LET'S ADD UP the carnage: One coach lost his cool, one coach lost his job, one coach lost the game and blamed everyone but the one in charge -- him.

Incredibly, that all happened in just one Big 12 Conference game. Actually, it all happened AFTER Oklahoma State's wild 49-45 win over Texas Tech.

Whoa, Nellie! What's going to happen when the rest of the Big 12 teams join in the fun of playing football amongst themselves?

We're about to find out. Eight more Big 12 teams will go Saturday where the Cowboys and Red Raiders dared to tread a week ago when they got a jump start on the conference schedule.

It's doubtful another Big 12 coach will blow his stack as high as OSU head coach Mike Gundy, who put on a Bobby-Knight-on-training-wheels performance in the postgame press conference.

And Lyle Setencich won't be the only coach who's thrown under the bus by his boss this season. But hopefully none of the other Big 12 assistants will lose their jobs like Setencich did following Tech's loss.

Tech head coach Mike Leach forced the resignation of his defensive coordinator the day after OSU's offense awoke

Immediately after the game, Leach called a Tech offense that had amassed 718 yards of total offense "arrogant," and said his defense had players who "want to pout."

So while the Red Raiders' coach was pointing fingers and questioning his team's toughness, the Cowboys' coach was literally pointing a finger at the columnist who questioned one of his quarterbacks' toughness.

You can't make this stuff up.

With four more Big 12 openers on tap Saturday, hopefully the focus will return to the action on the field instead of the coaches' postgame histrionics.

That's not a given. If the play of several Big 12 teams in nonconference games is a barometer, more coaches may resort to calculated emotional outbursts to take the pressure off themselves by making scapegoats out of assistant coaches, players and sportswriters.

You know the Big 12 is off to a slow start when Nebraska's self-proclaimed "greatest fans in the world" soil their reputation by booing their own players.

It was easy back in the day for Nebraska supporters to always give the visitors a standing ovation as they departed Memorial Stadium. But that was when coach Tom Osborne's teams were blowing out 99 percent of the teams that visited Lincoln.

But with coach Bill Callahan's club luckily holding on to defeat Ball State (Ball State?!) 41-40, those greatest Big Red fans in the world showed their true colors by booing the home team.

The struggling Cornhuskers aren't alone. They got steamrolled by No. 1-ranked Southern Cal, but they had company as the Big 12 went 1-4 against Top 25 teams.

Yes, the Top 10 includes two Big 12 teams in No. 3 Oklahoma and No. 7 Texas. And the league has four undefeated teams, with Kansas and Missouri joining the Sooners and Longhorns at 4-0.

But KU has played the King of Cupcakes nonleague schedule, while Missouri and Texas have struggled at times against mediocre competition.

OU certainly has looked the part of a national-title contender. But looks could prove deceiving in the case of the Sooners; it's difficult to tell if they are really that good, or their four nonconference opponents simply made them look that good.

That's why OU's game today at Colorado is loaded with intrigue. The Buffaloes (2-2) played a respectable nonconference schedule, and gained valuable experience in losses to teams the caliber of No. 23 Arizona State (4-0) and Florida State (2-1).

Asked this week if he believes his team can beat OU, Buffs' coach Dan Hawkins said: "Totally. Anybody is beatable and anyone can beat you."

Hawkins came to CU two years ago from Boise State. You have to figure he still has plenty of contacts he can call from his old team, which upset the Sooners last January in the Fiesta Bowl.

And just like the OSU coach, Haw kins proved he can scream and say "ain't" at the same time. Before last Saturday, Hawkins owned the all-time meltdown speech by a conference coach when he called out his players in public and questioned their toughness.

Miffed that the parent of a CU player questioned why he had cut the vacation time from offseason conditioning from three weeks to two, Hawkins went ballistic when he explained the reduction.

"It's Division I football!" Hawkins roared. "It's the Big 12! It ain't intramurals!"

It's indeed time for Big 12 football. And even though a lot of nonconference play looked a lot like intramurals, we just needed one Big 12 game to see things could be very interesting in the league this season, both on and off the field.

Read Dave Sittler's blog at www.tulsaworld.com/sportsextra.