Texas-Nebraska is an obvious mismatch.
Going into the Big 12 Championship, one team is a reigning powerhouse with a future Hall of Fame coach not far removed from a National Championship that views the game as a stepping stone for a chance to play a powerful Florida team for another national championship. The other is a former powerhouse, fallen on hard times but on the rebound with a new coach. But everyone agrees the game will be a speedbump on the powerhouse’s way to playing in another National Championship game..
Sound familiar? It should, because it describes not only the 2009 Big 12 Championship, but also the very first Big 12 Championship in 1996. There Nebraska was the reigning powerhouse, far more dominant in the 1990s (three National Championships in the 1990s under Tom Osborne) than Texas, which has just a single National Championship under Mack Brown. (Not that we’re complaining, mind you. We’re very happy to have both it and Mack Brown.) And the Nebraska team UT will be facing Saturday has a better record (9-3) than the Longhorn team going into the 1996 game (7-4). (As an added irony, the Texas win knocked Mack Brown’s North Carolina team out of a BCS bowl.. )
All that said, Texas is still (and should be) the prohibitive favorite. Neither Cody Green nor Zac Lee seems to be as crafty or nervy a quarterback as James Brown was for Texas. And Colt McCoy is probably the best college quarterback in the country right now.
Still, the Longhorns shouldn’t get cocky. If a team coached by John Mackovic can upset a defending National Champion, anything can happen.