The 2008 Dr Pepper Big 12 Championship Game was held on December 6, 2008, at

Arrowhead Stadium Arrowhead Stadium is an American football stadium in Kansas City, Missouri, United States. It primarily serves as the home venue of the Kansas City Chiefs of the National Football League (NFL). It was built at the same time as neighboring Kauff ...

Kansas City, Missouri Kansas City, Missouri, abbreviated KC or KCMO, is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri by List of cities in Missouri, population and area. The city lies within Jackson County, Missouri, Jackson, Clay County, Missouri, Clay, and Pl ...

, and pitted two of the divisional winners from the

Big 12 Conference The Big 12 Conference is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference in the United States. It consists of 16 full-member universities (3 private universities and 13 public universities) in the states of Arizona, Colorado, Florida ...

: the

Missouri Tigers The Missouri Tigers intercollegiate athletics programs represent the University of Missouri, located in Columbia. The name comes from a band of armed Union Home Guards called the "Fighting Tigers of Columbia" who, in 1864, protected Columbia ...

, winner of the North division against the

Oklahoma Sooners The Oklahoma Sooners are the college athletics in the United States , athletic teams that represent the University of Oklahoma, located in Norman, Oklahoma, Norman. The 19 men's and women's varsity teams are called the "Sooners", a reference to ...

, co-champion of the South division. Kickoff was scheduled for 8 p.m. EST/5pm PST and was televised by

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasting * Aliw Broadcasting Corporation, Philippine broadcast company * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial American ...

as part of its ''

Saturday Night Football ''Saturday Night Football'' (currently branded as ''ESPN'' ''Saturday Night Football presented by Capital One'' for sponsorship reasons) is an American weekly presentation of prime time broadcasts of National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCA ...

'' package. Per Big 12 policy, the Big 12 South Champion was declared the home team because the game took place in a home state of a Big 12 North team. Entering the game, designated "home" teams were 8–4 in

Big 12 Championship Game The Big 12 Championship Game is a college football game held by the Big 12 Conference between the best and the second-best Big 12 team. The game was played each year since the conference's formation in 1996 until 2010 and returned during the 201 ...

Selection process

The

matched up the winners of the ''North'' and ''South'' divisions of the

. The game was first played in

1996 1996 was designated as: * International Year for the Eradication of Poverty Events January * January 8 – A Zairean cargo plane crashes into a crowded market in the center of the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo ...

, when the conference was formed from the previous Big 8 plus four teams from the disbanded

Southwest Conference The Southwest Conference (SWC) was an NCAA Division I college athletic conference in the United States that existed from 1914 to 1996. Composed primarily of schools from Texas, at various times the conference also included schools from Oklaho ...

. The championship game was somewhat modeled on the SEC format, which was the first conference in college football to have a conference championship game. Seven

Division I FBS The NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), formerly known as Division I-A, is the highest level of college football in the United States. The FBS consists of the largest schools in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). As ...

conferences currently have championship games—the

AAC AAC may refer to: Aviation * Advanced Aircraft, a company from Carlsbad, California * Airborne aircraft carrier, a type of aircraft * Alaskan Air Command, a radar network * American Aeronautical Corporation, a company from Port Washington, New ...

, ACC,

Big Ten The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference, among others) is a collegiate athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representatives in 1 ...

C-USA Conference USA (CUSA) is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference of member institutions in the Southern United States, Southern and Western United States. The conference participates in the National Collegiate Athletic Associ ...

MAC Mac or MAC may refer to: Common meanings * Mac (computer), a line of personal computers made by Apple Inc. * Mackintosh, a raincoat made of rubberized cloth * Mac, a prefix to surnames derived from Gaelic languages * McIntosh (apple), a Canadi ...

Pac-12 The Pac-12 Conference is a collegiate athletic conference in the Western United States. It participates at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I level for all sports, and its football teams compete in the Football Bowl ...

, and SEC. However, the Big 12 title game ended after the 2010 edition. A major conference realignment that started in 2010 and carried over into 2011 saw the Big 12 drop to 10 members, below the 12 required by NCAA rules for a conference championship game. The same realignment saw the Big Ten and former Pac-10 expand to 12 teams each; both conferences held their first championship games in

2011 The year marked the start of a Arab Spring, series of protests and revolutions throughout the Arab world advocating for democracy, reform, and economic recovery, later leading to the depositions of world leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen ...

. The Big 12 Championship Game has since returned in the 2017 season, with the top two teams playing in the game.

Regular season

The Big 12 South representative in the game was the Oklahoma Sooners. This was the 114th year of season play for the Sooners who were led by head coach

Bob Stoops Robert Anthony Stoops (born September 9, 1960) is an American football coach who is the head coach for the Arlington Renegades of the United Football League (UFL). He was the head football coach at the University of Oklahoma from 1999 through ...

, a two-time

Walter Camp Coach of the Year The Walter Camp Coach of the Year Award is given annually to the collegiate American football head coach adjudged by a group of National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) head coaches and sports i ...

award winner. The team was led on offense by

quarterback The quarterback (QB) is a position in gridiron football who are members of the offensive side of the ball and mostly line up directly behind the Lineman (football), offensive line. In modern American football, the quarterback is usually consider ...

Sam Bradford Samuel Jacob Bradford (born November 8, 1987) is an American former professional football player who was a quarterback for nine seasons in the National Football League (NFL). Bradford attended Putnam City North High School, where he starred ...

. The Sooners played their homes games at

Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium, also known as Owen Field or The Palace on the Prairie, is the football stadium on the campus of the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma. It serves as the home of the Oklahoma Sooners football team ...

Norman, Oklahoma Norman () is the List of municipalities in Oklahoma, 3rd most populous city in the U.S. state of Oklahoma, with a population of 128,026 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. It is the most populous city and the county seat of Clevel ...

. The team finished their regular season 11-1 (7-1, Big 12), with the only loss coming to the Texas Longhorns. (see "South Division 3-way-tie controversy" section below) They entered the game ranked No. 2 in the

BCS BCS may refer to: American football * Bowl Championship Series, a system that selected matchups for major college football bowl games between 1998 and 2013 * BCS conferences, the six FBS conferences with automatic major bowl bids under that sys ...

and Coaches poll, and No. 4 in the AP poll. The Big 12 North representative in the championship game was the Missouri Tigers. The team was coached by

Gary Pinkel Gary Robin Pinkel (born April 27, 1952) is an American former college football coach. He served as the head football coach at the University of Toledo from 1991 to 2000 and the University of Missouri from 2001 to 2015, compiling career record o ...

, who returned in his eighth season with Mizzou. The Tigers played their home games at Faurot Field at Memorial Stadium. Quarterback

Chase Daniel William Chase Daniel (born October 7, 1986) is an American former professional football player who was a quarterback in the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the Missouri Tigers, earning second-team All-American hono ...

returned for his final year of eligibility and led the Tigers to a second appearance in the

. The Tigers ended the regular season with a record of 9-3 (5-3, Big 12), with losses coming to

Oklahoma State Oklahoma State University (informally Oklahoma State or OSU) is a public land-grant research university in Stillwater, Oklahoma, United States. The university was established in 1890 under the legislation of the Morrill Act. Originally known ...

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

, and

Kansas Kansas ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the west. Kansas is named a ...

. They entered the game ranked No. 20 in the BCS, No. 17 in the Coaches poll, and No. 19 in the AP poll.

South Division 3-way-tie controversy

Oklahoma, Texas, Texas Tech all finished the season with identical 7–1 conference records, creating a three-way tie for the South division championship. Under Big 12 tiebreaker rules, ties are normally broken by head-to-head matchups, but this case was unique as Texas beat Oklahoma 45–35, Oklahoma beat Texas Tech 65–21, and Texas Tech beat Texas 39–33, which made breaking the three-way tie impossible using head-to-head results. Because the first four tie-breakers did not dictate a winner, Big 12 rules dictated that the fifth tie-breaker was that the team with the highest

BCS Ranking The Bowl Championship Series (BCS) was a college football post-season selection system that created four or five bowl game match-ups involving eight or ten of the top ranked teams in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of America ...

, based on the standings released on November 30 of that year, would represent the South Division. This in turn meant that coaches, journalists and computer rankings, which are the components of the BCS ranking formula, decided the South Division representative. Texas Tech, Texas, and Oklahoma were all presented Big 12 South Champion trophies from the Big 12. During the final week of the Big 12 regular season, Oklahoma defeated a tough Oklahoma State, and Texas defeated a much softer Texas A&M delivering a sufficiently higher computer rating to Oklahoma.

References

External links

About the 2008 Championship game at Big12Sports.com
{{Missouri Tigers football navbox Big 12 Championship Game Big 12 Championship Missouri Tigers football games Oklahoma Sooners football games December 2008 sports events in the United States Big 12 Championship 2000s in Kansas City, Missouri American football competitions in Kansas City, Missouri