Finally... something worth reading about college football as opposed to stuff about the draft. Texas is also about like KSU you never know when they are going to lose. My spouse is a texas ex trust me except for the year of Vince Young Texas always loses a game they shouldnt lose. See: Kansas State, A & M, Texas Tech, Arkansas, Stanford, NC State.... you just never know

I love the OSU comments but as an alum playing Texas makes my stomach churn. Especially the last time in Austin. I will admit that we didn't have the O-line that we have now and we have a quarterback that handles constant pressure quite a bit better, but Texas has been the team that makes us want to cry for the last decade. I think Mizzou is incredibly overrated, but that's not to say they aren't good. Same quality as A&M the last few years but without the choking. So, I'd be more apt to put Mizzou and Texas as almost automatic losses and then agree that the other four could easily go either way with Colorado being the best opportunity to win.

Maybe Hawkins is trying to do what Captain Kangaroo is doing at FAU: murderous non-conference schedule makes the conference schedule seem easier. Playing power-conference teams might prepare your team for a run at the Sun Belt conference title, but all it's going to do in the Big 12 is wear down your team and put you on the wrong side of the win/loss stat.

Brad,

As much as I appreciate the cynicism, I think Gundy needs at least 7 regular season wins to note have his job somewhat in jeopardy. Here are the wins that should be gimme's: baylor, iowa state, washington state, troy, missouri state, houston. These are all teams that should almost arrive and hand OSU the ball. Iowa State only had two wins in the north last year. 7 wins would mean that Gundy would have to win only one tough game and not necessarily any big 12 games on the road besides Iowa State. A&M at home, Colorado at Colorado, or Tech at Tech are all winnable and if Gundy doesn't get at least one, I would expect fire and brimstone.

Hawkins had absolutely nothing to do with putting this year's Buff schedule together.

Kansas is the new Kansas State when it comes to scheduling:

Florida International
La Tech
S. Florida
S. Houston State

Nevermind, I stand corrected. I was looking online at their schedule and it is a pretty decent one with Va. Tech and Missouri in back-to-back weeks.

Nevermind, only KState can schedule like KU now.

Kansas has one legitimate non league game - at South Florida. Remember the Bulls were ranked #2 in the nation at one point last year and won 9 games.

There's a difference between happiness and resignation to losing. We have come to expect that we will be disappointed. Logically we should win 8 or possibly 9 wins, but we know that 7 could easily happen and we could screw up a number of games that we shouldn't. We should have had at least 7 wins last year, but we let two get away while playing Texas and A&M. We also should have beaten Troy but instead embarrassed ourselves. So, I think we won't be happy, and if it happens we'll probably want Gundy's head, but that doesn't mean that we wouldn't be surprised.

With OSU's non-conference slate this year, there is absolutley no excuse for not winning at least 8 games. If they don't, people need to start asking questions about Gundy. Wait, what am I talking about? All Gundy has to do is finish 1 game over .500 every year, and he'll get an extension. He's T Bone and Holder's yes boy.

Old Goat,

In fact, they did not win 7 regular season games. Unless you are playing in a BCS or second tier bowl, such as the Cotton Bowl, nobody cares if you won your bowl game. Do you really think that anyone besides Oklahomans and Indiana fans know whether or not OSU won that bowl game? So, we should have won 7 regular season games, because until you get to a good bowl, regular season wins are all that matter. If Gundy doesn't get 7 regular season wins his head is most definitely on the chopping block. Even with seven wins in a regular season I'm not convinced that he would stay without some substancial controversy. To recap: seven wins would mean either losing a non-con game, or having a losing big 12 record against arguably an easier big 12 schedule. Either way that would be a step backward from this past season.

That being said I'll reiterate my point. I don't think we'll be happy with Gundy, but it wouldn't be the most unexpected thing to only win 7 games, in the regular season. We've seen worse with teams projected to be better. At least for now, that's just OSU football.

I think that Gundy is only in trouble if he finishes the regular season 6-6....again. 7-5 will get him into next season in which he will really have to shine. If he can't win at least 8-9 games with the stacks of talented and experienced players he will have in 2009, he does not deserve to be the head coach. With that being said, I too will be disappointed with a 7-5 season.