Middle Earth

There's no time like the bowl season to break out the nostalgia and take a look back at the last decade. Big 12 football has gone through a shift in power from the start of the decade -- when Nebraska and Colorado were contenders for a national championship in 2000 -- to the end, when three Big 12 South Division teams were at one point ranked in the Top 5 nationally and Big 12 South teams closed out the decade with two straight national title berths.

Between all that, there was a lot worth remembering, even if it's painful. Here's your quick rundown of the Decade in Big 12 Football:

Team of the Decade: This one goes to Oklahoma. Texas fans might disagree, clinging to its national championship in 2005, its berth in 2009 and Vince Young's historic season. Impressive as that is, Oklahoma tied them in national championships, earned four total title game appearances, won two Heismans to UT's none and collected four straight Big 12 championships. Texas didn't hold a flame to the Sooners.

Top Candidate for Conference Dismissal: Baylor. Hard as I may cheer for the Bears, they haven't done much in the decade, and they've always been undersized.

Greatest Offensive Player: Vince Young. His struggles early in his career benefited him at the end, as he closed out four years at Texas by rushing for 200 yards and defeating favored USC for the national championship.

Greatest Defensive Player: Ndamukong Suh. Nebraska's dominant defensive lineman broke through offensive lines and barriers all season, winning the Bednarik, Nagurski, Outland and Lombardi trophies while becoming just the 15th defensive player to be named a finalist for the Heisman. Earlier this week, he became the first defensive player ever named the Associated Press Player of the Year.

Greatest Upset: In 2003, Kansas State won the North Division and the right to be Oklahoma's stepping stool to a national championship game. The day of the game, numerous newspapers across the country featured articles discussing the Sooners' merits as potentially the best football team in the history of college football for its dominance throughout the regular season. Oklahoma scored a quick seven points against Kansas State, and that was the end of it: The Wildcats scored 35 straight, routing OU and claiming their first Big 12 Championship.

Worst Athletic Director Move: I couldn't cut this any other way than a tie: Steve Pederson's firing of Nebraska's Frank Solich in 2003 and Tim Weiser's hiring of Kansas State's Ron Prince in 2005. Solich's canning came one day after wrapping up a 9-3 season with a revamped coaching staff that seemed built to return Nebraska for glory. It was the first major move in Pederson's long-term abortion of Nebraska's tradition, which ended after he was fired in October 2007. Weiser's folly was hiring a man completely different from the one he was replacing, former Kansas State coach and program architect Bill Snyder. Prince struggled through an abysmal era, gutting the program of its prestige and the values that Snyder used to turn it into a winner. He tied the record for shortest-tenured coach in Big 12 history at three years.

Best Speech: Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy's "I'm a man! I'm 40!" speech earned him YouTube fame, but it also served him well in the recruiting aspect of coaching. Every player wants to play for a guy that stands up for his players. People will remember that speech for years.

One-hit wonder: Kansas, circa 2007. That team went 12-1, claiming an Orange bowl victory. Two years later, their coach was fired after a six-game losing streak sent them home for the bowl season. Outside of 2007, the Jayhawks' record boasts gratuitous amounts of mediocrity, sprinkled with awfulness.

Biggest Recruiting Bust: Every team has a handful, but I'm going to go with Nebraska's Harrison Beck, once an Elite 11 quarterback turned transfer to North Carolina State. He languished behind the Huskers' Zac Taylor, who earned Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year awards in 2006, while trying to progress as a budding punk rocker (so the story goes).

Best Trick Play: Black 41 Flash Pass Reverse, otherwise known as the touchdown pass thrown to Nebraska quarterback Eric Crouch in the Huskers' 20-10 victory over Oklahoma in 2001. The catch was the biggest play of the game and a boost of momentum to Crouch's Heisman bid, which he ultimately won. It also kept Nebraska undefeated en route to an 11-0 start and national championship game berth.

Top Off-the-Field Moment: Colorado's fallout. With Katie Hnida kicking field goals, half a dozen rape accusations and the discovery of recruits being bribed with sex and alcohol, the Buffs had more drama than General Hospital. I'll be surprised if the next decade can provide something to top that.

The season's first Big 12 Conference match-up is Saturday night, with Texas Tech traveling to Texas for a likely punishment after the Red Raiders shattered the Longhorns' BCS Title hopes last season. Like last year, it's a prime-time game that will be shown across most of the country, but unlike last year, it shouldn't be expected to deliver solid entertainment, as close games go.

Of course, we could be wrong about Texas Tech and the long fall they're assumed to have taken. TTU won't be alone when they stand up next to the yardstick. Baylor and Nebraska both have games that will test them and possibly burn them. A couple other teams will enter their games as underdogs. The predictions:

Duke at Kansas: Fans of the color blue will love this game. Even though Duke seems to be making small strides with its program, the Blue Devils are nowhere near ready to handle a team like Kansas, which is on a campaign to assert itself as the nation's greatest flyswatter. Perhaps someday the Jayhawks will trip into a compelling non-conference match-up.

Furman at Missouri: You're probably not as quick to pull the Missouri trigger now as you were last week. But that was when we thought Missouri had reloaded with a great team on both sides. Now we have no idea what to think, although we know not to place bets on Missouri either way. Alas, I'm obligated. Missouri it is, though there's no money riding on it.

Tulsa at Oklahoma: It's more of a challenge than Idaho State, mostly on the Sooners' defensive side. Meaning, expect Tulsa to actually score. That'd be about it, though.

Nebraska at Virginia Tech: That's what I'm talking about, a toss-up. Say what you want, but Virginia Tech's never impressed me that much. It should have lost in Lincoln last year, and even though the Hokies have a dynamic run game, I think Nebraska has the best defensive line they'll have faced this season. I'll take Nebraska ending VT's 31-game home non-conference win streak.

Wyoming at Colorado: Alright, another toss-up! I wish I were kidding. Colorado's accounted for two of my seven miscues this season, and the Buffs are looking worse than ever. Wyoming's coming off a game where it got pounded by Texas after a close first half but managed to walk away feeling good about itself. I can't begin to tell you how tempting Wyoming is. But if I bet against Colorado and it decides to win, I'll never get over it.

Connecticut at Baylor: Connecticut has had a tough go in this early season and comes off a 12-10 loss to North Carolina, but that's still a good football team. They won't make it easy, but Baylor's had two weeks to prepare for UConn, and if Wake Forest's defense couldn't contain Robert Griffin, I'm not seeing the Huskies making much headway.

Iowa State at Kent State: There's no way I'm betting against a Mid-America Conference team playing Iowa State. The Cyclones were terrible in every way against Iowa, and the MAC seems to be steadily improving top-to-bottom.

Utah State at Texas A&M: The battling of rebuilding Aggies programs will probably go down as a big TAMU win. We won't know until they start playing games of consequence, but Texas A&M seems to have improved after last year's disappointment.

Rice at Oklahoma State: If Oklahoma State struggles, I guess we call that a letdown following a letdown following a win. After a fast start last season, Oklahoma State sputtered to four losses. Expect them to win this one, but watch to see what team steps onto the field. That'll tell us how well coach Mike Gundy has rallied his team.

Texas Tech at Texas: We've gone over this already, but let's set it in stone: Texas will win, and Texas will not relent. Texas fans will go wild, and it will not be pretty. But it will be a fun atmosphere, and that's key to those prime-time games.

Kansas State at UCLA: Boy, the Bruins are going to take it to the Wildcats. We're going to see just how bad K-State is under the lights in southern California. Hopefully at the end of the day, Kansas State fans remember to blame Ron Prince.

2008 record: 5-7 overall, 2-6 Big 12 Conference

2009 projection: They'll duke it out with Iowa State at the bottom of the standings. At the end of the day, they'll have capable coaching and better players.

Reason to get excited: Bill Snyder's name rings holy throughout central and western Kansas. He's got talent, and he's done more with less.

Reason not to get worked up: The past eight months have sent the Wildcats into a downward spiral. Even leveling off and stopping the bleeding will be a big task. At 69, Snyder may not be able to maintain the workload and intensity to win consistently in a major conference. He seems excited and upbeat, but even he doesn't expect great things.

The gist: Snyder has one of the most difficult jobs in college football -- again. Twenty years after he first took the job, Snyder is back at the helm to provide stability within the program and help preserve what remains of his masterful job building a program. Ron Prince is out after three seasons, numerous internal issues, and a money scandal left in his wake. The offense has fresh, young talent on the offensive line and 2008 Big 12 Offensive Newcomer of the Year Brandon Banks, but the wide receiver will likely find catches and yards harder to come by on the receiving end of Carson Coffman's passes. Former quarterback Josh Freeman, like Nebraska's Jammal Lord earlier in the decade, will be appreciated more when his absence reveals how little surrounding talent he had to work with. The defense is a mental mess, with Prince installing a 3-4 and later switching to 4-3. Snyder seems set to run a 4-2-5 nickel and minimize the team's weakness at linebacker.

Rallying point: Snyder. He's a college football legend.

Cover your eyes: Coffman. The quarterback from Peculiar, Missouri, seems to have earned Snyder's trust, but doesn't have the look of a Big 12 leader. Says one reporter at Big 12 Media Days: "A picture is worth 1,000 words, and every one of them says Kansas State isn't going anywhere with him."

For what it's worth: If all Snyder does is calm the waters, win a few games, and bring in some strong recruits, his tenure will be a success. Expect 2-3 years out of Snyder and enjoy it while it lasts.

I don't know if any Big 12 Conference football program has as bleak a future as Kansas State. Yes, I know Iowa State's in the Big 12. Kansas State's white-collars are destroying the program even faster than Bill Snyder built it.

Ron Prince was a failure -- a big one. He brought a different attitude that stunned recruits (Josh Freeman excluded) after Bill Snyder's departure. This didn't translate to popularity, like-ability or wins. They fired him after three seasons and just one bowl appearance, tying him for the shortest head coaching tenure of the Big 12 era.

But surprise, surprise! Prince's buyout wasn't enough to rid Kansas State of him. Then-athletic director Bob Krause agreed to cushion Prince's firing with $3.2 million in payments between 2015 and 2020 -- under the table.

So Kansas State decides to sue to nullify the payments, since the administration and Board of Regents weren't aware of the deal. Does this mean Kansas State is suing itself? I like to think it does.

Then Kansas State placed longtime administrators Jim Epps and Bob Cavello on administrative leave, saying it's unrelated to the Prince fiasco. But there's so much on KSU's plate by this point, I have a hard time imagining they would suspend two prominent administrators that weren't connected in some way.

Just for a bit of added zest -- because this story needs it -- an audit that former athletic director Tim Weiser received a $500,000 loan from the school to help pay for a real estate purchase. But don't worry. The loan was paid with interest, and at any rate, Weiser -- who hired Prince, for what it's worth -- has long been fired.

This might just be me being impulsive, but I think Kansas State has some trouble.

Check that: It has an incredible amount of trouble. The Wildcats football program is on the brink of returning to the barrel bottoms it is known for inhabiting. This is way worse than any scandal Nick Saban or Rhett Bomar might cook up. Snyder is supposedly back coaching for two seasons to help right the ship, but KSU is sitting at the crossroads of money and tradition. Both are leading straight off a cliff.

In 2007, the year for which we have the most recent data, Kansas State football brought in just shy of $22 million. It's also more than 45 percent of KSU's entire athletic department revenue. That's well short of Texas' $72.9 million in football revenue and a middling number in terms of percentage of total sports revenue. One can imagine it was much higher when the program was excelling on the national stage. But it seems like the Wildcats are prepared to spend most of what they've made on lawsuits, lawyer's fees, and the illegal payments that prompted all this legal work.

In the meantime, Snyder isn't going to do much with that program except keep the headset warm. At 69 and coming out of retirement, Snyder won't be able to turn this into a lengthy stay like Tom Osborne is doing with Nebraska's athletic director job. Coaching is much more taxing.

But building success now is going to be much harder than it was the first time he started, when he was an up-and-coming disciple of Hayden Fry and Kansas State could only go up. Snyder's recruiting abilities had dipped in his last final years at KSU, and with a limited tenure and no answers for what the future might hold, convincing recruits to sign up for four years of unknowns is going to be a tough sell.

What Kansas State has, besides an incredible mess, is one last chance to make the right hire and preserve what Snyder has built. The next athletic director will need to be an incredible fundraiser -- one that can find the money an established coach can't say no to (Jim Leavitt will be at the top of this list). If Snyder goes out and the next coach proves to be a schmuck, the program Snyder built was dead.

Kansas State isn't like Nebraska, where former players and coaches work like an immune system to eliminate infecting legions and re-establish order. Without another run of success, Kansas State will be starting from scratch.

It's a shame to see Snyder's masterpiece crumbling. But his return to coaching is only stabilizing, not problem-solving.

As for Price, he's back at Virginia working as the Cavs' special teams coach. That's a pretty long fall for a coach who had coached in a major football conference and upset Texas twice.

Just more evidence that we don't yet know the majority of this story.