Eye on the North: Well, That Was Easy

With a Nebraska win and a Colorado loss, the North race cleared up instantly and is now exclusively down to Kansas State and Nebraska.  The other four teams cannot reach five conference wins any longer, and with the Wildcats and Cornhuskers set to play one another, one of them will end up with at least five themselves.  End of drama.  Too bad; I was cheering for Nebraska to lose too just for the sake of North chaos.

Kansas State received a bit of a whipping from Mizzou, but Colorado's loss made that largely meaningless, while Nebraska's win gave them a half-game lead over K-State.  Meaning:  The division will be decided by the game in Lincoln this Saturday, and it will be a good idea to keep an eye on this while you're watching the Horns pummel the free-falling Jayhawks.  Both teams can still win the division outright if Nebraska either wins out or loses out, but the head-to-head tiebreaker pretty much makes Nebraska's last game irrelevant.

It is an interesting matchup between two run-first, defensively-minded teams.  Neither team can pass the ball well and rely heavily on running the ball, and neither offense is particularly good.  K-State has a weak pass defense but it remains to be seen if Zac Lee can do anything about that.  Watching the Husker offense can be very painful, but I like them this game because of their superior defense, which will surely challenge K-State's one-dimensional and very unimpressive offense (an offense that failed to score a touchdown on Missouri last Saturday).  Expect field goals, turnovers, punting, and heavy doses of Daniel Thomas and Roy Helu Jr.  I wouldn't expect long touchdown drives; if either team is going to score touchdowns, I'd predict big plays from special teams or turnovers setting those scores up.

See you in Dallas, Nebraska.  At least, so I think.