Big 12 Preseason Poll

The Big 12 announced its media preseason football poll today. Nebraska is the unanimous choice to take the position as North division champion with all 26 first place votes. Oklahoma beat out Texas for the top spot in the South division with 16 to the Longhorns’ 10 first place votes.

As every Longhorn fan is acutely aware, Nebraska won the Big 12 North last year and almost succeeded in derailing UT’s National Championship game hopes. Former Longhorn and current Cleveland Browns quarterback Colt McCoy did his best to give everyone in Austin a heart attack with a floating pass out of bounds that landed with all of a fraction of a second left on the clock. Hunter Lawrence came through in the clutch with a long field goal to win the game, but things could have easily gone Nebraska’s way.

If the polls play out, UT won’t have to worry about such a scenario this year. Oklahoma will look increase their conference leading number of Big 12 Championships, six. Of the eight times the Sooners have been picked to win the Big 12 South, they’ve actually won it five times.

I think a lot of the reason the Sooners are favored is that Landry Jones is coming back as Oklahoma’s quarterback after playing quite well last year. Meanwhile, the Longhorns are minus the winningest quarterback in college football history.

That’s definitely an issue, but Garrett Gilbert looked really good when he came in for the “injured” McCoy in last year’s National Championship game. Once Texas offensive coordinator Greg Davis actually let the kid quarterback instead of just hand the ball off, Gilbert looked every bit the No. 2 overall rated quarterback out of high school in 2009. Jones was good, but he was a star shy of Gilbert’s five when he committed to UT. Experience counts for a lot, but I’ll take Gilbert’s talent with National Championship experience over Jones’ lesser skills and a year of leading Oklahoma to a mediocre finish any day.

Full Big 12 Preseason Media Poll:

North Division

1.  Nebraska - (26) 156
2.  Missouri - 125
3.  Kansas State - 79
4.  Kansas - 70
5.  Colorado - 61
6.  Iowa State - 55

South Division

1.  Oklahoma - (16) 146
2.  Texas - (10) 140
3.  Texas A&M - 97
4.  Texas Tech - 68
5.  Oklahoma State - 53
6.  Baylor - 42

Speaking of Colt McCoy, he got married over the weekend to longtime girlfriend Rachel Glandorf.