ESPN College Football

Posted by ESPN.com's Tim Griffin 

With the Big 12's South Division being labeled as the most demanding and competitive in college football, most of the conference's national attention has been directed to its collection of top-ranked teams.

Anything else looks secondary, and that's been the case considering the North Division's struggles with South counterparts this season. After Saturday, the South holds a 10-2 edge in cross-divisional games so far this season. The only North victories have been Kansas State over Texas A&M and Nebraska over Baylor last week.

While the North Division is clearly a step back from the South, it still features what should be a compelling race for the spot in the Dec. 6 championship game in Kansas City. Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska are tied for the division lead with 2-2 record and Colorado and Kansas State are only a game back with 1-3 conference marks.

His team's positioning is of little solace to Kansas coach Mark Mangino, who is trying to resuscitate a team that's been outscored by a collective score of 108-52 in back-to-back losses to South powers Oklahoma and Texas Tech in its last two games.

"We're not focused on that," Mangino said about his team's current position tied for the North lead. "We've got to take care of our opponents and not get carried away with what's out there. We're more worried about getting things accomplished."

"Our kids understand what's out there, but it's not something for motivational purposes," Mangino said. "We need to get better, improve and get ready for a good Kansas State football team."

Missouri appears to have the upper hand after their landmark 58-0 victory over Colorado last week, enabling them to blot away bad memories after back-to-back losses to Oklahoma State and Texas in its two previous games.

"It's very unusual in this day and age with how the scoring has changed in college football the last five to seven years," Missouri coach Gary Pinkel said. "For our players on defense, pride's involved a little bit. They were taking some hits last week. We all know that. That's what happens. And I think they responded in a very positive way."

It was the first shutout in a conference game since Baylor was blanked in back-to-back weeks by Texas Tech on Oct. 29, 2005, and Texas on Nov. 6, 2005.

The victory will enable the Tigers to have a starting point for the rest of the regular season, Pinkel said.

"We played pretty good against Nebraska and played pretty good defense against Oklahoma State," Pinkel said. "Texas just overpowered us and we played very poorly. I think we've been making progress. It's all about consistency. Can you go week in and week out and play to a high level?"

The key game this weekend will be Nebraska at Oklahoma. The Cornhuskers have marked a modest winning streak that has seen them play consistent ball-control football and an improving defense that forced Baylor to go 0-for-10 on third down plays last week.

Despite the recent turnaround, Nebraska coach Bo Pelini isn't taking anything for granted -- even his team's positioning with a share of first place in the North after starting the conference race 0-2.

"I don't really worry about where we are right now," Pelini said. "We're taking it day-by-day, week-by-week, trying to get better as a football team and program every single week. At the end of the year all the other things will take care of itself."

The Cornhuskers have remaining home games against Kansas, who hasn't beaten the Cornhuskers in Lincoln since 1968, and Colorado. Nebraska will travel to Kansas State and Oklahoma.

"Every day's important for us right now in our preparation and where we're headed as a program," Pelini said. "At the end of the year, hopefully we can say four or five weeks from now that we're a better football team than we are now, because I think we can say that for the beginning of the year until now."

Missouri is still in the driver's seat with the easiest of remaining schedules. The Tigers have a home game remaining against Kansas State, winnable road games against Baylor and Iowa State and the neutral-site finale against Kansas in Kansas City.

Kansas faces the most punishing finishing schedule with home games against Kansas State and No. 1 Texas. The Jayhawks other games are the road game at Nebraska and the season-ending game against Missouri.

The only two division winners in Big 12 history that started at 0-2 in conference play are from the North Division. Kansas State lost its first two Big 12 games in 2003 before rebounding for six wins to finish the regular season. The Wildcats then used that momentum to upset Oklahoma in the conference championship game and advance to the Fiesta Bowl.

And in 2004, Colorado rebounded from the worst start in conference history to claim a divisional championship. The Buffaloes lost their first two Big 12 games and four of their first five games before rebounding with a 4-4 conference record. That Colorado team was beaten by Oklahoma in the conference championship game before beating UTEP in the Houston Bowl to finish an 8-5 season.