2008 Big 12 Championship Game

Last updated

2008 Dr Pepper Big 12 Championship Game
Conference Championship
Big12ChampGame2008logo.png
2008 Big 12 Championship logo.
1234Total
Missouri077721
Oklahoma102832162
DateDecember 6, 2008
Season 2008
Stadium Arrowhead Stadium
Location Kansas City, Missouri
MVPQB Sam Bradford
Favorite Oklahoma by 17
Referee Randy Christal
Attendance71,004
United States TV coverage
Network ABC
Announcers Brent Musburger and Kirk Herbstreit
Big 12 Championship Game
 < 2007   2009 > 

The 2008 Dr Pepper Big 12 Championship Game was held on December 6, 2008, at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri, and pitted two of the divisional winners from the Big 12 Conference: the Missouri Tigers, winner of the North division against the Oklahoma Sooners, co-champion of the South division. Kickoff was scheduled for 8 p.m. EST/5pm PST and was televised by ABC as part of its Saturday Night Football package.

Contents

Per Big 12 policy, the Big 12 South Champion was declared the home team because the game took place in a home state of a Big 12 North team. Entering the game, designated "home" teams were 84 in Big 12 Championship Games.

Selection process

2008 Big 12 Conference football standings
ConfOverall
Team W L  W L 
North Division
No. 19 Missouri xy  5 3   10 4  
Nebraska x  5 3   9 4  
Kansas  4 4   8 5  
Colorado  2 6   5 7  
Kansas State  2 6   5 7  
Iowa State  0 8   2 10  
South Division
No. 5 Oklahoma xy$  7 1   12 2  
No. 4 Texas x%  7 1   12 1  
No. 12 Texas Tech x  7 1   11 2  
No. 16 Oklahoma State  5 3   9 4  
Baylor  2 6   4 8  
Texas A&M  2 6   4 8  
Championship: Oklahoma 62, Missouri 21
  • $ BCS representative as conference champion
  • % BCS at-large representative
  • x Division champion/co-champions
  • y Championship game participant
Rankings from AP Poll

The Big 12 Championship Game matched up the winners of the North and South divisions of the Big 12 Conference. The game was first played in 1996, [1] [2] when the conference was formed from the previous Big 8 plus four teams from the disbanded Southwest Conference. The championship game was somewhat modeled on the SEC format, which was the first conference in college football to have a conference championship game.

Seven Division I FBS conferences currently have championship games—the AAC, ACC, Big Ten, C-USA, MAC, Pac-12, and SEC. However, the Big 12 title game ended after the 2010 edition. A major conference realignment that started in 2010 and carried over into 2011 saw the Big 12 drop to 10 members, below the 12 required by NCAA rules for a conference championship game. The same realignment saw the Big Ten and former Pac-10 expand to 12 teams each; both conferences held their first championship games in 2011. The Big 12 Championship Game has since returned in the 2017 season, with the top two teams playing in the game.

Regular season

The Big 12 South representative in the game was the Oklahoma Sooners. This was the 114th year of season play for the Sooners who were led by head coach Bob Stoops, a two-time Walter Camp Coach of the Year award winner. The team was led on offense by quarterback Sam Bradford. The Sooners played their homes games at Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium in Norman, Oklahoma. The team finished their regular season 11-1 (7-1, Big 12), [3] with the only loss coming to the Texas Longhorns. (see "South Division 3-way-tie controversy" section below) They entered the game ranked No. 2 in the BCS and Coaches poll, and No. 4 in the AP poll.

The Big 12 North representative in the championship game was the Missouri Tigers. The team was coached by Gary Pinkel, who returned in his eighth season with Mizzou. The Tigers played their home games at Faurot Field at Memorial Stadium. Quarterback Chase Daniel returned for his final year of eligibility and led the Tigers to a second appearance in the Big 12 Championship Game. The Tigers ended the regular season with a record of 9-3 (5-3, Big 12), [4] with losses coming to Oklahoma State, Texas, and Kansas. They entered the game ranked No. 20 in the BCS, No. 17 in the Coaches poll, and No. 19 in the AP poll.

South Division 3-way-tie controversy

Oklahoma, Texas, Texas Tech all finished the season with identical 71 conference records, creating a three-way tie for the South division championship. Under Big 12 tiebreaker rules, ties are normally broken by head-to-head matchups, but this case was unique as Texas beat Oklahoma 4535, Oklahoma beat Texas Tech 6521, and Texas Tech beat Texas 3933, which made breaking the three-way tie impossible using head-to-head results. Because the first four tie-breakers did not dictate a winner, Big 12 rules dictated that the fifth tie-breaker was that the team with the highest BCS Ranking, based on the standings released on November 30 of that year, would represent the South Division. This in turn meant that coaches, journalists and computer rankings, which are the components of the BCS ranking formula, decided the South Division representative. Texas Tech, Texas, and Oklahoma were all presented Big 12 South Champion trophies from the Big 12. During the final week of the Big 12 regular season, Oklahoma defeated a tough Oklahoma State, and Texas defeated a much softer Texas A&M delivering a sufficiently higher computer rating to Oklahoma. [5] [6]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mack Brown</span> American football coach (born 1951)

William Mack Brown is an American college football coach. He is currently in his second stint as the head football coach for the University of North Carolina, where he first coached from 1988 until 1997, when he left to become the University of Texas head coach. In 2018, Brown was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. Two days after North Carolina fired Larry Fedora in November 2018, Brown was announced to return after a five-year hiatus from coaching, which he spent as an ESPN analyst.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gary Pinkel</span> American football player and coach (born 1952)

Gary Robin Pinkel is an American former college football coach. He served as the head football coach at the University of Toledo from 1991 to 2000 and the University of Missouri from 2001 to 2015, compiling career record of 191–110–3. Pinkel has the most wins of any head coach in the history of the Toledo Rockets football program and led the 1995 team to a Mid-American Conference championship. He also holds the record for most wins by a head coach of the Missouri Tigers football program.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SEC Championship Game</span> Annual American football game

The SEC Championship Game is an annual American football game that has determined the Southeastern Conference's season champion since 1992. For its first 32 seasons, the championship game pitted the SEC East Division regular season champion against the West Division regular season champion. With the SEC eliminating football divisions after the 2023 season, future games will feature the top two teams in the conference standings. The game is regularly played on the first Saturday of December, and the game has been held in Atlanta since 1994, first at the Georgia Dome, and at Mercedes-Benz Stadium since 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2000 NCAA Division I-A football season</span> American college football season

The 2000 NCAA Division I-A football season ended with the Oklahoma Sooners beating the defending national champion Florida State Seminoles to claim the Sooners' seventh national championship and their thirty-seventh conference championship, the first of each since the 1988 departure of head coach Barry Switzer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2001 NCAA Division I-A football season</span> American college football season

The 2001 NCAA Division I-A football season was the first college football season of the 21st century. It ended with the University of Miami winning the national title for the fifth time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2002 NCAA Division I-A football season</span> American college football season

The 2002 NCAA Division I-A football season ended with a double overtime national championship game. Ohio State and Miami both came into the Fiesta Bowl undefeated. The underdog Buckeyes defeated the defending-champion Hurricanes 31–24, ending Miami's 34-game winning streak. Jim Tressel won the national championship in only his second year as head coach.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2003 NCAA Division I-A football season</span> American college football season

The 2003 NCAA Division I-A football season ended with an abundance of controversy, resulting in the claim of a split national championship. This was the first claimed split title since the inception of the BCS, something the BCS intended to eliminate. Due to on-field circumstances, the BCS becoming a means of having a single champion going forward, and finally the four-team title playoff system's institution in 2014, as of 2024 this is the most recent Division 1-A season to end with split national champions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2005 NCAA Division I-A football season</span> American college football season

The 2005 NCAA Division I-A football season was the highest level of college football competition in the United States organized by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The regular season began on September 1, 2005 and ended on December 3, 2005. The postseason concluded on January 4, 2006 with the Rose Bowl, which served as the season's BCS National Championship Game.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oklahoma Sooners football</span> Football team of the University of Oklahoma

The Oklahoma Sooners football team represents the University of Oklahoma (OU) in college football at the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision level in the Southeastern Conference (SEC). The program began in 1895 and is one of the most successful in history, having won 949 games and possessing a .725 winning percentage, both sixth all-time. Oklahoma has appeared in the AP poll 905 times, including 101 No. 1 rankings, both third all-time. The program claims seven national championships, 50 conference championships, 167 first-team All-Americans, and seven Heisman Trophy winners. The school has had 29 former players and coaches inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame and holds the record for the longest winning streak in Division I history with 47 straight victories. Oklahoma is also the only program with which four coaches have won more than 100 games each.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Big 12 Championship Game</span> College football game held by the Big 12 Conference

The Big 12 Championship Game is a college football game held by the Big 12 Conference between the best and the second-best Big 12 team. The game was played each year since the conference's formation in 1996 until 2010 and returned during the 2017 season. From 1996 to 2010, the championship game pitted the Big 12 North Division champion against the South Division champion in a game held after the regular season was completed. From 2017 onward, the game features the two teams with the best conference records.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2007–08 NCAA football bowl games</span>

The 2007–08 NCAA football bowl games concluded the 2007 NCAA Division I FBS regular season in college football.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2007 Kansas Jayhawks football team</span> American college football season

The 2007 Kansas Jayhawks football team represented the University of Kansas in the 2007 NCAA Division I FBS football season. The Jayhawks, coached by Mark Mangino in his sixth year with the program, finished the season 12–1 overall, a school record for wins, and 7–1 in Big 12 conference play. They defeated Virginia Tech in the 2008 Orange Bowl, the Jayhawks first and only BCS bowl victory. They finished the season ranked No. 7 in both major polls.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2008 Texas Longhorns football team</span> American college football season

The 2008 Texas Longhorn football team represented the University of Texas at Austin in the 2008 NCAA Division I FBS football season. The team was coached by Mack Brown, who had a contract lasting through the 2016 season but resigned on December 14, 2013. The Longhorns play their home games in Darrell K Royal–Texas Memorial Stadium (DKR), which during 2006–2008 was undergoing renovations to improve older sections as well as to add extra seating capacity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2008 NCAA Division I FBS football season</span> American college football season

The 2008 NCAA Division I FBS football season was the highest level of college football competition in the United States organized by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).

The Bowl Championship Series (BCS) was a selection system used between 1998 and 2013 that replaced the previously similarly more controversial Bowl Coalition and Bowl Alliance that was used between 1992 anf 1997 and was replaced by the College Football Playoff in 2014. The selection system was designed, through polls and computer statistics, to determine a No. 1 and No. 2 ranked team in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). After the final polls, the two top teams were chosen to play in the BCS National Championship Game which determined the BCS national champion team, but not the champion team for independent voting systems. This format was intended to be "bowl-centered" rather than a traditional playoff system, since numerous FBS Conferences had expressed their unwillingness to participate in a play-off system. However, due to the unique and often esoteric nature of the BCS format, there had been controversy as to which two teams should play for the national championship and which teams should play in the four other BCS bowl games. In this selection process, the BCS was often criticized for conference favoritism, its inequality of access for teams in non-Automatic Qualifying (non-AQ) Conferences, and perceived monopolistic, "profit-centered" motives. In terms of this last concern, Congress explored the possibility on more than one occasion of holding hearings to determine the legality of the BCS under the terms of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, and the United States Justice Department also periodically announced interest in investigating the BCS for similar reasons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision</span> Top level of college football in the U.S.

The NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), formerly known as Division I-A, is the highest level of college football in the United States. The FBS consists of the largest schools in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). As of the 2024 season, there are 10 conferences and 134 schools in FBS.

William Mack Brown is the former head coach of the University of Texas Longhorn football team. During his tenure, the Texas Longhorns football team under Mack Brown had a winning record in 15 of 16 seasons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2007 Big 12 Championship Game</span> College football game

The 2007 Dr Pepper Big 12 Championship Game was held on December 1, 2007 at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas, and pit the divisional winners from the Big 12 Conference: the Missouri Tigers, winner of the North division against the Oklahoma Sooners, winner of the South division.

The 2008 Big 12 Conference football season saw ties is both northern and southern divisions, with tiebreakers used to select divisional representatives for the 2008 Big 12 Championship Game, in which Oklahoma won 62–21 against Missouri to qualify for the 2009 BCS National Championship Game.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Missouri–Oklahoma football rivalry</span> American college football rivalry

The Missouri–Oklahoma football rivalry is an American college football rivalry between the Missouri Tigers football team of the University of Missouri and Oklahoma Sooners football team of the University of Oklahoma in the Southeastern Conference (SEC). The Tiger–Sooner Peace Pipe was the trophy awarded to the winner of the game.

References

  1. "COLLEGE FOOTBALL REPORT (Published 1996)". December 7, 1996.
  2. "Thanks to a daring call, Texas stunned Nebraska, won the - 12.16.96 - SI Vault". Archived from the original on October 8, 2008. Retrieved December 4, 2010.
  3. "2021 Oklahoma Sooners Schedule".
  4. "2021 Missouri Tigers Schedule".
  5. Weiss, Dick (December 1, 2008). "Sooners win Big 12 South thanks to BCS computers". New York Daily News . Archived from the original on March 7, 2016. Retrieved August 29, 2022.
  6. "COLLEGE SPORTS Blog | The Dallas Morning News". Archived from the original on December 9, 2008. Retrieved March 24, 2010.