2009 CFN Big 12 Week 14 Staff Picks

2009 CFN Big 12 Week 14 Staff Picks, Roundup, & More

2009 Big 12 ... Week 14

North Colorado | Iowa St | Kansas | Kansas State | Missouri | Nebraska
South Baylor | Oklahoma | Oklahoma State | Texas | Texas A&M | Texas Tech

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	CFN EXPERT PICKS	Fiu	Rich	Matt	Michael	Clucko	PICK
8:00	Texas -13.5 vs. Neb.	TX	TX	TX*	TX	NE	TX
	Straight Up	68-28	70-26	75-21	74-22	52-44	73-23
	ATS	45-40-1	34-51-1	44-41-1	45-40-1	41-44-1	43-42-1

North
	Conf.		Overall
Nebraska	6	2	9	3
Missouri	4	4	8	4
Kansas St	4	4	6	6
Iowa St	3	5	6	6
Colorado	2	6	3	9
Kansas	1	7	5	7
South
	Conf.		Overall
Texas	8	0	11	0
Ok State	6	2	9	3
Tex Tech	5	3	8	4
Oklahoma	5	3	7	5
Texas A&M	3	5	6	6
Baylor	1	7	4	8
Players of the Week 11/28 D. Alexander, WR Mizz & Dezmon Briscoe, WR KU 11/21 Colt McCoy, QB Tex 11/14 D. Alexander, WR MU 11/7 Jordan Shipley, WR Tx 10/31 Jared Crick, DT Neb 10/24 Jesse Smith, LB ISU 10/17 Dan. Thomas, RB KSU 10/10 Dezmon Briscoe & Kerry Meier, WRs, Kansas 10/3 Emmanuel Lamur, DB KSU 9/26 Jerrod Johnson, QB A&M 9/19 Jordan Shipley, WR Tex 9/13 Taylor Potts, QB TT 9/5 Blaine Gabbert, QB Mis. Games of the Week 11/28 Mizz 41, KU 38 11/21 OSU 31, Col 28 11/14 OSU 24, TT 21 11/7 Col 35, Tex A&M 34 10/31 OU 42, KSU 30 10/24 ISU 9, Neb 7 10/17 Colorado 34, KU 30 10/10 KU 41, ISU 36 10/3 KSU 24, ISU 23 9/26 Hous. 29, TTech 28 9/19 Tex 34, TTech 24 9/13, Miss 27, BGSU 20 9/5 BYU 14, Oklahoma 13
Scoreboard   Thursday, Nov. 26 Texas 49 at Texas A&M 39 - Texas & McCoy survive the Aggies  - Texas A&M loses wild shootout to the Horns  CFN Prediction: Texas 44-27 Line: Texas -21 Friday, Nov. 27 Nebraska 28 at Colorado 20 - Colorado turnovers costly in loss to Huskers  - Nebraska O falls flat in win over Buffs  CFN Prediction: Nebraska 17-13 Line: Nebraska -8 Saturday, Nov. 28 Texas Tech 20 at Baylor 13 - Texas Tech hangs on to get by the Bears  - Baylor comes up just short in loss to Tech  CFN Prediction: Texas Tech 44-16 Line: Baylor -22 Missouri 41 Kansas 39 - Missouri & Alexander beat KU in shootout  - Kansas loses heartbreaker to Mizzou  CFN Prediction: Kansas 34-31 Line: Missouri -4 at Oklahoma 27 Oklahoma State 0 - Oklahoma State clunks away the BCS  - Oklahoma destroys the Cowboys 27-0  CFN Prediction: Oklahoma 23-20 Line: Oklahoma -10

GAME OF THE WEEK

Missouri 41 … Kansas 39
 In a wild offensive shootout, it took a defensive play to turn the game around. Down three in the final minutes, Missouri came up with a safety on a Brian Coulter and Aldon Smith tackle of Todd Reesing to pull within one, and the offense took care of the rest going 43 yards in eight plays leading to a 27-yard Grant Ressel field goal for the win. The two teams combined for 1,100 yards with Missouri’s Danario Alexander catching 233 yards worth of passes highlighted by a 68-yarder for a Tiger lead late in the third, but Kansas got a bigger performance out of Dezmon Briscoe, who went for 242 yards including touchdown catches from seven and 74 yards. Todd Reesing threw for 498 yards with two touchdown passes to Kerry Meier, but Missouri kept coming back helped by two Derrick Washington touchdown runs and a 37-yard scoring dash from Jerrel Jackson.

PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Missouri WR Danario Alexander caught 15 passes for 233 yards and a score, and Kansas WR Dezmon Briscoe caught 14 passes for 242 yards and two scores in Missouri's win over Kansas.

CONFENCE ROUNDUP

Baylor… Texas Tech 20 ... at Baylor 13 ... It might have been a nice gesture to play Blake Szymanski on Senior Day, but does that help Baylor get any closer to going to a bowl next year? The Bears played their tails off, especially on defense, but the offense couldn’t hold the lead and couldn’t punch it in despite getting close to the goal line on the final drive. Losing seven of the last eight games in a bad year in a Big 12, the season has to go down as a wild disappointment. Art Briles has a strong offense coming back, but the defense will have to figure out how to get to the quarterback on a more regular basis.

Colorado … Nebraska 28 ... at Colorado 20 ... Colorado played with its normal effort, but the mistakes and the wrong times, with three interceptions and seven penalties, turned out to be too costly. The defense, led by Cha’pelle Brown and his 11 tackles and two tackles for loss, played a whale of a game and did what it needed to do for the first three quarters to get the win. Now it’s going to be an interesting offseason with Dan Hawkins back. Being sharper is job one, but there also needs to be an instant infusion of talent. Colorado simply isn’t good enough.

Iowa State … Didn’t Play This Week

Kansas … Missouri 41 ... Kansas 39 ... This probably isn’t the end of the Mark Mangino era like many think it is. The ugly seven-game collapse to close out the season hurts, but the team played hard and it discovered its offensive punch in a battle of a season finale. However, this is the last game for Todd Reesing, who went out with a bang throwing for 498 yards and bombing away like he had for the first time in weeks. The fatal flaw turned out to be a defense that couldn’t stop anyone’s passing game, to go along with an inability to win close game. KU lost three games by a touchdown or less that it should’ve won.

Kansas State … Didn’t Play This Week

Missouri … Missouri 41 ... Kansas 39 ... Missouri has been a ton of fun over the last few weeks with Danario Alexander the hottest receiver this side of Golden Tate, and with Blaine Gabbert maturing into a more decisive, polished passer. Having won four of its final five games, Mizzou should be in the mix for a strong bowl game and it should be considered one of the hot teams going into next year. The bowl season will be a key to the continuing maturation of Gabbert with all the extra practices he can get being a major bonus. PK Grant Ressel isn’t going to win the Lou Groza Award, UCLA’s Kai Forbath will but it’s impossible to understate just how much he has meant.

Nebraska … Nebraska 28 ... at Colorado State 20 ... Nebraska isn’t going to win the Big 12 Championship unless the offense has a few dozen tricks hidden up its sleeve offensively. The defense was fine, but it wasn’t up to its normal snuff giving up too many yards and three touchdown passes, but one of the scoring throws came when no time was left on the clock and there were key stops in the red zone. But the offense was a disaster with just 73 yards passing and 217 yards total. That’s not going to work against the Longhorns, even if the defense plays its best game of the season.

Oklahoma … at Oklahoma 27 ... Oklahoma State 0 ...  Oklahoma at home is a completely different animal. The defense destroyed the punchless Cowboys while the offense got a nice day out of DeMarco Murray and an efficient, mistake-free day from Landry Jones. This might be an ugly season by OU standards, but 7-5 doesn’t look all that miserable, at least compared to the possibility of finishing with eight wins if the Sooners can win the bowl game. Unfortunately, there aren’t any bowls played in Oklahoma. The program has to learn how to win on the road.

Oklahoma State … at Oklahoma 27 ... Oklahoma State 0 ... Oklahoma State had everything on the line. Well, almost everything. It had a BCS bid possibly there for the taking, and instead it came up with one of the biggest clunkers the program has seen in years. The offense was swarmed over from the start with QB Zac Robinson, who returned from a concussion suffered in the Texas Tech win, totally ineffective and Keith Toston kept under wraps. Even with the ugly loss, OSU might still be in the hunt for a strong bowl game, the Cotton is still in play, but few will be pumped up to see a Cowboy team that played like this.

Texas … Texas 49 ... at Texas A&M 39 ... Did this expose Texas in any way or was it simply a rivalry shootout against a focused and fired up team looking to pull out all the stops to get the upset? A little of both. Texas has to be concerned that the A&M dive play worked so successfully and that the run defense that had been so impenetrable all season long struggled to come up with consistent stops. There won’t be that problem against Nebraska’s offense next week, but if the Horns with the Big 12 title, they could struggle against the SEC champions’ running game.

Texas A&M … Texas 49 ... at Texas A&M 39 ... A&M might have lost, but the young team took its cuts against, one of the nation’s top teams and had several chances to put more yards and more points on the board. The Aggies suffered a few key turnovers, a missed late chip shot of a field goal, and gave up a kickoff return for a score as they made way too many mistakes against a team this good. Will it be a stepping stone? That will be seen if the Aggies play well in the bowl.

Texas Tech… Texas Tech 20 ... at Baylor 13 ... The Texas Tech offense that has put up good numbers overall, but has been so hit-or-miss all season long, pulled out an inexplicable clunker just when it needed a big game to impress the bowls. While it was a win to finish with three wins in the final four, and the passing game is second in the nation behind Houston’s, this has been an underwhelming year. Yes it was a rebuilding season, and yes the overall results weren’t all that bad, but the team was way too inconsistent in a bad Big 12. The bowl might end up defining the year.