The Colorado Buffaloes travel to play a non-conference game at Toledo

via www.skylinepictures.com

The start of the football season is the one time in which every team is on an even keel as far as records go. Obviously the goal is to keep the perfect record intact for as long as possible which leads to some interesting matchups. Feeding on teams from lesser conferences has long been a practice of the power conferences and the Big 12 is no exception to this. Some of the non-conference games scheduled in `09 for the Big 12 are bad and then some are just down right embarrassing. Here’s a look at the twelve most embarrassing non-conference games scheduled by Big 12 schools.

12. Louisiana Monroe @ Texas, September 12^th  – The Big 12 has a history with the Sun Belt Conference and its mostly filled with boring games against lesser teams. Expect the trend to continue in this one.

11. Kent State @ Baylor, October 3^rd  – The Golden Flashes are coming off a 4 win season in 2008. Delaware State, Miami (OH), Temple and Buffalo were the wins for Delaware State and their lone experience against the Big 12 was a 48-28 loss to Iowa State.

10. Colorado @ Toledo, September 11^th  – Toledo did beat Michigan last year but this game makes the list because Eastern Michigan and Miami (OH) were the Rockets only other two wins. The other thing that baffles me about this is that the Buffs are going to Toledo to play. I know that things have been down in Boulder recently but seriously, on the road at Toledo?

9. North Dakota @ Texas Tech, September 5^th  – The Fighting Sioux won six games last season but only beat Idaho State by three points. That says a lot because as we’re going to discuss in a minute the Bengals are one of the worst teams in all of college football. What does all this mean? The game will be over by the half.

8. North Dakota State @ Iowa State, September 3^rd  – The Bison are members of the Missouri Valley Conference* and finished  the 2008 season with a 6-5 record. Even if it’s a game against Iowa State this is a team that has no business playing against Big 12 competition.

7. Northwestern State @ Baylor, September 26^th  – The Northwestern State Demons finished the 2008 football season with a 7-5 record including an embarrassing 51-6 loss in Waco. Expect nothing less than the same this year.

6. Massachusetts @ Kansas State, September 5^th  – Bill Snyder is back and so is the watered down scheduling. The Minute Men finished 7-5 in 2008 and were blown out 56-14 when they stepped into Big 12 competition against Texas Tech.

5. Furman @ Missouri, September 19^th  – Furman played Virginia Tech within seventeen points last season, losing 24-7 in Blacksburg. They finished the season 7-5,  losing their final two games to Georgia Southern (17-10) and Wofford (35-10).

4. Tennessee Tech @ Kansas State, September 26^th  – Tennessee Tech finished 2008 with a 3-9 record by losing seven games in a row by an average score of 39-17.

3. Northern Colorado @ Kansas, September 5^th  – The Jayhawks are really scraping the bottom of the barrel here. The Bears are from the Big Sky Conference and enjoyed a lone victory in 2008 over Idaho State (More on them in a minute). This will be nothing more than sixty minutes of stat padding for the Fighting Manginos.

2. Grambling State @ Oklahoma State, September 26^th  – Grambling’s only two losses last season were at the hands of Nevada and Northwestern State but they saw nothing like Oklahoma State’s offense. The Cowboys could score points in historical proportions.

1. Idaho State @ Oklahoma, September 12^th  – The Sooners open the 2009 season with a more than respectable game against BYU at Jerry World but follow it up with their home opener against the Bengals. As a Sooner fan let me just say that I wouldn’t even want to see the Idaho Vandals come to Norman much less Idaho State. This may be the worst home opener under Bob Stoops. The Bengals won just one game last season and the defending Big 12 Champs should be embarrassed to be hosting them.

* My apologizes to the good people of North Dakota State. They are members of the Missouri Valley Conference and not the Summit League as originally posted.