Tirade Tuesday: Tough Week to Be a Former Member of the Big 12
The Big 12 is on a role thus far in the 2022 season, recording a 16-4 cumulative record through two weeks of play. One of the four losses was inner conference with Kansas defeating West Virginia, while another was Baylor losing to future Big 12 foe BYU.
This conference has proven to have some grit early in the year, while that can’t really be said for some former members of this league.
Whew. The foursome of Nebraska, Texas A&M, Missouri, and Colorado had a tough week didn’t they?
Colorado Crumbles
Eight days after getting pummeled by TCU, a team that effectively replaced Colorado in the Big 12, the Colorado Buffaloes headed down the road to the USAF Academy just north of Colorado Springs, Colorado to take on the Air Force Falcons.
Air Force was a 17.5-point favorite in that one, and the Buffs sure wish they could’ve kept it that competitive. Instead, the final score was 41-10, and Colorado was outgained 443 to 162. Air Force had 25 first downs to Colorado’s eight.
This was, by all accounts, a butt-whooping.
The Buffaloes don’t have it any easier this week as they head to Minnesota to take on the Golden Gophers as a 27.5-point underdog.
Nebraska Nixes Win, Scott Frost
The Nebraska Cornhuskers were supposed to turn a corner this week and look like an improved team heading into their matchup with former Big 12 rival Oklahoma.
Instead, the Huskers let the Georgia Southern Eagles, who were 23-point underdogs, hang around until the unthinkable happened. Well, maybe not unthinkable under Scott Frost. Nebraska allowed Georgia Southern to score with 36 seconds left to take a 45-42 lead, and Nebraska missed a field goal as time expired, losing their second game in three tries.
Subsequently, Frost didn’t make it another 24 hours as the Nebraska head coach despite his buyout being cut in half in less than three weeks. Imagine being so embarrassed that you are willing to pay an extra $7.5 million just to get a guy out of the program. Rough times in Lincoln.
Look guys, a trash can fan talking about the Big 12 being “garbage” but salivating over its longest-tenured head coach. Everybody point and laugh!
I’ll leave you with one stat on this loss for Nebraska: The Huskers were 214-0 when scoring at least 35 points at Memorial Stadium heading into the weekend. Now, 214-1.
Mizzou Misfire
When Missouri traveled to Manhattan to take on former Big 12 foe Kansas State, it was supposed to be a relatively competitive outing, as K-State only closed as a touchdown favorite.
Instead, K-State molly-whopped Mizzou to a tune of 40-12. Deuce ran wild and the Tigers had no answer for him, or anyone else in purple for that matter. Missouri, the SEC team, looked overmatched, out-physicalled, and downright bad against the Cats.
The Tigers ran into a brick wall in Bill Snyder Family Memorial Stadium, mustering only 222 yards of offense, two field goals, and one garbage time touchdown as time expired. This game was nearly as lopsided as TCU’s victory over Tarleton, and that is saying something.
Aggie Anguish
Oh boy. This outcome has had, by far, the largest amount of backlash on social media as Texas A&M fans are insane to begin with, but you throw in a loss to Sun Belt contender Appalachian State, and you have a true spectacle.
The sixth-ranked Texas A&M Aggies had a letdown of epic proportions on the field Saturday, as they were simply outplayed and outcoached by Appalachian State for 60 minutes.
The final score of 17-14 wasn’t indicative of how lopsided this game was, but a closer look at the stats reveals domination by the Mountaineers. For starters, App State won the turnover battle 2-0, which is always a massive advantage. App State outgained A&M 315-186 in total offense and held the ball for an impressive 41:29, compared to that of A&M’s 18:17 TOP.
The Mountaineers gained 22 first downs with an impressive 82 offensive plays, compared to just 38 offensive plays and nine first downs for Texas A&M.
Not sure that this had anything to do with the loss, but it sure is funny after their loss to the “hillbilly” Mountaineers.
