f wins within each season and adjust that to be era-neutral. Afte

LAWRENCE, Kan. -- Matthew Wyman may have booted Charlie Strong right out of Texas.The senior kicker for Kansas knocked through a field goal to force overtime, then drilled a 25-yarder in the extra session Saturday to send the Jayhawks to a 24-21 victory over the Longhorns -- one that just might end Strongs disappointing tenure on the 40 acres.The moment Wymans field goal went through the uprights, the Jayhawks (2-9, 1-7) poured off the sideline and into a jubilant pile with thousands of students. The win snapped a nine-game skid, a 19-game losing streak in Big 12 play and was their first over Texas since 1938.It made Strongs future bleak, but it made Kansas coach David Beatys appear just a little bit brighter.What resilient dudes those guys are, he said after his first Big 12 win. Theyve continued to work through some really, really difficult situations, and Ive said it before, I feel like we have the right kind of kids in our program. Theyve stuck it out.The Longhorns (5-6, 3-5) squandered chances down the stretch, including a fumble and failed fourth-down try in the final minutes of regulation that could have put the game away.They got the ball first in overtime, but Shane Buechele badly overthrew his intended receiver on their second play and Mike Lee was there to pick it off. After the Jayhawks marched inside the 5-yard line, their senior kicker playing in his final home game knocked through the winner.Its great to send the seniors out like this, he said. Theyve been through some struggles, some adversity, so it means a lot.Their stirring win made DOnta Foremans performance merely a footnote.The Texas running back carried a school-record 51 times for 250 yards and two touchdowns, though his two fumbles proved costly -- not only to the Longhorns season but quite possibly to Strongs future.The third-year coach has been on the hot seat all season, and the temperature is only going to rise after a loss to the lowly Jayhawks. Strong dropped to 16-20 since arriving at Texas, and not even the $10 million buyout he would be due could be enough to keep him from getting fired.We just had our opportunities there, Strong said. Not much needed to be said.Asked what it means for his future, Strong replied: No idea.The Jayhawks took advantage of four first-half turnovers, including a pick-six by Brandon Stewart, to take a 10-7 lead into the locker room. But they committed two turnovers of their own in an ugly third quarter, which the Longhorns turned into back-to-back touchdowns for a 21-10 lead.Kansas marched downfield for a touchdown midway through the fourth quarter, and Steven Sims won the race to the pylon to convert the 2-point conversion and get within a field goal.That proved to be pivotal in the final minute of the game.The Jayhawks stuffed Texas on fourth down and regained possession with 58 seconds left. Three passes to Keaun Kinner and a targeting penalty got them within field goal range, and Wymans kick from 36 yards out with 7 seconds remaining sent the game to overtime.Set up one of the most memorable wins in recent history, too.The seniors have been through a whole lot, and we havent had too much success, Kansas safety Fish Smithson said. Just proud, proud of how hard we worked. How resilient weve been.THE TAKEAWAYTexas: Texas was shaky throughout the game, especially when Buechele left for a short period in the first half with an injury, in what might go down as the biggest indictment of Strongs tenure.Kansas: Kansas has been close to breaking through several times this season, including a 24-23 loss to TCU in early October and a 31-24 loss to Iowa State earlier this month.STRONGS FUTURETexas athletic director Mike Perrin declined to speak with reporters after the game, looking away when he approached them. Strongs wife, Victoria, was crying outside the Longhorns locker room and even Strong looked visibly shaken as he fielded questions.I love coach Strong. Thats my dog, Texas safety DeShon Elliott said. No matter what, I love him, but I said thats not our decision. We cant make that decision. Its the AD and all the men up there.SEE YAAfter police encircled the goal posts at the south end zone, students raced to the opposite end of the field and hopped on that set. It took them a while before they got them to the turf, then they carried them right out of Memorial Stadium.UP NEXTTexas heads to TCU on Saturday for what could be Strongs final game as coach.Kansas tries to make it two straight on Saturday at Kansas State.---More AP college football: www.collegefootball.ap.org and https://twitter.com/AP-Top25 .Larry Allen Youth Jersey .ca NFL Power Rankings, overtaking the Denver Broncos and remaining ahead of NFC competition San Francisco, Carolina and New Orleans. Michael Irvin Youth Jersey .J. -- Josh Cribbs was in the Pro Bowl in February and out of a job six months later. http://www.cowboysfootballgearshop.com/tony-pollard-jersey/ . Third-seeded Murray had the easiest path to victory on New Years Eve, barely breaking a sweat during his 6-0, 6-0 win over 2,129th-ranked Qatari wildcard recipient Mousa Shanan Zayed. Taco Charlton Cowboys Jersey .C. at the helm of the top team in the Eastern Conference. His tenure as the GM in Vancouver was all too brief. Though he led the Canucks to what was then a franchise record-shattering campaign in just his second season, Nonis was gone and replaced one year later. Larry Allen Womens Jersey . Dallas hasnt ruled out the star quarterback for Sunday nights game against Philadelphia, but all signs point to Romos back injury pushing Kyle Orton into the starting role after two years of limited play as the backup. Surely Ortons name isnt the first that comes to mind for fans wanting a change after years of damaging interceptions, fumbles or, most infamously, the field goal flub when Romo dropped the snap on a kick that could have won his first playoff game in 2006.For the younger generations of Chicago Cubs fans, reaching the postseason isnt quite the novelty it was for the generations before them. For all the years that have been tacked on to the teams epochal championship drought, the Cubs have more or less been steady crashers of the playoff party in recent years.Between the Cubs most recent World Series appearance in 1945 and their 1984 NL East title, they drew a big, fat goose egg when it came to playoff baseball. Thats why that 1984 team looms so large in the collective memory of North Siders and why players such as Rick Sutcliffe and Ryne Sandburg are now folk heroes.This season will mark the Cubs seventh playoff appearance since 1984. Its not the Yankees or Red Sox or Cardinals or Braves, but once every four or five years isnt bad. Still, all living generations of Cubs faithful are united by the title drought -- and they all hope this years postseason entrant will be different.Is it different? Of course, that remains to be seen. What we know now is that as a regular-season team, this Cubs bunch was good. As it turns out, with a couple turns of the statistical screw, they were very special indeed.As we wrote the other day, the Cubs have sported a run differential that,?translated to wins via the Pythagorean formula, marks them as a 108-win team. Their differential ranks in the top 25 all time in the modern era (since 1901). Thats 2,452 team seasons. However, the Cubs is only the fifth-best run differential (per 162 games) in franchise history. Four pre-1910 Cubs teams did better, including the only two Cubs teams to win the World Series and the 1906 team that established the big leeague record with 116 wins.dddddddddddd.If we are to compare the postseason worthiness of the Cubs teams that advanced past the regular season, we must do a couple things. What were trying to do is estimate how strong each team was compared to the league it was in. To a significant extent, run differential does this.The problem comes when trying to compare teams over different seasons and eras. Baseball was very different a century or so ago, especially in the decades before Jackie Robinson came along. Not only was the talent pool less than what it should have been, but also, in the pre-draft era, the talent major league teams allowed in was not distributed equitably. Those early-20th century Cubs teams might well have been the best of their day, but there was a reason they clustered so many overwhelming teams together.To account for this, we can look at the distribution of wins within each season and adjust that to be era-neutral. After we apply that adjustment to run differential, we should be able to better compare teams from different years. The three years with the widest distribution of run differential were 1909, 1906 and 1942, the year so many big leaguers entered into military service for World War II. The smallest distributions, which in theory are our years of greatest parity, were 1984, 1959 and 1986. This season ranks 89th of 116, so we are very much in an era of parity.Now we can rank the Cubs postseason teams. In case youre skimming, be aware that there is a little surprise at the end. ' ' '