FanHouse Mike Gundy

STILLWATER, Okla. --- Texas coach Mack Brown normally demands his teams stay in the moment.

But in the week leading up to Saturday night's game against 13th-ranked Oklahoma State, Brown wanted to make certain the third-ranked Longhorns remembered where they were at this point last season and what they lost against Texas Tech.

They were different opponents, but presented a strikingly similar scenario a year apart.

There is nothing new about Bob Stoops matching coaching wits with old mentor and boss Bill Snyder. They've done plenty of that over the years in Big 12 cross-divisional play.

But that doesn't mean Stoops isn't a little surprised to see Snyder, 70, back on the Wildcats sideline. The longtime Kansas State coach retired four years ago to pursue opportunities outside coaching, but was lured out of retirement last winter.

Stoops, whose 22nd-ranked Sooners host the Wildcats on Saturday, admits it's a little unexpected to be going up against his old boss again, but he was stunned when Snyder was no longer there, too.

It seemed a little harsh Monday when Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy told reporters "I think everybody has given up," when asked about the chances of All-American receiver Dez Bryant coming off indefinite suspension.

As it turned out, Gundy was more prophetic than pessimistic.

The NCAA officially ended the junior wide receiver's season Tuesday night, refusing to reinstate his eligibility until Sept. 2010 after Bryant misled investigators his interaction with former NFL star Deion Sanders.

Oklahoma State is appealing the decision.

In so many real ways Texas has been the hump the Oklahoma State Cowboys have needed to clear but for any number of reasons just haven't.

In recent years they've come oh-so-close only to fail to come away with the coveted win. A turnover here, a missed tackle there and a failed opportunity somewhere else have been all that's prevented the Cowboys from success.

"There is no question it's been frustrating to be in a situation we've been in with them and just not been able to finish the deal," OSU quarterback Zac Robinson said Monday. "We know we've been really close the past few years and just haven't been able to finish it off."

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It's just three weeks into the full-swing of Big 12 play but the North Division is looking like any of the six teams could win the race.

That doesn't necessarily bode well at all for the weaker half of the two-division league.

Nebraska and Kansas came into the season as the presumed favorites to represent the North, but after two weeks of inconsistent play neither seems as powerful. The same can be said for two-time North champion Missouri, which started the season a surprising 4-0, but has dropped its first two games of the Big 12 season.

It's not like Texas and Oklahoma ever needed a reason to make their annual Red River Rivalry game in Dallas any more intense.

The tradition of the two programs, the bordering states and the fight for superiority in fertile recruiting ground of Texas use to be enough. Who knew this early season game would take on so much more meaning when both teams joined the Big 12 in 1996?

This game has become about so much more than school pride and bragging rights, as one of these two teams has won the South each of the last 10 years, and it has sometimes set the stage for the national championship picture.

Suspended Oklahoma State receiver Dez Bryant has the support of head coach Mike Gundy as he heads to Indianapolis on Tuesday to request reinstatement by the NCAA.

Bryant, the Cowboys All-American receiver/punt returner, was suspended by OSU last week after it came out that he lied to the NCAA about his involvement with former star NFL cornerback Deion Sanders. The NCAA said Bryant violated a rule governing ethical conduct by lying to investigators. Apparently, the NCAA asked Bryant about going to Sanders home in the Dallas-area last May and he denied going.

The news just keeps getting worse for the Oklahoma State Cowboys, the team many figured could challenge Texas and Oklahoma for supremacy in the Big 12 this season.

The school confirmed Wednesday that All-American receiver Dez Bryant has been declared ineligible after lying to the NCAA about his interaction with former NFL star Deion Sanders this past May. Bryant visited Sanders' home in Texas, had lunch with him and worked out with the NFL star this past May.

But when asked by the NCAA first in the offseason, then again Sept. 11 about the interaction with Sanders, Bryant denied both accounts because he thought it was a rules violation. The meeting and workout with Sanders, who is unaffiliated with Oklahoma State, likely wasn't a violation. Misleading NCAA investigators, however, is.

BOULDER, Colo. -- For a minute, it looked as if Dan Hawkins was going to make like Mike Gundy did two years ago, and declare, "I'm a man. I'm 40."

It was Gundy, Oklahoma State's coach, who directed that at a female sports writer who had been critical of the team's quarterback. He made a point of mentioning the reporter didn't have any children.

What is it about whether sports writers have children and Big 12 football.

There was Hawkins, the embattled Colorado coach, following his team's 24-0 whitewash Saturday over Wyoming, going the children route.

Every college football season there seems to be at least one major conference that's projected to be among the best , only to find out it's all just hype.

Could this season be the Big 12's turn?

Projected to be one of the top two conferences in the country, along with the SEC, there is now a small mountain of evidence indicating the Big 12 isn't the conference we thought it would be. The league has already suffered more than it share of stunning upsets in non-conference play, starting at the top.