Now that now that the regular season and championship games are over I will now be referring to Mizzou as M-Fluke.
After a year of them referring to our 2007 season as a fluke and Kansas as K-Fluke, I think Missouri is far more deserving of the title than Kansas. Let's take a look at the schedules and the successes of both Kansas' 2007 Orange Bowl champion team and the Missouri 2008 team.
Looking at the Missouri 2008 schedule Tiger fans pointed early on to a squeaker of a victory over then ranked Illinois. Really? 5-7 in the Big Ten, that's your signature, win?
Let's move on down the list shall we? Southeast Missouri 4 wins. Now both Nevada and Buffalo a respectable 7-5, but Kansas 2007 had wins to match these. Next up Missouri's best win was at Nebraska and I won't discount that for a moment since we lost there but this is truly the only win that you could identify at this point of the year as a quality one. Moving on, a home loss to OSU and a dismantling by Texas. Now the part of the year where Missouri regroups against 4 high caliber opponents in Colorado, K-State, Baylor and Iowa State. Not one of these teams will be in a bowl and Mizzou sure was close to losing in Waco. So there you have it the previously proclaimed 2008 National title contender Tigers. Oh wait almost forgot to mention they lost to lowly Kansas this year in the final regular season contest.
Now a look back at the 2007 Jayhawks. Non-con schedule I will concede with only Toledo finishing at 7-5 Kansas didn't have it tougher, but are we really going to argue whether your $h!t stinks worse than mine, both non-cons were weak.
Looking at the conference sure we lost to Mizzou in 2007 and that was our ranked test, but Mizzou didn't beat anybody ranked this year either.
What about Illinois you ask, well you can't hold that against us because K-State was ranked when we beat them last year and ended up in the same spot as the Illini, unranked and 5-7. No one gave Kansas credit for that one.
Colorado, Texas A&M and Oklahoma State all went to a bowl in 2007 and Kansas beat each of those teams ON THE ROAD. Can Mizzou 2008 say that? Didn't think so.
So the rest aren't what I would call quality wins and aren't worth talking about except that whole Orange Bowl Victory over a #3 ranked Virginia Tech team.
Side by side though it sure looks to me like KU 2007 was a more legitimate success than M-Fluke 2008 and the Chase Daniel farewell tour. Furthermore, while I wouldn't have said this prior to this year, I really feel that Todd Reesing was the best quarterback in the North this year.
Enough of the rant, Missouri certainly is a worthy opponent for us at Kansas and both schools still need to improve to compete with the OU's and Texas' of the world. My problem was simply with the dismissal of our success in 2007 by many at Mizzou and now a year removed I suppose all I have to say is Karma is a b!tch. See you next year Tigers.