FanHouse Dan Hawkins

Colorado coach Dan Hawkins has been adamant the past few seasons that having his son, Cody Hawkins, play quarterback for the Buffaloes was no different than other recruit.

Hawkins did a complete turnaround during Monday's weekly press conference, saying if he had to do it all over again he would not have recruited his own son.

"Not for him, no. Nope. Not at all," Hawkins said. "It's not fair to him. Here is a guy who is trying to do his best to win games and to help his team and does everything right, he's a good student and he's getting killed on Facebook and getting killed on his cell phone.

The Big 12 North remains a ways from returning to the prominence it enjoyed when the conference first formed in the late 1990s, but if Saturday's matchup between Kansas State and Nebraska for the division title is any indication then better days are certainly on the horizon.

After years of struggles by the Kansas State Wildcats and the Nebraska Cornhuskers, which have coincided with a dip in the North's strength, the two meet Saturday in Lincoln for a winner-take-all showdown. Neither team has had quite the season it anticipated but each has won enough for the right to play for the Big 12 championship, likely against No. 2 Texas, Dec. 5.

"Certainly we've been in this position before, probably in different ways," said veteran Wildcats coach Bill Snyder, who broke out of a three-year retirement to return to the sidelines this season. "By the same token, I can't remember other than the very early years that playing against the Nebraska teams was not a great challenge and certainly key ball games were after those initial years after they beat us so soundly."

It seemed like a sign of positive things to come in Boulder, Colo., when Parade All-American running back Darrell Scott chose Colorado over Texas and Southern California two years ago.

But it was the fairy tale that was never realized as injuries and questions about his physical conditioning clouded a two-year career. Scott, easily the biggest and most high-profile recruit of Dan Hawkins' Colorado tenure, informed the coaching staff Tuesday that he is leaving the program.

Hawkins said in a released statement the sophomore "is leaving for assorted personal reasons." He assumed Scott would be transferring to school closer to his Ventura, Calif., home.

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.

Conventional wisdom says Tyler Hansen should have been wary.

You don't commit to a program where the quarterback you will be competing with for time is the head coach's son. Period.

But that is exactly what the lightly-recruited Hansen did two years ago when he committed to Dan Hawkins and the Colorado Buffaloes, with Cody Hawkins already entrenched as the team's signal caller. Ever since, it had been a rollercoaster ride for Hanson.

We all knew the Kansas Jayhawks offense had a chance to be lethal this season with quarterback Todd Reesing and wide receivers Dezmon Briscoe and Kerry Meier setting the pace.

Well, the trio took it to a ridiculous level Saturday as the receivers bested each other during the Jayhawks' 41-31 win over Iowa State. First Briscoe set the school record for career receptions, then Meier jumped ahead of him. Meier, a converted quarterback, has 167 career catches while Briscoe sits at 165 after making 12 catches for 186 yards and two touchdowns Saturday.

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.

Perhaps Colorado coach Dan Hawkins somewhere internally knew his tenure was in trouble when he made the infamous 10-win prediction prior to this season.

That's what desperate coaches do to soothe a restless fan base. Smart ones just shut up and coach.

But two games into Hawkins' fourth season in Boulder, we're finding out Boise State isn't exactly the cradle of coaches and that it's time for the Hawkins experiment to end. The Buffaloes' latest embarrassment, a 54-38 drubbing at the hands of middle of the pact Mid-American Conference foe Toledo on Friday night at the Glass Bowl.

Most college football coaches seem to prefer easing into the non-conference portion of the schedule before the fun really starts during league play.

But for three Big 12 schools, the start of the season will be anything but a breaking-in period this upcoming weekend.

Missouri and Illinois meet in St. Louis, third-ranked Oklahoma takes on No. 20 BYU in Arlington, Texas, and the marquee matchup features No.13 Georgia at No. 9 Oklahoma State on Saturday afternoon.