It’s time to separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak, as Big 12 Conference opens tonight for the number 24 Mizzou Tigers. The 4-0 Tigers will start Big 12 conference play against the 3-1 Colorado Buffaloes at Memorial Stadium. This will be the Big 12 opener for both schools.
The Tigers are coming off a bye week, which followed an undefeated non-conference run for the fifth straight season. Mizzou has posted 21 consecutive regular-season non-conference wins, with the last defeat coming in 2005 against New Mexico.
Colorado comes to town riding a 2-game winning streak, thanks to consecutive home wins over Hawai’i and Georgia. The sole blemish on CU’s record was a 52-7 loss at California in week two, after they opened the season with a 24-3 win over rival Colorado State on Sept. 4th in Denver.
Entering this week’s games, Mizzou stood as one of 18 undefeated teams left standing. Eleven teams entered the week at a perfect 5-0, with another seven touting 4-0 marks.
Mizzou will look to continue its perfect start to the 2010 season and improve on their 4-0 record Saturday. A win over the Buffaloes would give Mizzou its fourth season of at least a 5-0 start in the last five years, a feat which had never happened in consecutive seasons at MU prior to the 2006 and 2007 seasons.
Mizzou has started 5-0 to a season only 9 times overall in its previous 119 years of fielding a football team.
Saturday’s game against Colorado will be bittersweet for many associated with the rivalry, in a couple of ways. From an historical perspective, this will mark the 20th anniversary of the infamous 5th Down Game, which was played in Columbia on Oct. 6, 1990.
Maybe more importantly, today will mark the last meeting between the longtime rivals for the forseeable future, as Colorado will be moving to the Pac-10 Conference beginning with the 2011 season.
The Tigers and the Buffaloes will kick off tonight at 6:00.
