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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
1B
VIEWPOINT
FRIDAY, AUGUST 24, 2001
Big 12 won't take national title, money
By Doug Pacey Columnist
Four preseason top 15 college football teams.
One is last year's national champion.
One is last year's national champion. One has won three national championships in the last decade.
One has been atop a handful of this year's preseason rankings
year's preschool earnings. One has won more games in the last three years than any other Big 12 school.
None will be in the national championship game on Jan. 3, 2002, at the Rose Bowl.
More importantly, the Big 12 will lose out — as it has before — on a big payday.
Oklahoma, Nebraska, Texas and Kansas State are all good enough to contend for college football's title, but because of the Big 12 Championship game, they won't be posing for pictures with Mickey on Christmas Day.
Mathematically, only two can finish the regular season undefeated. The Sooners will play all three teams, but the Longhorns will not face the Cornhuskers and Wildcats. Let's say Nebraska beats K-State and ends the season a perfect 12-0, and Texas beats Oklahoma to finish an unblemished 11-0.
An All-Big 12 match-up in Pasadena, Calif., would be a huge boost for the blossoming Big 12. It also would give Big 12 schools at least $18 million to divvy up. The Bowl Championship Series guarantees $12-15 million to each school in its bowls — the Sugar, Fiesta, Orange and Rose — but if a conference has more than one team participating in a BCS bowl, the second team is awarded $6 million.
But it's not as simple as that. Remember that imaginary Big 12 Championship game? Nebraska beat Texas 33-17. Now the Cornhuskers are going to play a 10-1 Florida State team, which didn't play a conference championship game, in the Rose Bowl. And Texas, because of the loss and subsequent low BCS rating, will face Alabama in the low-paying Cotton Bowl.
It would not be the first time.
Slash $6 million from that $18 million figure and a dream match-up for the conference.
In 1998, the first year of the BCS, Texas A&M beat then-No. 1 K-State 36-33 in the conference championship, making the Aggies the Big 12's representative to the BCS, despite the Wildcats' higher BCS rating — third. K-State could have been selected to a BCS bowl but ended up losing to Purdue in the $1.1 million Alamo Bowl.
The Big 12 was also kept out of the national championship game in 1996. An unranked Texas squad upset thenNo. 3 Nebraska 37-27. The BCS was not commissioning bowl pairings then, but if Nebraska won, they might have gone on to its third straight national title.
The title game is bad business for the Big 12. K-State coach Bill Snyder and Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops voiced their displeasure with the game at Big 12 media day. Stoops said the conference championship puts the Big 12 and Southeastern Conference, the only other conference to have such a game, at a severe disadvantage.
If Oklahoma lost to K-State last year in the Big 12 championship game, it's doubtful it would have played for the national championship. A pairing of one-loss teams, Miami and Florida State, would have been more attractive.
The net result of the five-year-old Big 12 Championship game is this: two teams missed out on a berth to the national championship game (Nebraska in 1996 and K-State in 1998) and millions of dollars lost for the Big 12 schools.
That just doesn't make sense.
Quarterback Quagmire
Kansas football coach Terry Allen has yet to pick his quarterback. Until Kansas travels west to Boulder, Colo., to take on the Buffaloes on Sept. 22. Allen said he would do what last season he said he would not. He will use both quarterbacks for three games until one overtakes the other.
By Jeff Denton Kansan sportswriter
Kinsey's speed shines in no-huddle offense
Mario Kinsey walked into the Sports Information office wearing a red skull cap on his head, an oversized Tim Duncan Nike T-shirt, baggy Nike shorts and a pair of electric blue and gray sandals. He slouced into his chair, showing the backside of his forearms as he clasped his hands together. The word "Texas" tattooed on his right arm, "Boy" on his left.
The new decorations on Kinsey's arms are only a part of his change from last season. He has also chosen to don the No.17 after wearing No.14 during spring ball. The number change is to pay homage to his idol, Charlie Ward, a former Florida State Heisman Trophy winner and current New York Knick point guard. But it is also a change for the future — his future.
Kinsey is looking forward to a breakthrough season.
football player," he said.
"The chances of me returning to basketball are slim. I came here to get an education.I came here to play football,to be the starter."
While Zach Dyer specializes in setting his feet and throwing the football, Kinsey more often tucks the ball and runs. Dyer said he could beat Kinsey in a dead 40-yard sprint, but he said Kinsey had more elusiveness from side to side. It's this type of mobility that could propel Kinsey into the starting slot.
It's this type of mobility, Kinsey said, that is perfect for quarterback coach Rip Scherer's shotgun offense.
"The new offense is incredible," Kinsey said. "I already like it a lot. We can do so many things from so many different standpoints. It should allow me to do some exciting things."
Kinsey said he wanted his game to provoke excitement. He doesn't want to play safely. He wants to play dangerously under the ropes of the offense. He said he thinks this is what separates him from Dyer.
SEE QUAGMIRE, KINSEY PAGE 3B
Dyer hopes to lead the Crimson and Blue
Zach Dyer, wearing an old football T-shirt, gray mesh Nike shorts and J.Crew flip-flops, plopped himself on top of a table in the Kansas football training room just after practice Monday afternoon. Student trainer Tony Erisman stood behind him, wrapping two, two-pound bags of ice on Dyer's right elbow and shoulder. With the bags attached, Dyer glanced at a clock on the wall to his right. He had 15 minutes to absorb the cold.
"My arm's fine." Dyer said, smiling. "It's just that during two-a-days when you throw twice a day, it gets really sore."
Since the start of two-a-days on last Aug. 15, Dyer has felt much more at home running the new Kansas offense, which was tweaked this summer upon the arrival of cooffensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Rip Scherer. The offensive scheme involves more shotgun looks and no-huddle sets, causing Dyer and other quarterbacks to call the play at the line of scrimmage as opposed to a traditional huddle.
"This offense gives you mo freedom," he said. "The aim is to speed things up,to get the play off with 15 seconds on the clock. It keeps the defense on their heels.
as opposed to a situation where "This offense gives you more"
They can't substitute as much."
Throughout two-a-days, as was the case in spring football practice, Dyer had been substituting with Mario Kinsey in the No. 1 quarterback slot. Dyer started the April 21 spring game instead of Kinsey because Allen said he thought that he had performed more consistently throughout practice. After the game, in which both quarterbacks put up similar numbers, Allen remained ambivalent about who his guy was.
With the controversy on hold for June and July, Dyer remained in Lawrence to take two classes, Nutrition and Macroeconomics, and to work with his wide receivers. In
the afternoons, he would hit the weight room from 3 to 5:30 p.m. and then spend his evenings studying or hanging out with friends. He also had time to drive down to Dallas to see his girlfriend for a weekend and head up north to Washington, D.C. for five days to play golf with his father, Darrell, and third-string quarterback Jonas Weatherbie. He had time to be a normal kid again, he said, without the distractions.
But when practice geared up last week, the quarterback talk ensued. He expected it, but it was not something he missed this summer.
"Both of us are sick of it," he said. "We heard it last spring, then two-a-days, then now. We're both competitive guys, and we get along well, too.
"But the bottom line is to win games."
Dyer grew up idolizing John Elway and Brett Favre, classic drop-back quarterbacks with the savvy to come up big in clutch situations. Dyer admired how they won and how their teams fed off of their energy late in the game. Elway and Favre would rather run a guy over than toss a touchdown pass, always putting the team in front of themselves. Dyer craves for that role on this Jayhawk football team to be the starting quarterback who guides his team to victory.
SEE QUAGMIRE, DYER PAGE 3B
Soccer team prepares for showdown
Kansas faces allstar St. Louis team in final game of exhibition season tomorrow
The Kansas soccer team will finish its exhibition season at 4 p.m. tomorrow against the Busch Soccer Club at Super Target Field.
By Ryan Wood Kansan sportswriter
The Jayhawks look to carry the momentum from Sunday's 5-1 pounding of Southwest Missouri State into the match. Coach Mark Francis said that the week of practices went "very well" and that he was looking forward to tomorrow's showdown.
The Busch Soccer Club, a nationally-recognized program
"We want to make sure we get everyone in," Francis said. "We want to see who can step up in game situations."
out of St. Louis, is a compilation of talented high school seniors.
"They are one of the top teams in the country," Francis said.
The exhibition match is the final one of the year for the Jayhawks, who open their regular season at home next Friday against North Texas. NOTES
Junior defender Brianna Valento has been chosen for the United States of America
Soccer Association National Select Team and will begin training in San Diego next spring. Valento, a native of St. Paul, Minn., is one of 22 players who will represent the National "B" team, which was selected after competition in a series of United States' festivals this summer.
"I'm very excited," Valento said. "This is a great opportunity that I have worked hard for all through high school and college."
Junior defender Pardis Brown has been cleared to play and will see time in tomorrow's match. Brown, one of the team captains, suffered a head injury playing for her summer team and missed the game against Southwest Missouri State last Sunday.
Freshman midfielder Stacy Leeper remains sidelined with a foot injury and will not play tomorrow.
Reach Wood at 864-4810