Mizzou dumps Kansas for second shot at Sooners

Tony Temple and the Tigers beat previously undefeated Kansas to capture the first Big 12 North title in school history. Jamie Squire/Getty Images

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KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The biggest win in the history of Missouri football had only been completed a couple minutes earlier, with Tony Temple still clutching the ball from the final play, yet the Tigers tailback was already thinking ahead seven days.

"This was a big game," Temple said following his team's 36-28 victory over previously undefeated Kansas here Saturday. "It's an even bigger game next week."

College football isn't normally big on second chances, but in this historic season of attrition at the top of the polls, Missouri has been dealt a second chance of epic proportions.

Beating Kansas on Saturday night in front of the largest Arrowhead Stadium crowd (80,537) in 35 years earned the Tigers their first-ever Big 12 North title and will more than likely send them to the top of the polls Sunday for the first time since 1960.

That's nothing, however, compared to the potential windfall awaiting 11-1 Missouri if it can avenge its only loss of the season next week against 10-2 Oklahoma: a conference championship and a berth to the BCS national championship game.

Clutching a clear, square-shaped division trophy in his postgame news conference, Missouri coach Gary Pinkel remarked, "I like it, but now I want the round one." He was referring to the award given to the Big 12's overall champion. "We've got a picture of it in our locker room," said Pinkel. "That's how I know it's round."

Conference and national championships? No. 1 rankings? None of these things seemed remotely possible at Missouri for ... oh, about the past 40 years. They still seemed fairly implausible as recently as Oct. 13, the day then-5-0 Mizzou went to Norman and fell 41-31 to the defending-conference champion Sooners.

Apparently it was a beneficial experience.

Ever since that lone setback, the Tigers have been as powerful as any team in the country. They entered Saturday night's historic Border War showdown having rolled off five straight conference wins by an average score of 45-21.

For most of the night, the Tigers met no more resistance from the No. 2 team in the country than its other recent opponents. After a slow start (two three-and-outs and a turnover on downs), Heisman hopeful Chase Daniel and the aforementioned Temple (22 carries, 98 yards) picked apart the Jayhawks defense to the tune of four touchdowns on their next five possessions, going up 28-7 by late in the third quarter.

Kansas refused to go down for the first time this season without a fight, closing the gap to 34-28 with 2:03 remaining and even getting the ball back in the final 17 seconds with one last, desperate chance to win. But Jayhawks QB Todd Reesing barely had time to drop back in the shotgun before a gang of Tigers defenders converged on him in the end zone.

Tackle Lorenzo Williams delivered the game-sealing sack and safety, and the celebration was underway, with the Missouri side of the crowd chanting a once unfathomable message: "We're No. 1! We're No. 1!"

"This is what we envisioned when we came here seven years ago," Tigers quarterbacks coach David Yost, who came with Pinkel from Toledo in 2001, said on the field afterward. "It was just a matter of getting the right players in here."

Moments later, the most important of those players, Daniel, ran over to Yost for a long, celebratory hug.

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