The best: Nebraska is a legitimate national title contender, but that doesn’t mean the Cornhuskers will romp to the Big Eight title. They have to play Colorado and then finish at Oklahoma. But experience helps in conference races and the Cornhuskers have a three-year starter in quarterback Tommie Frazier.
The rest: The Big Eight is no longer the Big Two and the Thousand Grain Silos. The league landed four schools-Nebraska, Colorado, Oklahoma and Kansas State-in the Top 20 for the first time since 1976. The league could take off when it adds SWC castoffs Texas, Texas A&M, Baylor and Texas Tech in 1996. For now, the usual suspects will battle it out for the title, and the Colorado-Nebraska rivalry may be on the verge of eclipsing Nebraska-Oklahoma in intensity and meaning. The talent thins considerably after the top teams, though. Missouri is a typical hard-to-figure Big 8 team: It thrashed Illinois in the opener last September but won only twice the rest of the year.
Key game: Colorado at Nebraska, Oct. 29.
Fast fact: The last time a school other than Nebraska, Colorado or Oklahoma won the title outright was 1960, when Missouri went 7-0.
The picks: 1. Nebraska; 2. Colorado; 3. Oklahoma; 4. Kansas State; 5. Kansas; 6. Missouri; 7. Iowa State; 8. Oklahoma State.
