I've been inspired by the boys at the Big Ten Blog, and this should be a fun walk-through each week in the new-look Big 12 next season. I'll pick one game a week during the season that I'd attend if it were entirely up to me. I don't make the call, and things change as games are played, of course. But right now, this is how it would look if it were up to me. I'll include road nonconference games, too.
Week 1: West Virginia vs. Marshall
Week 2: Kansas State vs. Miami
Week 3: Texas at Ole Miss
Week 4: Kansas State at Oklahoma
Week 5: Texas at Oklahoma State
Week 6: West Virginia at Texas
Here's what the Week 7 slate in the Big 12 looks like:
TCU at Baylor
Kansas State at Iowa State
Oklahoma State at Kansas
Oklahoma vs. Texas in Dallas, Texas at the Cotton Bowl
West Virginia at Texas Tech
My pick: The Red River Rivalry
Hey, TCU and Baylor should be a great game. West Virginia's trip across the globe to Texas Tech should be fun, too.
That said, let's not act like there's a decision to be made here. You don't follow the Big 12 and not go to Red River. You just don't.
Last year's game was a bit of a snoozer as Oklahoma blew through the Longhorns 55-17, ending a streak of four really great games at the Cotton Bowl. Texas and OU have both been ranked for the past six meetings, including three meetings where each was inside the top 15. Texas is still climbing its way back to the top of the Big 12 after a 5-7 season in 2010, but by midseason, the Longhorns could be finding their footing in a familiar setting surrounded by fried foods and ferris wheels.
The atmosphere is unlike anything else you'll see in the Big 12 as the league's two titans go toe-to-toe in the annual matchup that splits the crimson and burnt orange along the 50-yard line at the renovated Cotton Bowl, which seats almost 100,000 now.
Landry Jones will face the toughest defense he'll see all season, but he shredded the league's best defense last season in this game. Sooners legend Adrian Peterson wrote his legacy in this game. Could one of Texas' young backs -- Malcolm Brown, Johnathan Gray or Joe Bergeron -- do the same? If they do, I'll be there to see it.