A brief history of the Big 12, courtesy of what happens to be available (and palatable) on YouTube...
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Oklahoma and Nebraska owned the rest of the old Big Eight for decades, alternating periods of dominance until the end – the tide rose for Oklahoma in the fifties, then Nebraska in the sixties and seventies. Here’s Tom Osborne in 1978, a couple weeks after his Huskers upset top-ranked OU for the conference title on a fumble by soon-to-be Heisman winner Billy Sims, reacting (as it were) to the marketing brilliance of the Orange Bowl selection committee:
Fortune cascaded over for Barry Switzer’s classically 'roided-up Sooners in the mid-eighties. In successive games from 1984-87, both Keith Jacksons at their respective peaks:
Barry Sanders…in Tokyo!
Those stats! Aiiieeeeeee!!!! All the Sanders and 1988 Cowboys you can handle here.
Oh Missouri, we weep for you, twice, in the same end zone, beginning with your effort against eventual co-mythical champion Colorado in 1990. Besides a youthful Gary Barnett on the Colorado sideline, pay very close attention to the set of downs beginning after the CU tight end slips at the three, which goes spike (first), run up middle (second), run up middle (third), spike (fourth)…and option off tackle (touchdown, I guess). Nobody on TV, or from Missouri, really seems to mind:
Truly those Buffaloes were the dominant team in the nation. And second, well, second would be Matt Davison’s amazing, championship-saving catch off Shevin Wiggins’ foot in 1997, which despite its status as a highlight mainstay and one of the two or three most dramatic plays I’ve ever watched unfold as it happened, is only to be found buried here. What gives, obsessed Husker fans?
Man, how bad was Kansas State before Bill Snyder? This is how KSU fans reacted to winning at Kansas in 1994:
Those same partisans probably remember their 2003 championship team more fondly, but the Wildcats of the Snyder Surge really reached their nadir in 1998, largely by being responsible for this picture:
…but also because KSU won that game over the defending co-mythical champs, its first ever in Lincoln, hit number one in both hu-mann polls and was waltzing so gracefully, blissfully into the Fiesta Bowl with a two-touchdown lead on Texas A&M in the Big 12 championship. Until…
And before he was the recruiting god of the Brazos, or whatever, Mack Brown had to trot out 12-year-old freshman Major Applewhite as a three-touchdown underdog for his first big win at Texas, over the 1998 Huskers, who might be slightly miffed at this point. And Brent Musburger is apparently a very good, intimate friend of Mr. Williams, in case you didn't know:
Okay, quickly, just for Nebraska, a Mackovicka:
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