Just when you thought that the inferiority complex at the Texas football offices couldn't get any larger nor the asinine attempts to stand alone in the college football world more stupid came the news this week that the Longhorns had claimed for themselves the 2008 Big 12 Championship. Texas football has now officially become that eighth grade kid that everyone would actually like if he would just quit telling everyone how much he was better than they were. You know, the kid who gets tagged out of the dodge ball game by a 6^th grader and then goes to the bench and tells everyone that he's the best player on the court. That kid doesn't go home and tell his mom that he got punched out by a 6^th grader, he goes home and tells mom that he won instead so that he can get the pat on the back that he needs to feel significant. After a while the kid starts to believe the things he says about himself while all the other kids shake their heads and laugh.

I've got no beef with the Longhorns claiming a share of the Big 12 South title because like Texas Tech they deserve it after a great 2008 season but to claim a conference championship when you didn't even play in championship game is down right foolish and embarrassing. I wonder how this could have played out in recruiting conversations?

Jamarkus McFarland to Bob Stoops: Coach, how many conference championships do you have now?

Coach Stoops: Jamarkus, we have six now with three in a row and counting.

McFarland to Mack Brown: How many do you have Coach?

Coach Brown: Jmak, Texas has three Big 12 championships and I have personally won two of them. Don't forget that we also won the national championship in 2005 behind our Heisman Trophy quarterback Vince Young.

McFarland: Two championships? When did you win a second one? And you meant Heisman candidate...right...Because Vince Young didn't win.

Brown: We won the Big 12 Championship in 2005 and in 2008 and yes Vince Young did win the Heisman.

McFarland: Reggie Bush won the Heisman in 2005 and Oklahoma won the Big 12 Championship last year.

Brown: Well, we felt that Vince was better than Reggie Bush so we made him the Heisman winner. We also did the same thing with the 2008 Big 12 Championship because we knew that we were better than Oklahoma.

McFarland: You can't do that!

Brown: Sure we can, we're Texas. We even gave Vince his own Trophy. Instead of holding a football the little statue is holding an asterisk. Same thing with our conference title, you can get away with pretty much anything as long as you put an asterisk beside it.

Texas has one of the top football programs in the country. There's no need to do stuff like this because it brings disrespect instead of the respect and prestige they think it does. It adds to the perception that the Longhorns are whiney poor sports who go on the war path when they don't get what they want.

Now that ESPN's Tim Griffin has discovered the self-proclaimed title the Longhorns are taking the most talked about asterisk since Barry Bonds down. Mack Brown has been proclaimed as having no knowledge of the display but does anyone really believe that? Kudos to whomever made the decision to take it down and should the Longhorns find themselves earning another conference championship like they did in `05 they'll be thankful for the decision as well.

Significance is found in not what you say about yourself but in what others say about you.