Bye week provides needed rest, preparation for Big 12 teams

Coming into the sixth week of the college football season, some Big 12 coaches find their teams well-rested and ready to take on the conference schedule.

Following a week that saw only seven of the conference's teams take the field, teams are looking forward to a competitive couple of months.

"You can't take anybody lightly," said Kansas head coach Mark Mangino during Monday's Big 12 coaches' teleconference. "You can't just show up when you're playing in the Big 12. Anybody can beat anybody."

With their bye week out of the way and Iowa State on the horizon, the Jayhawks hope to get off to a good start in the conference. Mangino hopes the extra practice time will pay off on Saturday.

"(The bye) came at a good time because we're getting ready for conference play," Mangino said. "I thought we spent a lot of time on fundamental work, some basic things that you always want to keep sharp and the little things that sometimes, as you're game-planning, get away from you a little bit, so that was good."

The time off this weekend also provided a good chance for some battered KU players to heal up.

"Some kids with just bumps and bruises got a chance to rest up a little bit," Mangino said. "But not too much, because we need to get better fundamentally, so we need to practice well."

But along with the extra practice and time to heal up, teams can also suffer from a lag following a long layoff. It can sometimes be hard for a team to change its routine after five weeks of playing games regularly.

But Texas coach Mack Brown doesn't think his team will have trouble focusing after a week off.

"We do understand that we've got to continue to get better," Brown said. "We have not played near our best yet, and this weekend gives us a chance to improve on some things that we were able to look at and re-evaluate during the bye week."

His Longhorns battle Colorado at home Saturday before they showdown with border-rival Oklahoma in the Red River Shootout a week later. Brown said the looming matchup is something the team deals with regularly, but they will still be focused on the Buffaloes come kickoff this weekend.

"I think that this is an older football team, and every year we deal with this," Brown said. "And it's something that comes up because OU is like a bowl game mid-season."

Indeed, the 2009-2010 season was shaping up as potentially historic for a Big 12 Conference that both finished last year and began this year with five teams representing it in the AP Top 25 poll. The talking heads and sports pundits were touting the possibility of a national championship matchup between the champions of the Big 12 and SEC.

But so far, the season has dealt the conference a rough hand full of injuries to big-name stars and nationally televised upsets, most of which have hit the Big 12 South division.

"Well, I really try to wait until the end and look back," Brown said. "And it's something that, when you look at our league, it's unfair until we see how many teams go to bowls, how many win their bowls and look back on it."

While the pollsters are busy sorting out their lists, Brown is looking forward to getting back out on the field, this time against an opponent from the north.

Colorado is coming off a 35-24 loss to West Virginia last Thursday night in which it played well in front of a national audience and is hungry to show the conference what it is made of.

"They had a weekend off, so they're pumped," Brown said.

evancotten@dailynebraskan.com