The Big 12 was cruising to an undefeated weekend, admittedly against mostly substandard competition, until Phi Slama Jama Part Deux as the Cougars dunked the Mad Pirate … 9-1 is pretty good, right?  I know it doesn’t make any geographic sense, but could the Big 12 North work a deal with Conference USA West to swap Iowa State for Houston?  Iowa State sucks while Houston has an exciting team with a young, up and coming coach who has dominated the Big 12 South.

The Longhorns remain our unanimous numero uno after totally pounding the lady Miners of UTEP.  Fortunately, this is the last weekend of “preseason” games, except for Central Florida visiting DKR-Texas Memorial Stadium on November 7th to cap off Texas’ grueling preseason schedule (Louisiana-Monroe, Wyoming, UTEP and Central Florida).  I understand that most Big 12 teams play weak preseason schedules, but doesn’t it seem like such a dominant national powerhouse should have balls enough to play at least one non-conference BCS team?!?!?!

The Sooners were off last week, but remain solidly second.  I’m hoping Bradford can make it back this weekend so Oklahoma can pound the Canes.  Even if Bradford can’t play against Miami, he should be able to knock the rust off next weekend against Baylor before the Red River Shootout.

Kansas struggled a bit against Southern Mississippi, but still moved into a tie with Oklahoma $tate.  Both teams lost a few votes, but stayed ahead of the Tigers.  The Tigers picked up a few votes, but stayed put after a road win against a desperate 0-2 Nevada team.  Nationally, the Tigers dropped a few spots in the Coaches poll and remained 26th in the AP poll, but picked up significant points in both.

The Huskers drilled the Ragin’ Cajuns 55-0.  Yep, this is the same ULL that beat K-State 17-15 a few weeks ago.  Nebraska had its 300 consecutive sellout at Memorial Stadium/Tom Osborne Field … very impressive.  I think the Toofers got caught up in all of the emotions of this important milestone as Nebraska had the biggest bump in votes this week.

Mojo, don’t look for any tweets from the Red Raiders.  The Mad Pirate is on the warpath (politically incorrect alert) in Lubbock so the Toofers are punishing Texas Tech with the biggest drop in votes.  I’m confident that the Red Raiders will right the ship against New Mexico.  I still estimate at least 5 more wins on their schedule.

A&M was the second biggest gainer in votes this week, but I think it is more about RGIII getting hurt than the Aggies’ victory over Gene Bartow’s Blazers of UAB.  As you might expect, Baylor had the second biggest drop in votes due to the loss of RGIII.  The only thing worse than preseason games against Division I-AA teams like Sisters of Northwestern State is getting your most exciting player injured in these stupid games.

As the votes came in this week, I was shocked to see three Toofers rank Colorado ahead of Baylor and one Toofer also ranked Iowa State ahead of Baylor.  RGIII is only one man, right?  These votes aside, Iowa State, Colorado and Kansas State maintain their stranglehold on the bottom three spots.  Toofers are all over the board on which team is the worst of the worst.  Thank goodness that we’ll get a partial answer to this burning question after this weekend’s epic tilt in Arrowhead between Iowa State and Kansas State.  Let’s see … the South opens with Texas Tech at Texas on ABC at 7pm while the North opens with Iowa State against Kansas State on FCS at 2pm … that’s about right.

Check back next week for the Toofers final rankings before the first full slate of conference games.