THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAS THURSDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2022 THURSDAY, OCTOBER 2. 2008 SPORTS 5B BIG 12 FOOTBALL ASSOCIATED PRESS Teams gear up for conference play Oklahoma State wide receiver, Dez Bryant (1) catches a touchdown pass over Troy defensive back Trevor Ford (5) during the first half on Saturday in Stillwater, Okla. at Boone Pickens Stadium. BY TAYLOR BERN tbern@kansan.com For the first time since Sep. 22, 2002, six Big 12 teams are ranked in the top 25 of the Associated Press poll. After the shakeup at the top, the Big 12 now has four of the top eight teams in the country and the consensus No. 1 in Oklahoma This weekend, those six ranked teams open conference play with games against the six unranked squads of the Big 12. The rankings bring plenty of welcome attention to the conference, but they also remind Big 12 coaches just how difficult this season will be. "It's a tall order," Iowa State coach Gene Chizik said. "But that's what makes it fun. It's neat to be in a league that it's getting so strong." Iowa State, which plays No. 16 Kansas on Saturday, is one of five unranked teams that will host a ranked conference opponent this weekend. The only ranked Big 12 team at home this weekend is Oklahoma State, which jumped into the poll at No. 1. No.21 this week Oklahoma State hosts Texas A&M at 6 p.m. on Saturday. "I think the players get excited about the ranking, but it's not something we talk Gundy about," Cowboy coach Mike Gundy said. "We're more interested in the task at hand." FIRST AND FOREMOST There's a first time for everything, and Saturday's contest between No. 1 Oklahoma and Baylor features a host of them. Firstly, Oklahoma's ascension to the top of the AP poll made history, as the Sooners have now held the top spot for the most weeks (96) in the history of the poll. Coach Bob Stoops said he doesn't think the historical top spot will make the target on the Sooners' back any larger. "We generally have a good-sized one regardless of the ranking," Stoops said Saturday's game in Waco is also the first conference clash for a pair of leading Bears. Coach Art Briles and freshman quar Stoops terback Robert Griffin will get their first tastes of Big 12 play against the best team in the country. "The challenge is with ourselves," Briles said. "We're playing for respectability and credibility. It's not about a notch on our belt or a feather in our cap. We've got to play hard for 60 minutes." PLAYSTATION ANYBODY? Coaches and fans got used to offensive numbers coming from Texas Tech that looked like they were straight out of a video tame. The Red Raiders still lead the conference, and the country, in passing yards with 426.2 per game. But right now they're taking a backseat to some of the other ridiculous numbers put up by Big 12 offenses this season. Six conference schools average at least 45 points per game, which puts each one in the top 10 nationally. Missouri, which tops that point list, is just 4.5 yards per game shy of averaging 600 total offensive yards every time it takes the field. "It all sorts out when you start playing each other," Pinkel said. "We'll see how it unfolds but it will be very, very interesting." Terrific quarterbacks continue to dominate the league with amazing statistics. Not the least of which Tigers coach Gary Pinkel said he's keeping pretty even-keeled about all the stats. is that five conference quarterbacks have completed at least 70 percent of their passes. "If you're going seven-on-seven against your scout team in practice, that's about what percentage youd expect," Kansas coach Mark Mangino said. Briles OFF AND RUNNING Lost in the mess of passing greatness the Big 12 has thrown up is the fact that Oklahoma State is leading the nation in rushing yards per game. In the preseason, the Cowboys weren't even sure who would be their starting tailback. Now sophomore Kendall Hunter is punishing defenses to the tune of 7.7 yards per carry. "They're playing pretty well." Gundy said of his running backs. "In their minds, they probably feel we've accomplished as much as we can." Hunter's 154.5 yards per game lead the Big 12 while junior Keith Tostson is second with 92 per game. Elsewhere, Kansas State coach Ron Prince isn't overlooking the run game in his match-up with Texas Tech. "They have one of the largest offensive lines in the country and Shannon Woods is one of the most dangerous players in the conference", Prince said. Woods averages 6.4 yards per carry and has scored seven rushing touchdowns. The Wildcats now have a vaunted rushing game also, as converted wide receiver Lamark Brown last week carried 29 times for 142 yards and a touchdown. Edited by Arthur Hur "He gave us a dimension we haven't had for awhile," Prince said. "He ran with a lot of toughness and power." OLYMPICS BY NANCY ARMOUR ASSOCIATED PRESS Though the case is closed on China's Olympic gold medalists, the age controversy in gymnastics is far from over. Documents confirm all six members of China's gold medal team at the Beijing Games were old enough to compete, the International Gymnastics Federation said Wednesday. But it wants more answers from two members of China's 2000 squad Dong Fangxiao and Yang Yun saying it "does not consider the explanations and evidence provided to date in regards to these athletes as satisfactory." It also is moving forward with a licensing system that would serve as proof of age for a gymnast's entire career. "It's not about the medal," said Dominique Dawes, part of the U.S. squad that finished fourth behind China at the 2000 Olympics. "The important issue is them righting a wrong and hopefully prohibiting future Olympians from being underage. It's really about making sure every athlete is doing things the right way." Dong's official birthdate is listed as Jan. 20, 1983. But her accreditation information for the Beijing Olympics, where she worked as a national technical official, lists her birthday as Jan. 23, 1986, said Andre Guesebuhler, the FIG's secretary general. "If that document is the correct one, that would suggest she was 14 years old at the Sydney Olympic Games," Gueisbuhler said. Gymnasts must turn 16 during an Olympic year to be eligible to compete. Calls to Yang and Dong's mobile phones rang unanswered Wednesday, a national holiday. So did phone calls to the Chinese gymnastics team's media officers. Questions about the ages of China's Beijing squad had swirled for months, with media reports and online records suggesting some girls could be as young as 14. China insisted — heatedly and repeatedly — that all six gymnasts were old enough and said it had the documents to prove it. Any discrepancies, Chinese officials said, were the result of Web site inaccuracies or paperwork errors. When the IOC asked the FIG three days before the games ended to investigate one last time, China provided original passports, ID cards and family registers for He Kexin, Yang Yilin, Jiang Yuyuan, Deng Linlin and Li Shanshan. All showed the girls were 16 or would turn 16 this year. "For the FIG, the age of the Chinese team is well documented and proven," Gueisbuhler said. The furor surrounding the ages of China's gold medalists might have gotten the most attention, but underage gymnasts have been the sport's dirty little secret for years. Since the minimum age was raised from 14 to 15 in 1981 to protect young, still-developing athletes from serious injuries, there have been several examples of countries trying to skirt the rules. The minimum age was raised to its current 16 in 1997. Romania admitted some of its gymnasts' ages had been falsified, including Olympic medalists Gina Gogean and Alexandra Marinescu. Gymnasts from the Soviet Union said their birthdates were changed to allow them to compete. And North Korea was banned from the 1993 world championships after FIG officials discovered Kim Gwang Suk, the 1991 gold medalist on uneven bars, was listed as 15 for three years in a row. CYCLING Armstrong challenged by French to drug retest PARIS — It could be truth or dare time on Lance Armstrong's comeback trail. The French anti-doping authority has thrown down a challenge to the seventime Tour de France champion, proposing he agree to retesting of his 1999 urine samples to see whether a French newspaper was right when it reported they contained traces of EPO, a banned blood-boosting hormone that enhances endurance. A positive test from the samples could not lead to a ban that would thwart the 37-year-old star's return to cycling after three years in retirement. Too much time has passed for disciplinary measures to be taken and only part of Armstrong's samples were kept. Even so, the proposal renews debate about one of the most contested questions surrounding Armstrong: whether he was clean when he won. He has always insisted that he was, and his new team, Astana, is hiring a drug-testing expert for Armstrong's comeback to try to silence doubters. Associated Press CRISIS (CONTINUED FROM 1B) It is absolutely astonishing to think that people still get tanked and start mindless brawls at football games or insult one another. To those miscreants: This is how you enjoy your escape? This is not a reference to the South Florida fans who embarrassed themselves last month. This is a reference to the sole fact that in every college stadium and every professional sports venue there are those "bad eggs" still out there. And this is not limited to fans, athletes or coaches. We all know that the media can just as easily be a pack of cynical, self-absorbed, scum-sucking bastards. Any economist will tell you that sports fans dish out cash for tickets and jerseys out of want and not need. An obvious proposition, but one that is now met with the question of whether fans should fork over $25 for parking, more than $100 for tickets and anywhere from a $10 to $50 aggregate sum for beer and snacks, or if they should put aside those dollars in anticipation for tougher days ahead. Ye gods, the stench of cynicism and hypocrisy is starting to overtake this very column, so let us revert, shall we? For the first time in memory, the toils of policy are creeping into the once incontetable world of sports. Laptops slung around their backs with a predetermined story in mind: Fire the coach! Bench everybody! This place sucks! I'm not about to tell you how to spend your money. Rather I would suggest that if you have the ability to enjoy a weekend at the track or a day at the stadium, by all means take advantage of it. That is what sports are here for: to escape the morbid tales from Washington and Wall Street for a day and find some enjoyment once in a while. Front page politics got you down? Pull out the sports page for a moment. Maybe the answer to this mess is in the hands of the Alex Rodriguezes or Larry Johnsons. Say a bailout bill is passed and fails to stop our economy from spiraling wildly out of control. "For Sale" signs crowd residential streets and families struggle to come up with a way out of their hardships. The first expenses to go will be those of luxury. The demand for tickets to sporting events drop and therefore player salaries begin to take a dip. In that event, it would be a given that Ray Lewis would make the trip to Capitol Hill, crack some heads and get some real work done. Edited by Brenna Hawley VotedBest Pizzain Lawrence! Almost the Weekend! 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