Consider this a heads-up. If there is to be BCS controversy, the Big 12 will be involved.</p><p>The potential outrage on Dec. 7, the day the BCS national championship game and BCS bowls are announced, is likely to center on flyover country once again, and we&#8217;ll run down those greatest hits in a moment.</p><p>This time we&#8217;re looking at a not-so-love triangle among Texas, Texas Tech and Oklahoma and the potential of all three finishing the season with identical records, meaning the BCS court would be in session to break the tie.</p><p>Plenty would have to happen, starting with all three winning their remaining games, along with the Sooners defeating Tech next weekend in Norman.</p><p>That&#8217;s a big if, and so is Oklahoma winning at Oklahoma State the next week.</p><p>Still, if the Big 12 can find controversy, it has, so let&#8217;s for the moment say the Longhorns, Red Raiders and Sooners all finish 7-1 in the Big 12 and 11-1 overall.</p><p>Because none of the competitive tie breakers apply, the highest-rated team in the BCS standings moves on to the Big 12 championship game at Arrowhead Stadium.</p><p>But who should emerge from that pack?</p><p>They would all be 1-1 against each other. Texas would have defeated Oklahoma on a neutral field, so there&#8217;s that.</p><p>The Sooners have played the most difficult nonleague schedule and will have had the best victories over the final two weeks of the season.</p><p>Tech has captured the nation&#8217;s attention and provided the highlight victory of the season by defeating then-No. 1 Texas.</p><p>The data gets fed into the voting rationale of the Harris pollsters and <em>USA Today</em> poll of coaches, and the human factor will be &#8212; as it always has been &#8212; the root of the controversy.</p><p>In 2001, Nebraska finished fourth in the polls, but second in the BCS standings and played for the national championship. Enough voters believed the Cornhuskers didn&#8217;t deserve their place and fueled the outcry.</p><p>Two years later, top-ranked Oklahoma lost the Big 12 title game to Kansas State but had enough strength in the computer ratings to fall to second in the BCS and play for the title. The system that was supposed to clarify college football delivered split national champions that year.</p><p>In 2004, the Sooners reached the championship game against Southern California and fellow undefeated team Auburn did not. When the Sooners crumbled, fans wondered why they deserved the title shot and not the Tigers.</p><p>All of the incidents damaged the public perception of a system that exists only to find the two most qualified teams to play for the national championship, and in all cases fairness was questioned.</p><p>As it is now. In the latest BCS standings, Tech is second, Texas third and Oklahoma fifth. But the Sooners are ahead of the Longhorns in the coaches&#8217; poll.</p><p>This is significant. Logic would suggest the Longhorns would rank ahead of Oklahoma with the head-to-head victory trumping Texas&#8217; later loss to Tech.</p><p>That&#8217;s how the Harris poll called it, and the computer average also has the Longhorns over Oklahoma.</p><p>But the coaches see it differently, and their opinion is one-third of the whole deal. The voting means the difference in the BCS between Texas and Oklahoma is closer than it might otherwise be and perhaps gives a hint of who might emerge from a three-team tie.</p><p>Could a fast finish by Oklahoma carry the Sooners past the Texas schools and on to Kansas City? Some of the BCS geeks and gurus say yes.</p><p>Texas players were asked about their place in the BCS world, and wide receive Quan Cosby had the best response.</p><p>&#8220;I realize that you have absolutely no clue what&#8217;s going to happen in college ball, and that&#8217;s the beauty of it,&#8221; he said.</p><p>It won&#8217;t be beautiful to Cosby if Texas finds itself outside looking in wondering how a deserving team could get left behind. But it would be typical of the Big 12 and BCS.