "By the same token, I can't remember other than the very early years that playing against the Nebraska teams was not a great challenge and certainly key ball games were after those initial years after they beat us so soundly."

FanHouse writer John Walters is living in South Bend, Ind., during one of the most pivotal seasons in Notre Dame history. Check back daily for his dispatches on the Irish.

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- The numbers are fluid, but if you search stories on the web for the past two weeks you will find that no head coach, with the exception of Florida's Urban Meyer, is written about more than Charlie Weis. And if you were to eliminate the stories that pertain to Meyer possibly leaving the Brigadoon that is Gainesville for the "Deadliest Catch" climes of South Bend, then Weis may be number one.

Nick Saban. Mack Brown. Brian Kelly. The Patterson/Petersen duo, Gary and Chris. None of them have had even half the stories being written about them that Weis does even though all five of them have guided their teams to undefeated seasons thus far. Weis' team, as you know, is but 6-4.

It's that silly time of year again. There are so many significant teams among the big boys of college football, but there are just two slots on Jan. 7 in Pasadena, Calif., for that title game of the Bowl Championship Series. So the voice of the older Jim Mora is screaming in my subconscious.

Playoffs, playoffs?

We don't need playoffs in this situation.

I've heard your Tebow talk and your McCoy blather, I've even read your outlandish suggestions that Alabama running back Mark Ingram should win the award. Please, Ingram isn't even as good as Temple's Bernard Pierce and Stanford's Toby Gerhart statistically, and I haven't heard a single one of you mention him. Already, we've made Case's case, and I don't agree with that either.

There is still one player is lurking out there without much national recognition despite the fact that he has the best profile of any Heisman contender.

Why is he being ignored? Because he plays for Boise State and because, you might have noticed, Boise State is off the national radar despite being undefeated. That means most of us have missed what Kellen Moore has managed so far this fall. Thus far,Moore has completed over 67 percent of his passes with many more touchdowns than interceptions. Along the way he's led his team to a 9-0 record, kicked a huge dent in the BCS superiority, and burnished his Heisman credentials. Don't believe me, please step inside for a discussion.