I'm Starting to Get Worried

I love college football. More than the NFL, NBA, NCAA hoops and every other sport combined. I'm not sure why I feel this way, but it's probably because my formative sports years (6th grade-beginning of my sophomore HS year) were spent just outside Columbia, MO. Sure, there was Chiefs, Cardinals and Royals coverage, but the biggest deal in town was the Missouri Tigers. At the time, I was more of a basketball fan, mainly because watching Jeff Handy try to throw it to receivers stumbling all over Omni-turf just wasn't much fun.

Let's fast forward to 2007. This is supposed to be our year. This is the year that we finally take the next step forward and capture the Big 12 north. This is our best chance for a BCS bid ever. It might be the last time in my lifetime that this happens. Sure you might laugh, but consider the fact that the last time Missouri won a conference title in football, Nixon was President and we were just landing guys on the moon for the first time. It was a LONG time ago.

Now, I knew we would have some stiff competition this year. It's never easy, even when the conference is having a down year. But I sure as hell wouldn't have picked Kansas to be the team to beat. Seriously, Kansas?!? Aside from a few good years with Glen Mason, the KU football team has sucked balls for years. Even when they've been "good" they've been mediocre. Bill Whittemore? John Cornish? Give me a break. They've had some decent players, but never a solid team. Mangina had only won 2 Big 12 road games in his tenure at KU until this season. Now they're undefeated and are 9th in the latest BCS standings. The game at Arrowhead later this season looms large.

With the way the schedule shakes out, KU misses both OU and Texas this year, with only games at Texas A&M and Oklahoma State as challenges the rest of the way. They have Iowa State and Nebraska at home, and they're both terrible. Upsets happen, but it's totally conceivable that KU shows up on 11/24 at 11-0. With our loss at OU, we really can't afford to stumble the rest of the way. It won't be easy. Kansas State on the road will be tough. We never play well there. We also have to go to Colorado which is, again, a place where we don't normally play well.

To get to my point, I'm worried that the best Mizzou season in 40 years has a good chance of being overshadowed by the greatest KU season of all time. The thought of KU playing in the Fiesta Bowl makes me sick to my stomach. The thought of their being conference champions makes me throw up in my mouth a little bit. I think it's unlikely that they run the table, but it sure seems like a reasonable possibility. And that scares the hell out of me.

In Bauer we trust