Texas Longhorns

We took a look on Thursday at the first few big surprises in the Big 12, and it's time for a few more before we decide the big one.

1. Oklahoma won't finish in the Big 12's top three. The Sooners entered the season as the preseason No. 1 and earned 41 of 43 first-place votes in the Big 12. This was supposed to be the big year for Oklahoma, but upsets and injuries dropped it to 9-3 and a fourth-place finish in the Big 12, via a loss to Baylor that gave the Bears the tiebreaker. Ryan Broyles missed the final three games with a torn ACL, and leading rusher Dominique Whaley missed most of the past four games with a fractured ankle. The Sooners lost two of their final three regular-season games and fell to the Insight Bowl.

2. Despite losing Dana Holgorsen, Oklahoma State's offense will be more productive. Holgorsen revitalized the Cowboys' offense, helping them set a school record with 10 regular-season wins and a share of the Big 12 South. Then he left for West Virginia. Enter Todd Monken. The results? A Big 12 title and 11 regular-season wins, along with more total offense and more points. Who knew?

3. Garrett Gilbert's junior season will last less than two games. Texas stuck with Gilbert for all 12 games of the 5-7 season in 2010, but he floundered in rather spectacular fashion in just his second start of 2011. He was 2-of-8 for eight yards and two interceptions before being benched for Case McCoy and David Ash. The Longhorns rallied to beat BYU that night, and less than a month later, Gilbert underwent shoulder surgery and announced his plans to transfer. He plans to play at SMU next year.

4. You're never out of it at halftime against Texas A&M. The Aggies looked so good so often, especially in the first half against eventual Big 12 champion Oklahoma State. They led 20-3 before losing the lead in the next quarter, and it would only become the first of six losses in which the Aggies led by double digits. Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas State and Texas all erased big leads to beat the Aggies, who finished 6-6.

5. Texas Tech ends college football's longest home winning streak -- then doesn't win again. After suffering close losses to Kansas State and Texas A&M, Texas Tech upset Oklahoma as 28-point underdogs, ending Oklahoma's 39-game home winning streak that dated back to 2005 and became the first Big 12 team to win in Norman since 2001. A week later, though, the Red Raiders were whacked, 41-7, by Iowa State and didn't win a game the rest of the year. Which was more surprising? Both were jaw-droppers. As a result, Texas Tech endured its first losing season in 18 years.

AUSTIN, Texas -- It doesn't matter that Texas is winging its way to the West Coast to face a Pac-12 team that put the high in high-flying.

So what if Cal coach Jeff Tedford has been the passing game guru that has put numerous quarterbacks into the NFL.

Who cares if Cal has a receiver that has more than 1,200 yards or a quarterback that is ranked in the top 50 in total offense?

For Texas the mindset is still the same -- stop the run, the rest will follow.

In Texas' five loss it allowed 134 rushing yards per game. In its seven wins, Texas allowed just 82 yards per game.

Cal rushes for 167 yards per game and has a back, Isi Sofele, who averages 105 yards per game. Add to that quarterback Zach Maynard is moving the offense with his ability to scramble and throw on the run, and Texas will be picking its poison on defense.

“Again, it always comes back to first thing’s first," Texas defensive coordinator Manny Diaz said. “The best way to stop the quarterback is to stop the run, take away his best friend, and then you can do some different things with him.”

With the exceptions of the Oklahoma State and Baylor games, Texas had been adept at making offenses one-dimensional. Texas gave up 191 on the ground to Baylor and 202 to Oklahoma State. Those were the two highest totals of the season. Baylor was also able to victimize Texas through the air more than the Cowboys.

Cal, while not as explosive, appears to be of the same mold. Couple that with the residual effects of the Baylor game, and it has made for refocusing of efforts during the bowl practices.

“In this game, and I have said it a million times is, all we do is go back and fix what we made mistakes on,” Diaz said. “We are in a constant fight to battle to improve. That is really all we are trying to do. That is why getting the bowl bid the [day after the Baylor loss] was a quick way to refocus us.

“Then when you play an offense as dynamic as what Cal has, that is an easy way to get yourself excited to go out and finish the year the way we want to finish it. I always look at bowl games as the bridge to next year’s football team. We have some guys who are trying to make a statement about who we want to be in the future, and we have a great opportunity to do that on national TV.”

That national exposure could backfire. Cal has put up big plays, but against lesser teams than Texas. The Bears had a 74-yard touchdown pass against Arizona State. They also had a 90-yard touchdown pass against Washington. Sofele has eight runs of 22 yards or more with his season-best being a 56-yard run against Oregon State.

“We have to get after the running back and try to minimize that,” defensive tackle Kheeston Randall said. “Then we will try to rush the passer. If we do that, we should put ourselves in a successful position.”

This week, we'll take a look at the biggest surprises across the Big 12 this season.

1. Robert Griffin III is a lot more than just a good player on a bad team. That's mostly what you heard about Griffin before this year. The Bears got walloped by the Big 12 powers in 2010 and didn't make a bowl with Griffin in 2008. What more could Baylor really do, even if it had a transcendent quarterback? Uh, apparently, a whole lot. Griffin nabbed the school's first Heisman Trophy and the 9-3 Bears finished third in the Big 12, including the school's first win over Oklahoma.

2. Iowa State can truly play giant killer. All of Iowa State's early benchmark wins under Paul Rhoads had something in common: They mostly came to middling teams with big names and no offense. Texas in 2010 was in the top 25, but the Longhorns finished 5-7. Nebraska gifted the Cyclones eight turnovers and scored seven points in ISU's upset in 2009. But Oklahoma State? That was near impossible. The Cowboys were maybe the best offense in the nation and played well, jumping out to a 24-7 lead before the Cyclones rallied for a shocking upset and shook up the college football landscape.

3. It's possible to get fired in two years. It seems odd and perhaps unfair for a coach to only get two years, but Turner Gill came to Kansas as one of the hottest coaches in college football, fresh off an unbelievable rebuilding job at Buffalo. But Gill's Kansas teams were permanent fixtures in the Big 12 basement, losing the final 10 games of 2011 and six of them by at least 30 points.

4. Collin Klein deserves Heisman buzz and a spot on the All-Big 12 team. Klein came into the year as a former receiver with an ugly throwing motion that he'd only actually used in a game 19 times before 2011. He left the regular season with a staggering 26 rushing touchdowns. Only two players in college football had more. He carried the ball 293 times, more than anyone in the Big 12 and nearly 100 more times than the Big 12's third-most used back. He's no polished passer like Brandon Weeden, Landry Jones or RG3, but his play compelled some to create an "all-purpose" position on the All-Big 12 first team.

5. Missouri is an ... SEC school? Missouri's desire to leave the Big 12 for the Big Ten was the league's worst-kept secret in the summer of 2010, but the SEC? Oklahoma dropped a bombshell back in September when it openly admitted it was shopping around for conferences. A bigger bombshell came later that month when reports indicated the SEC was interested in Mizzou. Months later, that relationship was consummated and the Big 12 had lost its fourth member in the past year and a half.

More on Friday...

ESPN college football analyst broke down some of the bowl games and looked at teams that needed a win the most.

Read the full story here.

Huard looks at Notre Dame, Nebraska, Oregon, Mississippi State and Texas.

Here's a bit of what he had to say about the Longhorns:

The pressure is squarely on Texas on Dec. 28, as Brown doesn't want to enter 2012 spring ball having lost four out of five to end the previous season, with the lone win coming in a game that had more to do with the Texas A&M Aggies' losing than the Longhorns' winning.

Will UT be able to turn it around next season? The Horns' performance against Cal could go a long way toward providing the answer.

Here's Chad Millman and Sal Selvaggio's thoughts on the betting around California and Texas in the Bridgepoint Holiday Bowl.

First, the duo's criteria for picking bowl teams:

1. How a team ended the regular season:
"Were they on a run to make the bowl, or did they lose a lot?"


2. How much excitement a team will have headed into the bowl:
"You're looking for a team that is thrilled to be there and looking forward to the game."



A subset of No. 2 is bowl experience, but not for the reason you think: "I'm more likely to give a team a higher ranking if it hasn't been to a bowl for a while, because that will generate excitement amongst the program and fans."



3. How much time off a team has had before the bowl:
"When you are not playing, it's hard to simulate game speed. It's like driving on the highway at 30 miles per hour."



4. The weather on schools' respective campuses:
"The SEC, Pac-12, even the ACC tend to do better in the bowls than the Big Ten, Big 12 and Big East. I think the warm weather has a lot to do with that. Thirty days of practice in warm weather before a bowl game helps you get a lot more done than practicing in a bubble or outside in a cold climate."

5. Throw away any games against non-bowl competition.
"What you want to do is see how a team stepped up in class," Vegas vet Bryan Leonard says.



6. Emphasize a team's road performance over its home performance.

For the BBBII breakdown I asked Selvaggio to give me his breakdown for the bowls taking place between Thursday and next Wednesday. He added one more thought that isn't listed above: "Just like the regular season, I also like to play dogs getting a field goal or more that have good rushing attacks."

Now for the pick:

Bridgeport Education Holiday Bowl
California Golden Bears vs. Texas Longhorns
When: Dec. 28, 8 p.m.
Line: Texas minus-3
Over/Under: 47.5
Watch | Pick Center analysis



Sal says: "Unless this is Mack Brown's last game and we don't know about it, this line makes no sense at all. I have these teams rated as even and although Texas travels well, this game is being played at Qualcomm Stadium in California, so it's not like UT is going to have some big home-field advantage. I have a couple bowl situations that favor the Golden Bears. Couple that with the line value and we have a pretty good wager. I bet California plus-3.5 and would be betting them at plus-3 as well."

AUSTIN, Texas -- Last time out Texas wanted to make sure Robert Griffin III didn't have a Heisman moment.

The Baylor quarterback had several -- the 59-yard pass in the first five minutes of the game being a rather large one -- and won the Heisman in large part because of his performance against Texas.

Now Texas is pinpointing another breakout player to stop, Cal's Keenan Allen. The wide receiver averages 105 yards per game and has topped 1,200 yards this season. He is 12th nationally in receiving yards per game and behind two players Texas has already faced, Baylor's Kendall Wright and Oklahoma' Ryan Broyles. The Texas defensive backs didn't fare too well against either of those. Wright had 166 yards, including the longest touchdown pass given up by Texas, the aforementioned 59-yarder. Broyles had 122 receiving yards and a 40-yard catch.

Like Broyles and Wright, Allen has chemistry with his quarterback. Only in this case, the quarterback also happens to be Allen's brother. The pair have turned routine plays into explosive ones such as the short hitch route against Washington, Allen took 90 yards for a touchdown.

It's that type of ability that has Texas defensive coordinator Manny Diaz worried.

“To me, he would be right up there with some of the top guys we have defended,” Diaz said. “He has size, which is always an issue. He is going to be taller than anyone we have covering him. He has great hands and a great ability to run after the catch.”

Then there is Jeff Tedford and the Cal coaching staff to contend with. Tedford has long been recognized as one of the better offensive minds in the country. Much like Texas co-offensive coordinator Bryan Harsin, there are many times when Tedford defies convention with his schemes.

That has prompted confusion among opposing defenses and could do the same for Texas.

“They will line him up all over the field,” Diaz said. “They will motion him out of the backfield and do all different types of things to get him the football. He is without a doubt one of the premier wide receivers in the country.”

Time for a collection of fun facts, courtesy of the Big 12 Conference heading into eight Big 12 bowl games this postseason.

• The Big 12 has five Heisman winners since its inception in 1996, the most of any conference over that span.
• Every Big 12 team has gone to a bowl since 2008.
• Since that year, seven Big 12 teams have won bowl games.
• The Big 12 and SEC are the only conferences with 10 or more teams in which every team's played in a bowl game over the last four seasons.
• In 2012, the Big 12 will have three conference champions and seven teams ranked in the final regular season BCS rankings.
• A Big 12 player has won the Lou Groza Award as the nation's top kicker in the past two consecutive seasons. (Randy Bullock, Texas A&M; Dan Bailey, Oklahoma State)
• The Big 12 set an attendance record with an average of over 63,000 fans for each home game.
• Every Big 12 team leads its series against its bowl opponent this year, if the teams had previously met.
• Baylor leads its series against Washington, 3-1.
• Oklahoma leads its series against Iowa, 1-0.
• Kansas State leads its series against Arkansas, 3-1.
• Missouri leads its series against North Carolina, 2-0.
• Texas leads its series against Cal, 4-0.
• Iowa State and Rutgers have never met. This year will be Iowa State's 11th bowl game in school history. It's gone to the postseason twice in three years under Paul Rhoads.
• Northwestern and Texas A&M have never met.
• Oklahoma State and Stanford have never met.
• Baylor is 7-8 all-time in bowl games.
• When holding teams under 24 points, Iowa State is 15-1.
• Kansas State took home Newcomer of the Year (Arthur Brown), Coach of the Year (Bill Snyder) and Offensive Freshman of the Year (Tyler Lockett). The three awards are the most in school history.
• Missouri has 2,835 yards rushing and 2,834 yards passing. The Tigers are one of only two teams in the country to average at least 235 yards per game both through the air and on the ground.
• Oklahoma and Iowa have one common opponent: Iowa State. The Sooners won, 26-6, in Norman. Iowa lost in triple overtime in Ames, 44-41.
• Texas has played in 49 bowl games, which ranks second in the FBS.

West Virginia, barring an injunction or other legal shenanigans, will be in the Big 12 in 2012. It, like Missouri and the SEC, has every intention of making this a reality.

So what can we expect on the field?

Brian Fremeau of Football Outsiders says the Mountaineers are one of three teams poised to take the next step.

For West Virginia, who is in the BCS this year, that means winning at the same rate among more difficult competition: the Big 12 elite.

But the next step for head coach Dana Holgorsen in Year 2 is to dominate -- and do so against a stronger set of opponents.

Scan down the list of West Virginia's total offensive contributors this season and you'll find no seniors -- all 5,515 yards generated this season were earned by Mountaineers who will be back for at least another year under Holgorsen's tutelage.

The key is quarterback Geno Smith's continued development and Holgorsen finally getting a full offseason as the man in charge to fully install his vision of a ruthlessly efficient and potent attack. According to our opponent-adjusted ratings, West Virginia had a top-10 offense this year but has plenty of room to improve, especially in limiting mistakes. In their three losses, the Mountaineers had eight turnovers and collected only one turnover on defense.

Additionally, top teams like Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Baylor won't be quite as potent next year while the Mountaineers return a ton on the most important side of the ball to win in the Big 12.

Big East blogger Andrea Adelson weighed in with the other side of the ball:

1. The defense loses its best players in Julian Miller, Bruce Irvin, Keith Tandy and Najee Goode. Irvin, Tandy and Goode all made the Big East first-team. Miller should have been recognized as well. Also, does Jeff Casteel return as defensive coordinator? If yes, how will his unique stack defense fare against the wide-open Big 12 offenses?

First off, I'm not sure what she means when she talks about "defense." The term feels familiar, but yet, strangely foreign.

West Virginia isn't the only team to bring a lot of offense and experience into the Big 12 next season. TCU's top weapons -- quarterback Casey Pachall, receivers Josh Boyce and Skye Dawson, and running back Ed Wesley -- will all be back.

Expect strong showings in Year 1 for the Mountaineers and the Horned Frogs in a wide-open Big 12 race.