Big 12 SB Nation Whiparound: Week 4

Rice 17, @ #5 Baylor 70

In a surprise to probably no one, the Bears ran away and hid from the Owls early in this one.  Our Daily Bears refused to discuss Baylor's special teams, but was overall pretty ecstatic about the big win:

It wasn't perfect by any stretch, particularly because of the aforementioned special teams (that I don't really want to talk about because, again, happy place), but it was clearly the best game of the season so far and exactly what we needed to see heading into conference play.  The offense performed mostly as expected, putting up 796 yards on just 78 plays (10.167 yards per play).

Maryland 6, @ West Virginia 45

First of all, Smoking Musket, stop calling this the Border War.  That's still our thing even though Missouruh ran away scared.

Not much to say about this one.  WVU had a lot of penalties but it didn't seem to bother them much.

Our 601 yards of offense was a near perfect balance of run and pass with 304 yards on the ground and another 297 yards in the air. They set a WVU record for first downs, totaling 37.

And the WVU defense was outstanding again, picking up another 6 turnovers to bring their season total to 11.  The Mountaineer secondary has 9 interceptions in three games, clearly living up to their pre-season billing.

#24 Oklahoma State 30, Texas 27

Somehow, OSU is unbeaten, and Cowboys Ride For Free still isn't sure what they witnessed yesterday.

If you missed the whole first half, well, it was okay. The Cowboys jumped out to a pretty quick lead in the first quarter and then just peed the bed in the second quarter.

Mason Rudolph threw two interceptions, both pretty bad. The Cowboys ran the ball three times in one drive at one point and punted the ball. They just kept looking as if they were buttering themselves up for the fetal position so Texas could sing us all to sleep tonight to the tune of "The Eyes Of Texas".

Yet somehow, we were still in this game. Somehow, whether it be defense, penalties luck or a deal with the devil, the Cowboys were able to drive down field and kick a field goal with 1:33 left on the clock.

After a three and out drive for the Longhorns, they had to punt. But the punter fumbled the snap and kicked it away for what would be negative yards.

We have no idea what just happened. The craziest game was just played.

Texas fans, for their part, and sick and tired of the Big 12 and are ready to leave this backwater conference.  Burnt Orange Nation almost as far in the deep end as Barking Carnival.  From BON:

Texas was afforded every opportunity to beat Oklahoma State yesterday, but fell short 30-27 after another special teams blunder and some garbage officiating essentially handed the game to Mike Gundy and the Cowboys.

It's almost comical now. I'm excited to see the new, innovative way the Longhorns lose to TCU. My money is on a Texas fumble in victory formation that TCU returns for the winning touchdown -- but don't limit your imagination with this one. Anything and everything is possible when Texas has the ball at the end of a football game.

I rarely complain about officiating because it always feels like a BS excuse for fans who don't understand football, but holy (edited). The officials calling yesterday's game were nothing short of complete and utter dog(edited).

At this point, for the sake of these officials, you kind of have to hope it was corruption. There shouldn't be any other explanation for such blatant ineptitude. These officials compromised their integrity, the integrity of the Big 12 and the integrity of college football. They affected the outcome of a football game by 14 to 21 points.

#3 TCU 55, @ Texas Tech 52

Coach Bro's Red Raiders were ready for the Frogs and gave them all they could possibly want.  Frogs O War was happy with the win, of course, but are extremely concerned with the defense TCU played not only yesterday, but all season long:

... almost every big play that the Red Raiders had tonight was in some way related to poor tackling by TCU.  When Tech started throwing laterals at the end, I was legitimately worried about our ability to get them on the ground and end the game.

TCU got a little lucky today at the end.  The luck in this game was as back and forth as the score itself.

The momentum of the game and who was lucky and when was all over the place in this one.  In the end, if you want to have a special season, you have to have some things bounce your way.  So far this year, not much has.  But at the end of the game today, thanks to the great football instincts of Aaron Green, TCU's luck changed. Hopefully it will stay that way for a while, maybe even a long while.

Viva The Matadors expected a big Texas Tech win, but didn't get it:

My Prediction: Texas Tech 63 - TCU 28

I thought Tech would have one of their dominant wins, but too many missed opportunities to put TCU away and poor clock management late allowed to TCU to escape Lubbock with a win.