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THURSDAY, AUGUST 30, 2012
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
BIG 12 RANKINGS
OU team to beat
In the first Kansan Big 12 power poll of the season, the Kansan staff selected seven-time Big 12 champion Oklahoma as the conference favorite.
1) Oklahoma
Why in a league with three reigning conference champions — none of them residing in Norman, Okla. — are the Sooners the team to beat? Quarterback Landry Jones, running back Dominique Whaley and wide receiver Kenny Stills are the answer. As junior们 they put together the fifth best scoring team in the nation and the 10th best passing offense. Expectations are even higher in 2012.
2) West Virginia
Seniors Geno Smith and Tawon Austin look to make a lot of noise, despite being conference newcomers. Coming off as Big East champions and a lopsided 70-33 Orange Bowl win over Clemson, West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen wants his team to duplicate that success in the Big 12.
3) TCU
It's been five years since Gary Patterson finished a season with less than 11 victories. Although the Big 12 offers a tougher schedule, TCU looks to continue on tearing through opponents. Road games at West Virginia, Texas and Oklahoma State will provide proving grounds for the Horned Frogs. The season finale at home against the Sooners will show just how far TCU has come.
4) Texas
After Garrett Gilbert's struggles at quarterback made him leave the program, coach Mack Brown has retooled his offense around David Ash and Case McCoy. Bolstered by a returning secondary that helped keep opponents to 22 points per game, the Longhorns will have a speedy return to Big 12 prominence.
Kansas State kicked off the 2011 season eighth in the Big 12, but finished second by the time the season was over. Kansas State coach Bill Snyder wants his team to make strides and climb up the conference ladder like they did last season.
5) Kansas State
6) Oklahoma State
The Cowboys start over with a new and young offense in the works with the departure of a couple of key offensive players. On defense, look for defensive backs Justin Gilbert and Brodrick Brown as keys for Oklahoma State's success this season.
7) Baylor
No Robert Griffin III, no Kendall Wright and no Terrance Ganaway equals no top three finish in 2012. Art Bries still has weapons in his receiving corps with Terrance Williams and Trein Reeuse, but quarterback Nick Florence made only 12 pass attempts last season.
Edited by Ryan McCarthy
Kansas coach Charlie vents begins a new chapter in his life and is looking to turn around a struggling football team. The lajhawks have not won a conference game since Nov. 6, 2010, going 1-16 in confer ence games in the last two years.
Iowa State has a lot of work to do this season. Coach Paul Rhoads is relying on linebackers A.J. Klein and Jake Knott, who are the top notable players on the Cyclones. Iowa State hopes to find some positive consistency after encouraging wins last season against Iowa and Oklahoma State.
8) Iowa State
They've gone through four defensive coordinators in four years and have yet to climb out from the Big 12 basement. It will take more than one season for the Red Raiders defense to match the productivity of their offense.
9) Texas Tech
10) Kansas
CROSS COUNTRY
KANSAN FILE PHOTO
The Kansas cross country team runs for a meet in September 2011. The team will compete in the Bob Timmons Classic on Saturday.
Freshman fever
MAX GOODWIN mgoodwin@kansan.com
The cross country teams will take to Rim Rock, the jayhawks home course, on Saturday focused on what this race can potentially build for the future of the program.
The captains of the teams will not be running. The Bob Timmons Classic will not involve
Richardson
a list of Division I programs, but it is a race that has importance for assistant coach Michael Whittlesey.
"We're trying to get the team used to competitive experience again, and get our team understanding how to run together as a pack and start focusing on that pack running." Whittlesey said of the team's first meet of the season.
Hannah Richardson, from Kirkwood, Mo., will be the only freshman running for the Kansas women's team at the Timmons Classic, though the other freshmen will run unattached. She said that coach Whittlesey has talked about running as a pack with every run she has had so far as a Jayhawk.
The pack has not slowed down at all for Richardson to keep up; rather, Whittlesey wants Richardson to push herself to a faster pace to run with the pack.
Richardson said she has heard of Bob Timmons, the former Kansas coach who the meet was named for, but she does not know much about his accomplishments. Timmons recorded four national championships and 31 league titles from 1966-1988. Saturday Richardson will run along the course at Rim Rock Farm, her feet trampling over land that was once owned by Timmons himself. It was Timmons who made the choice of making a cross country course out of his farmland northwest of Lawrence, where the layhawks have ran home meets since 1974. In 2004, Timmons donated the land to the University.
"He encourages you to try to stay with them instead of them leaving you." Richardson said.
Whittlesey thinks the freshmen class, for both men's and women's teams, is strong this year. On the women's team, he said there could be some freshmen who push their way into the front five runners this year, which is rare. Gabe Gonzalez, a redshirt freshman on the men's team, has been consistently running near the front of the pack throughout training.
"The ultimate goal for every coach should be, it is for me, to win a national title", Whittlesey said. "We're not there yet, but the goal is to get the program to be one of the top programs in the country, and I think were at the doorstep of that right now."
In coaching the distance runners, Whittlesey is focused on one goal: a national championship. After a year in which neither of his teams finished in the top five of the Midwest region, that goal may sound difficult to accomplish, but Whittlesey is thinking long-term.
He is hoping to restore the Kansas distance program to the tradition of glory that is still taught to the runners who were born long after that tradition had faded.
"Its amazing how much from one year to the next the dynamic can change" Whittlesey said.
Edited by Ryan McCarthy
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