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TEMPE, Ariz. (AP) — A season of expectations didn’t turn out quite the way Oklahoma planned. The Sooners opened the season No. 1 and had hopes of winning a second national title under coach Bob Stoops. Those aspirations fizzled with two losses in the final three games, dropping Oklahoma (9-3) into Friday night’s Insight Bowl against Iowa. Disappointed to miss out on a BCS bowl, the Sooners still would like to end the season strong in what could be the final game for quarterback Landry Jones, who’s weighing whether to leave for the NFL next season. Iowa (7-5) will be without leading rusher Marcus Coker due to a suspension but doesn’t figure to be a walkover after knocking off Missouri in last year’s Insight Bowl.
Iowa State (6-6) vs. Rutgers (8-4), 3:20 p.m. (ESPN)
Line: Rutgers by 2.
Series record: First meeting.
WHAT’S AT STAKE
The Cyclones try to finish with a winning record, and the fourth bowl victory in program history. The first three have all come since 2000. Coach Paul Rhoads just signed a new 10-year contract extension and another victory would keep the mood positive heading into the offseason. Rutgers is trying to reach nine victories for the third time since coach Greg Schiano took over in 2001 and win its fifth straight bowl. The Scarlet Knights had made five straight postseason appearances before going 4-8 last year.
KEY MATCHUP
Rutgers defensive front seven vs. Iowa State’s offensive line. Scarlet Knights are quick and relatively light up front. Tackles Justin Francis and Scott Vallone are their biggest linemen at 275 pounds each. But Rutgers likes to blitz and ranked 17th in the nation in sacks (2.67 per game) and 16th in tackles for loss (7.25 per game). Anchored by All-Big 12 LT Kelechi Osemele, who checks in at 6-foot-6 and 347 pounds, the Cyclones’ line is one of the biggest Rutgers has faced this season.
PLAYERS TO WATCH
Iowa State: QB Jared Barnett. The redshirt freshman took over as the starter midway through the season. He ran for 435 yards and passed for 1,178, and led the Cyclones on a three-game winning streak that included a 37-31 double-overtime upset of Oklahoma State. LB A.J. Klein was co-defensive player of the year in the Big 12.
Rutgers: QBs Chas Dodds and Gary Nova. The job has been shuffled between the junior Dodds and the freshman Nova all season and the starter for the Pinstripe Bowl will be a game-time decision. Despite inconsistent play from the quarterbacks, WR Mohamed Sanu set a Big East record with 109 catches.
FACTS & FIGURES
Rutgers KR Jeremy Deering averages 31.2 yards per kickoff return, second-best in Big East history … Rhoads and Schiano are both former defensive coordinators, and they have matched wits before. Rhoads was defensive coordinators for eight seasons at Pittsburgh before returning to his home state to take over the Cyclones in 2009. … Iowa State ranks 117th in the nation in turnovers committed with 32. Rutgers ranks sixth in the country in takeaways with 31.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Kyle Weems scored 25 of his career-high 31 points in the second half, Anthony Downing scored a career-high 26 and Missouri State opened defense of its Missouri Valley Conference title with a 77-65 upset of No. 21 Creighton on Wednesday night.
Downing’s 23-footer as the shot clock ran out with 1:11 left that gave the Bears (asterisk)8-5, 1-0) a six-point lead.
Jarmar Gulley had 12 points for the Bears.
National scoring leader Doug McDermott finished with 19 points for Creighton (10-2, 0-1) but he only made one free throw after his 3-pointer with 10:39 left gave the Bluejays a short-lived 51-50 lead. McDermott had his streak of 20-point games end at 10.
Antoine Young added 13 points and Josh Jones had 11 for Creighton.
Missouri State won for the first time in six road games against ranked teams
Preseason MVC favorite Creighton lost at home as a ranked team for the first time in 19 games since 1975.
MISSOURI VALLEY, Iowa (AP) — One of the federal wildlife refuges that straddle the Missouri River north of Omaha will reopen next week as planned, but the other will stay closed because of safety concerns. Both DeSoto and Boyer Chute national wildlife refuges sustained flood damage earlier this year. Officials have decided to keep Boyer Chute closed for now.
But DeSoto will reopen Monday because much of the flood damage there has been repaired. But the visitor center will remain closed for more work. Some hiking trails will not be available. DeSoto will be closed for the Jan. 11-Jan. 18 deer hunt, and people will need to use the U.S. Highway 30 entrance to reach the refuge.
The Drake Bulldogs jumped out to an 18-2 lead at the outset and cruised to a 79-64 win over Indiana State in their Missouri Valley Conference opener. It was the Bulldogs 11th straight win at home. Freshman point guard Karl Madison had a career high 24 points and was a perfect nine of nine from the field. With the win, Drake improves to 8-4 overall.
Defense has been a problem this season for the Iowa Hawkeyes and a lack of it cost them in their Big Ten opener. The Hawks could not get enough stops at crunch time and Purdue escaped Iowa City with a 79-76 win. Robbie Hummel led Purdue with 16 points. Iowa Coach Fran McCafferry says the Hawkeyes need to find a way to defend the dribble drive. Roy Devyn Marble led Iowa with 17 points and Melsahn Basabe added 14 as the Hawks fall to 8-6 overall.
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (AP) — The banquet before a bowl game can be an awkward time with the coaches of two teams about to play each mingling in the same room. For Oklahoma and Iowa, the Insight Bowl banquet was more like a reunion. Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops played at Iowa when Hawkeyes coach Kirk Ferentz was a coach on the staff and two of his assistants also have Iowa ties. Stoops wore Iowa gear to last year’s Insight Bowl while the Sooners were preparing to play in the Fiesta Bowl and says his wife, Carol, has their children yell “Go Hawks!” on Iowa game days. Stoops won’t be wearing the yellow and black Friday night, but his ties to his alma mater will remain strong after the game.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A former University of Northern Iowa ticket office manager is charged with theft after a state audit found more than $16,000 in transactions was diverted to his personal accounts. Former ticket office assistant director John Gogola of Cedar Falls was arrested Wednesday after the auditor released a review of ticket office records from August 2008 through August 2010. The review found more than $18,800 in improper transactions. More than $16,000 was diverted to Gogola’s personal credit and debit cards. The audit said Gogola had been authorized to record or reverse transactions in the school’s ticketing system. He resigned last year. The 44-year-old is being held on $50,000 bond. Jail officials and court records have no information about a defense attorney. A home telephone listing for Gogola is disconnected.
The Pac-12 and Big Ten have agreed to a long-term interconference scheduling “collaboration” that, if successful, could have far-reaching ramifications for both of their memberships.
Likely beginning as early as next year, the Pac-12 and Big Ten are going to significantly reconfigure their future football, basketball and Olympic sports schedules to feature games between their combined 24 member schools.
The conferences will announce their plans later Wednesday.
The cleverly constructed “collaborative effort” provides the Pac-12 and the Big Ten with some of the benefits of expansion without the messiness of exit fees, litigation and the loss of historical rivalries. And from a strategic standpoint, the arrangement could broaden the geographical, television and brand reach of both conferences.
“Rather than go down the road of just trying to add members, we thought this was a way to keep who we were and an increase value for everybody,” Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany told ESPN.com’s Gene Wojciechowski. “It doesn’t mean you can’t expand one day. It seems to us this is an intelligent way to get stronger and do so with zero collateral damage.”
Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott told ESPN.com that “it’s a flexible approach to achieving some of the benefits of expansion without dealing with some of the other structural issues.”
Details remain fluid, but the probable first phase of the partnership would include increased Pac-12 vs. Big Ten games in men’s and women’s basketball, as well as in Olympic sports. Those changes will begin in the 2012-2013 academic year.
“Part of building our brand is getting our brand around to different places in the country,” Michigan athletic director Dave Brandon said Wednesday. “The fact that this is an agreement that will connect a number of different sports, not just football, not just men’s basketball, but many, many of our other Olympic sports and team sports, it’s a great opportunity for us to travel and us to take our teams and our coaches and our brand to other parts of the country (where) ordinarily we wouldn’t be appearing a lot. So I think that’s significant.”
The scheduling transition in football will be slower because of existing non-conference contract commitments. But by the 2017 season, the two conferences are expected to have a full, 12-game Pac-12/Big Ten schedule in place, meaning each Pac-12 team will play a separate Big Ten program on an annual basis.
“We’ve obviously explored the possibility of going beyond 12 (teams),” Scott said. “I’ve been a believer, philosophically, of that if it made sense. Now I don’t see us expanding anytime in the foreseeable future. A lot of what we can do through collaborating with the Big Ten will help us accomplish some of the same things.”
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