Huskers can win North with breaks

LINCOLN -- Husker confidence is rising, Missouri is on the fritz, Kansas has a gauntlet to run, and this fact remains: Somebody has to win the Big 12 North.

Throw all that into a blender and you can understand why Nebraska players aren’t about to can the belief that they could be that somebody.

“We have a big sheet of goals posted in our team auditorium and it still says, ‘Win the Big 12 Championship,’ ” Husker senior linebacker Cody Glenn said. “We look at that and it’s still at hand. Everything is open, nothing is set in stone. It is still anyone’s for the taking. We understand that, and we know that in order to control that, we have to win the next (five) games.”

While the Big 12 South looks a juggernaut, the North is taking the appearance of a division that might be decided on who can tread water best.

Nebraska may have seemed a lost cause in such a discussion a couple of weeks ago after a 52-17 loss to Missouri, but the Tigers lost their mojo after they left Lincoln and the whole North picture has gone fuzzy.

Mizzou has stumbled twice and looked bad in doing so. Kansas showed its defense is far from satisfactory in a loss this past Saturday to Oklahoma. Colorado and Kansas State have warts aplenty and unfriendly schedules to finish. And Nebraska just illustrated that Iowa State isn’t up to the chase.

So you’ve got Kansas at 2-1 and four schools at 1-2 (Missouri, Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas State) and Iowa State as the caboose.

As it stands, it’s possible the Huskers could be in at least a three-way tie atop the North standings after Saturday night if Nebraska beats Baylor and Texas Tech beats Kansas.

“Some weird things have happened. We’re still right in it,” Husker quarterback Joe Ganz said. “All we have to do is take care of our business and hopefully get a break here or there.”

Yes, even if the Huskers won out �” and that would include a win at Oklahoma that very few would expect �” they would need at least one break.

So do the Huskers have a realistic shot at the North?

Here’s what the main players in the chase have left:

n Kansas: The Jayhawks currently top the standings with a 2-1 record, but are coming off a performance in which they gave up 674 total yards to Oklahoma.

Kansas also has a bear of a schedule to finish the season.

Even if the Jayhawks beat Texas Tech at home this week and won the following week against Kansas State, they end with a trio of tough tasks: at Nebraska, Texas at home, Missouri in Kansas City, Mo.

n Missouri: Though many Husker fans are no doubt reveling in the Tigers dropping to 1-2 in the conference, Mizzou is past the worst of its schedule.

The Tigers may be in the doldrums right now, but both their losses came against top-10 outfits. What remains on the schedule is a far cry from what they’ve seen the past two weeks.

The Tigers are home against Colorado, at Baylor, home against Kansas State, at Iowa State and then the finale with Kansas.

Though not currently in first, Missouri still controls its fate and, at the moment, would probably be considered favorites in all of its five remaining games.

And because the Tigers beat Nebraska, they would hold the tiebreaker if both ended in a two-way tie atop the standings.

n Colorado and Kansas State: The Buffs and Wildcats are 1-2 in the conference, still in the mix, but maybe not for long.

CU is playing musical chairs at quarterback and has at least three games left in which it will probably be the underdog �” at Missouri this week, and finishing the year with a home game against Oklahoma State and a game at NU.

Kansas State, meanwhile, has a defense and an upcoming schedule that would seem to knock it out of the equation.

Just look at what KSU faces the next three games: Oklahoma and back-to-back road games against Kansas and Missouri.

n Nebraska: With an offense that has seemingly found its groove and consecutive promising performances, optimism is starting to surface in Husker camp and not just there.

Suddenly, fans are buzzing a bit and ESPN talking heads are starting say NU is a dark horse in the chase for the North.

There’s fair reason for the positive vibes: Nebraska is favored to beat Baylor, and the way Kansas State and Colorado are playing, the Huskers would likely be favorites in those season-ending games, too.

But even if Nebraska wins those three games �” that leaves two obstacles in between.

Most will consider the Nov. 1 road game at Oklahoma too giant of a hurdle for this team to take on at this point. And Nebraska follows that up a week later with a home game against Kansas, certainly a must-win if NU is to have any chance at the North.

Just one loss by Nebraska in the final five games most likely means Missouri would have to lose twice to give the Huskers a shot at the division �” unless there ends up a three-way tie at the top and a more complicated tiebreaker comes into play.

It won’t be easy, but asked Tuesday about this team’s goals, Ganz said winning the North is certainly a big one.

“It’s still a process,” Ganz said. “It’s still an everyday occurrence of trying to get better and just coming to work hard every day at practice. We’ve been doing that the last couple weeks, and it’s really shown in how we’ve played. The guys are starting to understand. They’re starting to get what it takes to win in the Big 12 and what it takes to play with some of these teams.”