Five conferences down, one to go in my BCS preview. Time to break down the Big 12.
Big 12 North
1. Missouri - Well, someone new has to step up and have a big season. The ACC (Maryland), SEC (LSU), Big 10 (Iowa), and Pac-10 (Cal) have all had surprise teams finish in the top-two in their conference in the last two years, but it seems as though the Big 12 is stuck in a time warp, with the usual suspects duking it out at season's end ad nauseam. With nine starters returning on defense and a Heisman hopeful at quarterback (Brad Smith), the Tigers are poised to make a deep run.
2. Kansas State - The Wildcats should finish comfortably in second in the Big 12 North, and may challenge for all the marbles if they can even partially replace quarterback Ell Roberson and eight starters from a defense that gave up just 16.3 points a game last season.
3. Nebraska - I'm not sure if Bill Callahan can turn around this program or not, but I know he can't in year one, which will feature him scrapping a 50-year-old playbook. Personally, I don't like the fit between Callahan and Nebraska, and the vast change of offensive approach will have fans loudly booing on the first interception, right or wrong.
4. Colorado - It may be hard to motivate the Buffs to play well now that they will no longer be rewarded three hookers for every point differential they win by.
5. Iowa State - Had a nice run for a few years, getting to bowl games, beating Iowa, scaring the bejezus out of Florida State, and now they're back to just being Iowa State. Like at Nebraska, things will get worse in Ames before they get better.
6. Kansas - They will get up for the Missouri game, as they always do, but they lose all-everything quarterback Bill Whittemore, and they weren't all that great with him.
Big 12 South
1. Oklahoma - Not just No. 1 in the Big 12 South, not merely the best in the Big 12, but the best in the land by a hair over USC. After their wheezing finish last year, I was in the chorus with everyone else calling them frauds. But if you remember their dominance of most of the season, understand that they are a year wiser and more mature, and that they return 19 out of 22 non-special teams starters ... well, this is simply a team with no question marks.
2. Texas Tech - With nine starters returning on defense and seven on offense, the Red Raiders should be a big surprise. We already know about the ridiculous numbers they will put up on offense, and now the D is catching up. A New Year's Day bowl is in the cards for them.
3. Texas - Permanently destined to have between two and four losses, always has the entire state of Texas excited, and disappoints in the end. No one on this team looks like they can accomplish things that guys like Ricky Williams, Major Applewhite, and Chris Simms couldn't.
4. Texas A&M - Having suffered the most embarrassing national depantsing (77-0 to Oklahoma) in modern college football history, the Aggies should play with a lot of pride and heart this year, and flirt with a minor bowl.
5. Oklahoma State - I was so high on them last year, but they played with an appalling lack of heart, particularly in a close loss against Nebraska. With their two biggest playmakers gone, they may fall all the way to the basement of the Big 12.
6. Baylor - Last year, they won one Big 12 contest. This year, they will win two.
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So, devoted readers of the Slant Pattern will know that I am just getting back from Holland. I was hoping to catch a soccer game while I was in country, but sadly, the Dutch premiere league started the day I had to leave, so my sports experience was limited to watching a lot of the Olympics.
Holland does about as well as might be expected for a country its size (22 medals). I'm sure they existed, but I found no bars or coffeehouses where the locals were glued to the TV, cheering on their Dutch heroes. Holland is about as laid back a country as you will find, which was an interesting contrast from the United States. I saw all of three Dutch flags flying in my week there, suggesting that they are not as patriotic and pec-flexing as we like to be, where every other car has a God Bless America bumper sticker.
The Dutch may not be as patriotic as us, but that is not to say that they aren't as proud of their country (there's a difference between pride and patriotism), and they work very hard to maintain the mellow atmosphere and the culture of moderation, pleasure, and responsibility they've staked out for themselves.
The streets are clean. Most streets have a lane just for bikes, which everyone rides. No one is fat, even though all the local food I had was deep-fried, greasy, and delicious. They believe in stairs rather than elevators. They like things to be efficient and abhor wastefulness. I saw a sign on a men's room paper towel dispenser saying, "TAKE ONLY ONE!"
It was a nice change of pace, and while visiting you can't help but think, "Gosh, we sure are pigs over on the other side of the pond, like Godzillas who do nothing all day but eat big things and wipe their mouths off with a small forest. Consume, consume, waste, waste."
On the other hand, I think they take their efficiency a bit too far regarding their toilets. The only water in Dutch toilets are in a small pocket in the front (not the middle) of the bowl, but since you make your deposits in the middle, your business stays disgustingly free from water until you flush, when a strong stream of water pushes everything into the pocket and down. (Thanks for that. We apologize to anyone eating and reading this. - Ed)
They import a great deal of American TV, which they subtitle into English. It seems that their selection of American television fare is either horrible ("Veronica's Closet," "The Nanny") or outstanding (movies like "Happiness" and "Office Space") with no in-between, and everything is uncut. At around 11 PM or so, the phone sex commercials begin, which show it all, on regular TV.
Speaking of sex (and drugs, while we are at it), the Netherlands is, or course, most famous for its legal prostitution and marijuana. You may or may not approve of this permissiveness, but again, the Dutch watchword is "responsibility" and they have taken great pains to allow these forbidden pleasures yet still prevent their country from becoming some sort of gigantic, yearlong Mardi Gras of debauchery and anarchy.
In the tourist guides published by the official tourism departments, as well as those published by most hotels, contain very little information about the red light district and prostitution, and absolutely nothing about the weed outposts. I suppose they figure, sure, you can come here and smoke weed, but you figure out how to do it.
Granted, information is not hard to come by. Coffeehouses must be licensed to sell marijuana, and the police frequently stop by to make sure that they do not have more than half a kilogram of "viet" on hand. If they do, they usually lose their license. All places that sell marijuana must have a sign that says "Coffeehouse" (in English) somewhere and a little green sticker that vouches for their legitimacy. They are not allowed to post their menus in their windows or on their websites. Additionally, they have cut the number of coffeehouses by about half in the last few years.
All in all, I'm happy to be back. But I hope to return someday as well, and there was much to admire and much that we could emulate from them. My kind of society, my kind of utopia.
***
It's been awhile since we have had a Thongchai Jaidee update, and he has been busy. He got invites to no less than three U.S. tournaments in August. The first two (The International and the PGA Championship) went off horribly. Not only did he miss the cut in both events, but finished in the bottom-10 of the field each time.
The third tournament (The World Series of Golf, contested in my hometown of Akron, Ohio), where there are no cuts, was looking that way, as well, before he peeled off a final round 65 to finish in a tie for 32nd.
He then returned to Europe to miss the cut the BMW International Open, only his second missed cut on European soil this year. He will also be in the field for this week's European Masters, which will mark his sixth-straight week out on the course. He's got to be tired.
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Finally, you may remember a few months ago I began a concept called the most metaphorically powerful team in sports, which basically asked, if you took every team's nickname (the Bulldogs, the Yankees) and made their literal manifestations fight, who would win? We determined that the most metaphorically powerful team in the NFL was the Jets, but I scrapped the idea after that. It wasn't as interesting to me as I thought it was going to be, and too many teams are hard to quantify in physical manifestations, such as the New York Met(ropolitan)s.
It was also a bit anti-climactic for me, because I had already figured out who the grand champion would be. Until some team names themselves the Universe or the Gods, can their be a more powerful team than the Frankfurt Galaxy of NFL Europe? I guess that depends on how much power the Washington Wizards have.
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