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Mike Gundy is headed into Week 13 riding high in this week’s Big 12 Power Poll as the No. 1 ranked team in the conference with Baylor for the moment holding the No 2 spot and Oklahoma at No. 3 after their listless offensive performance in Waco.

When Alex Grinch was hired with a $1.8 million dollar salary to somewhat restore order to the Sooner defense…the thought was that if OU could just hold teams to 24 points a game then surely Lincoln Riley’s new world offense would top that every week of the college football season.

Truth be told…without Ronnie Perkins, Tre Norwood, and Trey Brown this OU defense isn’t nearly what it was last season and the offense has been all over the radar screen.

Twice in this Big 12 season so far OU’s offense hasn’t cracked the twenty point barrier with two of the best defenses in the conference still in front of them.

With all the drama which went on with OU and Texas announcing their decision to leave the conference before the season…what has transpired since when OU roared back from a 28-7 hole in the Red River Rivalry is a wonderul conference race to see who emerges as the two teams in Jerry’s World on the first week-end of December.

The two survivors won’t be Georgia vs. Alabama, but for sheer college football enjoyment this Big 12 race is going to be fun.

The wacky Big 12 where the conference lost two teams then gained four teams then lost Gary Patterson and Matt Wells from the coaching ranks has been a roller coaster trip.

For a conference which used to give us ping pong scoring marathons like 62-59 a funny thing has happened. The quarterback play throughout the league has dropped significantly and teams like O State, Baylor, and Iowa State have all for the most part played defensive football like back in the Big 8 days of Switzer and Osborne. These three teams actually tackle opposing ball carriers and harass enemy quarterbacks.

Who saw defense coming the Big 12’s way back in 2019?

Track meets for the most part have been rare. Baylor just held OU to 14 points which was the lowest offensive output in the Lincoln Riley era.

O State has the third ranked defense nationally and a back seven which is loaded with experienced players who stayed that extra year due to Covid. O State would be even deeper in their back seven if they hadn’t lost safety Tre Sterling to wrist surgery earlier in the season.

Plus, O State rather than OU has gotten more out of the transfer portal this season with running back Jaylen Warren emerging as one of the best backs in the conference.

Iowa State at 6-4 has been a downer, but keep this in mind as the Cyclones head to Norman this Saturday…they more than any club in this league have had Lincoln Riley’s number the past three years and came within a play of beating the Sooners in last year’s Big 12 Championship Game.

Bryce Hall started slowly for Coach Matt Campbell this season, but of late has re-emerged as perhaps the league’s best running back as Bijuan Robinson is done for the season due to injury.

In the last four games in this series the Cyclones are 2-2, have won once at Norman and had a chance to win at the end in all four games.

The Big 12 has three potentially wonderful games on tap this Saturday starting with OU as a 3.5 home favorite over the Cyclones in what is probably a must win game for the Sooners to advance to Arlington.

The second game of the day is a dead even pick ’em in Vegas right now with 8-2 Baylor at 7-3 Kansas State. Talk about a trap game for the Baylor Bears. This should be a great Big 12 game.

BTW…OU’s 37-31 win at K State is resume wise OU’s best win of the season to date. The win over Texas isn’t resume worthy. When a team gives up 57 points at home to Kansas and it isn’t in a basketball game…that team becomes non-resume worthy in my polling system.

Then in the third game we get my No. 5 team in my national poll the Oklahoma State Cowboys with that defense listed as a 10.5 road favorite in crazy Lubbock over the Red Raiders.

The last time the Cowboys played in Lubbock in 2019 Spencer Sanders turned the ball over five times and O State lost 45-35.

But of late these last three games…Spencer Sanders has been turnover efficient and as a result the Cowboys have taken thier offensive game up a notch.

So here we are with a new Big 12 that plays some defense, has some great running backs, and some murky quarterback play at times from O State, Baylor, OU, and Iowa State.

Maybe Joe C and the new OU head boss should see if they could stay in the Big 12 and send football cellar dwellers Texas and Kansas to the SEC West instead.

I’m sure Porter Moser and Mike Boynton would go for that.

BOOMER!

The TNT Showcase Game of the Week was a dandy…for a half. Then the MVP caliber of play by Steph Curry wore down the Brooklyn Nets into submission as the Warriors breezed 117-99 at the Barclays Center.

Steph was simply brilliant scoring 37 points and moving the ball like the generational B-Ball wizard he truly has become for those of us still lucky enough to be around watching him play.

On my first MVP ballot of the season I have 1 Steph, 2 Jokic….not sure who I would have as my three just yet.

Any doubts about where Steph and Kevin curently rank among this generation of stars was wiped away with a display of ball which shows who’s team the Warriors truly are.

These Warriors are still without Klay and second year center James Wiseman…but even without those two the Warriors have been the class of the West one-sixth of the way into this NBA season.

Kudos to Warriors GM Bob Myers for the rebuild. These aren’t the injury decimated Warriors which lost to Toronto in their last Finals appearance. This is a rebuilt team with depth galore into the second unit and perhaps into a third unit as well.

Klay is now playing five on five in practice, but when he eventually comes back he won’t have to be a full-time Splash Brother is my take. He can be a Mini-Splash Brother who in my fertile mind should not have to be playing more than 22-24 minutes a game to contribute to this version of the Warriors.

For those old enough…think back to when Bill Walton’s injury riddled legs were at the end of his illustrious career with the Boston Celtics. That Bill Walton wasn’t Portland’s world champion Bill Walton, but there was still enough left in Bill Walton’s gas tank to help the Celtics win a championship as their Sixth Man playing lighter minutes.

God…I wish we had guys like Bob Myers and Steve Kerr in Oklahoma City….I’d be a regular again at the Peake if that were the case. I wouldn’t have to sit in the stands and cheer for teams from San Francisco and Miami….. and dream one day we in Oklahoma would once again have a team which is more than a AAA developmental squad subsidized by Adam Silver to move players to other locales in the league.

Klay doesn’t have to be the bulldog anymore. There’s Gary Payton Jr. to be the defensive bulldog and there’s Jordan Poole to help with scoring. There’s the two rookies in Moses Moody and Johnny Kuminga who make the Warriors future burn even brighter.

If you watch the video I posted above…please note #00 for the Warriors…that’s rookie Johnny Kuminga who was the 9th player taken in this past draft and generally recognized as perhaps the player in the draft with the most raw athletic potential.

Some say he could be the next Kawhi who was the 15th player taken in his draft class or the next Giannis was also the 15th player taken in his draft class. Johnny Kuminga went at No. 9…three picks after Sam Hinkie-Presti decided on the non-athletic Josh Giddy at No. 6.

We could have had Johnny Kuminga, but instead the only Johnny we have is the ‘once’ great Johnny Thunder on the abysmal Daily Thunder blog.

I think in closing that pretty much says why the Warriors are who they are and why the tanking Thunder are playing the putrid 1-11 Houston Rockets tonight in the least desirable NBA game on this season’s slate so far this NBA season.

Tonight’s over/under for Mike Muscala minutes is set at 7.5 minutes per okcthunderground.com. Can’t play him too much if the Thunder are to have any chance at losing this game to the feeble Rockets.

Let’s Go Rockets!

This is an interesting presser since all around are rumors swirling on Lincoln Riley possibly headed to LSU as the next head football coach at LSU.

I guess that’s an interesting thought. The leash is very short at LSU for losing games and if you think back both Les Miles and current lame duck coach Ed Orgeron were both shown the door when the Tigers couldn’t win enough to satiate their crazy fan base.

But you can definitely win a football national championship at LSU for certain. Nick Saban, Les Miles, and Ed Orgeron all won national championships in Baton Rouge.

I’m not losing sleep over it either way. That’s not my concern. OU has in my estimation the best athletic director in the country in Joe Castiglione.

I have faith in Joe C’s judgement. While at OU he’s only had to hire two head football coaches. The first was Bill Snyder’s defensive coordinator at K State and then Steve Spurrier’s defensive coordinator at Florida when they won a national championship.

A guy by the name of Bob Stoops. At OU…Coach Stoops won a national champonship and played in three other BCS National Championship games during his sixteen season tenure as the Sooners’ head coach. Bob Stoops hired Lincoln Riley from East Carolina as his offensive coordinator then ended up retiring to allow Lincoln’s ascension to the head coaching job.

Lincoln has done a great job, but if he leaves…he leaves. It’s the same stuff I wrote when Kevin Durant decided to leave for San Francisco. When you’re at the top of your profession you’ve earned the right to pursue happiness for your family beyond sweating out wins every week in Norman or Baton Rouge.

If I was Lincoln’s friend I’d say, “Dude, you can probably go anywhere, but why would you go coach at a school with an even more irrational fan base than Oklahoma? You have a wife and two kids…money isn’t everything even if they do pay you more?”

I’d take the USC job before I took the LSU job. Great weather. Fan base isn’t as crazy due to being down for so long. Only one team in your conference in Oregon who would be difficult to beat. A coach like Lincoln could be the next Pete Carroll is the way I see it. He could be the next West Coast guru like Bill Walsh was with the Niners.

So who would Joe C hire if Lincoln Riley did leave for another school?

One of the guys I would have on my list would be Baylor’s Dave Aranda who for the third time in the last three years this past weekend basically shut down Lincoln Riley’s offense.

I mean, let’s be blunt–OU was down 24-7 in the fourth when they scored their second touchdown with 3:40 or so left in the game.

Dave Aranda has owned Lincoln Riley to date. Plus, I’m guessing his buyout is very modest considering Baylor is his first head coaching position at a Power 5 school.

Fun fact…Steve Sarkisian’s buyout at Texas is $40 million dollars. Holy shit. You could but a couple of Longhorn Networks with that kind of cash.

Joe C is generally bright about his coaches. Oklahoma is a top six job in college football. If Lincoln leaves it would sting, but I mean two years ago OU was hearing Lincoln would be the next head coach of the Green Bay Packers or Dallas Cowboys.

When you have a hot coaching commodity it comes with the territory.

As far as the Iowa State game… who could possibly know at this point what OU will do on the playing field in Norman on Saturday.

The Committee now has the Sooners’ at No. 13 and I have the Sooners either 11th or 12th. No team in the history of the College Football Playoff era has come back to make the four team playoff from any further back than No. 9 this late in a season. Plus, in looking where the Committee ranked both Baylor and O State this week it appears the Committee isn’t all that stoked about the Big 12 in general.

Hope OU finds some focus in their final home game of the season.

Here’s one …if Iowa State beats OU this Saturday for their third win in their last five games against the Sooners… and Lincoln leaves for another job…would Joe C have Iowa State’s Matt Campbell on his short list?

Think about that one.

Mike’s short list so far… 1 Dave Aranda, 2 Kellen Moore, 3 Dr. Strangelove at Mississippi State, 4 Matt Campbell if they beat OU this Saturday. Hell, if you’re not going to make the Playoff…then hiring a new coach is almost as much fun.

This is the first time I’ve seen this video. Don’t click unless you’re prepared for a f–kfest. I tell you what though…maybe something like this needs to occur within that OU locker room given all the passive and unfocused football play so far this season. Football isn’t a gentle activity.

Lombardi once said this and remember you won’t ever read this on any other blog in this market….”Dancing is a contact activity, football is a collision activity.” Jim Traber doesn’t even have that quote in his bag of tricks. I like Jim, but he’s never used that quote because I grew up worshipping the Packers while he grew up worshipping the Steelers.

Mike Leach was Bob Stoops’ first offensive coordinator in Norman. He’s winning games in the SEC West right now with arguably the weakest program in the West. I mean… Mike Leach is the dude who in essence fathered Lincoln Riley’s Air Raid offense. Crazy as it sounds…it’s not altogether crazy. The pressers would be iconic.

But to close on…I would be happy with OU beating Iowa State and Lincoln staying on as the OU coach all things considered. Boring me.

BOOMER!

I love this song. Being that I was born in nearby San Diego… I should have probably been a Cali kid in retrospect. This is for Russell Westbrook… our Thunder LA kid. I’ve written some harsh things about his decision making of late…but I always wish the best for Russell.

Have a tremendous Wednesday.

Originally…I was going to enter something on Jordan Poole from the Golden State Warriors on my NBA Journal this week, but after seeing Duncan in person last night for the first time…I think I’ll do Duncan then get to Jordan Poole.

I see real potential in some of the Thunder’s younger players once they’re combined with the right mix of veterans as far as team building.

Every player in the NBA has had his unique path to becoming a player who can stay in the league.

For some it’s a daunting journey of resilence and resolve… and finally an affirmation of self belief thay can play at this level.

When you consider the dual paths of Tyler Herro and Duncan Robinson to the Miami Heat it’s amazing the difference each traveled to become star NBA players.

Hope you take the time to watch Duncan’s story.

Normally…. me attending a Thunder game traveling from Deer Creek to Bricktown wouldn’t qualify as a travel blog entry, but this was a special night for me so I’m putting it on Mike’s Travel Blog side of the blog.

Plus, there’s no real need in this market for anybody writing Thunder recaps except for the Thunder employed paid puppets under the reign of Sam Hinkie-Presti.

What a night for me in the stands at the Peake. This was actually the first Thunder game I’ve attended since the Chris Paul season when the Thunder went dark on that fateful Rudy Gobert evening which signaled the national onset of Covid protocol.

But after talking to that kid with the Tyler Herro jersey yesterday…I decided to make the trek south and see in person the fabulous Tyler Herro and his three point bombing buddy Duncan Robinson in person for the first time.

Tyler Herro was the 13th player taken in his draft class and Duncan Robinson like Lu Dort was undrafted from his college days. So in essence, two of the three best players on the floor Monday night weren’t drafted and Tyler was only the 13th player taken in his NBA draft class. Take that as you may in regards to tanking.

Jimmy Butler and Bam were healthy scratches for the Heat since they were playing the tanking Thunder, but their absence didn’t diminish the night for those of us there to witness the Miami Splash Brothers .

I easily got a lower level ticket and entered the building with my vaccine card. I actually like the Thunder’s Covid protocol since it weeds out some of the Trumpier lower level rabble from the arena and creates an arena feel more in line with NBA crowds across the league instead of feeling like you’re at an LSU game in Baton Rouge with a hangover.

I had a great time and there were Miami fans there just like me applauding every basket Tyler and Duncan made in the game. But we weren’t obnoxious in that we politely applauded made baskets by the young Thunder players as well. When you as a fan enter another team’s building you need to win with class and set an example for the Durant haters of how to behave at an NBA game.

Tyler’s per NBA.com line and not what this homemade video listed was 28, 7, 6, 2, and a floor best +28. Tyler was easily the best player on the floor and an anticipated matchup between Tyler and Shai never materialized because in a word Shai was brutal. Shai was actually the fourth or fifth best guard on the floor this night behind, Tyler, Lu Dort, Duncan, and maybe even rookie Josh Giddy.

This is what I fear for Shai if Sam Hinkie-Presti keeps the tank death march in place too long, that being, his basketball competitive soul will wither at some point amidst all the intentional losing….and his game might regress.

From a Thunder glass half-full point of view there were some bright spots. I thought Lu Dort played well for the fourth straight game. JRE, Poku, and Aaron Wiggins showed some flash here and there. Giddy played decent minus his shooting woes. He needs a shooting coach. His release and footwork seem to be awkward to me. Tre Mann could be a player of consequence. Time will tell.

Anyway…great night from the Peake if you’re an NBA fan who can live beyond the glory days of Kevin Durant in Oklahoma City.

But I will write this …there are some players in place who can turn into something if they would be allowed to have guys like Mike Muscala and Kenrich Williams play real rotational minutes every night.

Hopefully…these kids keep their heads up and won’t embrace losing too much as the schedule gets tougher with sixty-nine games remaining this season.

I’m over OU’s road loss to Baylor and ready to get amped for Iowa State coming to town on Saturday. Sometimes you have to lose to be a winner. But first I’ve got Tyler Herro in town tonight to play Sam Hinkie-Presti’s OKC Thunder tonight. I’m hyphenating the King of Tanking’s name for however long we in Oklahoma City have to endure this Death March of his.

I’m hedged though with Golden State and Miami for howeverlong the Death March takes.

Hopefully…Mike Muscala sees the floor tonight so we can see threes raining from both sides tonight at the Peake.

I will never get on Mike Muscala and Kenrich because I have eternal respect for their work ethic and professionalism. I may snark at others, but not those two.

I mean for this season for me this will be a Game 7 for a Thunder game. Plus, all the Laker games with Russell where you can see Laker Coach Frank Vogel literally questioning the existence of God after a Westbrook miscue in the last two minutes.

It will be my first game at the arena this season as I try to shake down the ticket resalers five minutes before tip for a nice lower section seat for maybe 40 % face value. I don’t know…this is my first game this season to test the the strength of ticket prices. Tyler>LeBron, right?

True story…I’m driving in Deer Creek today…and this kid maybe thirteen or so is wearing a Tyler Herro jersey while riding his bike. I stop the truck, but do not get out and said to this kid, “You’re wearing a Tyler Herro jersey!”

He said, “Yes, sir…he’s my favorite player in the league. I want to be a hybrid guard like Tyler someday. Inside-outside game. Two zone player.”

I said, “Me, too. I love Tyler. I tried to get Sam Hinkie-Presti to move up and draft Tyler two years ago. Instead we got Darius Bazely. Nice kid, nice smile…but not Tyler Herro.”

The kid said,”You serious?”

“Absolutely…at one time I was the most trusted voice in the NBA on the Daily Thunder. I’m sure Sam Hinkie-Presti was reading me every day. Not a doubt.”

I then said, “For a young player like you in Oklahoma to recognize Tyler’s greatness tells me you’re a smart kid. I’m guessing Honor Roll student.”

He said, ‘Straight A’s. Never made a B in my life.”

I waved and said,” Good luck being Tyler Herro, kid. You can do it.”

The end.

They should play this for Tyler during warmups tonight. Give the Thunder fans a chance to see what they missed.

Kevin was superb Sunday evening at his old haunt inside the Peake as his Nets toyed with this Sam Hinkie version of the Oklahoma City Thunder by a score 120-96.

It was vintage efficent Durant as he scored 33 points on a 9-17 shooting night. Patty Mills was superb as well chipping in 28 points on a night when he went 9-12 from beyond the arc.

When Patty Mills shoots he ball like that the absence of Kyrie Irving isn’t really noticeable. But I would guess Kyrie will be back sometime after Christmas and be an active contributor to the Nets.

Good to see former OU National Player of the Year Blake Griffin has found a basketball home where he can play on a relevant team to close out his NBA career.

James Harden as well seems to have found a place with Kevin even though he needs to lose weight and recalibrate his game to the new NBA rules which were designed to put a halt to him living on the free throwline.

But Kevin Durant’s game is still gold regardless of what the Oklahoma City fanbase wants to think of his departure from Oklahoma City in 2016. In retrospect Kevin was right for leaving the Thunder. He never would have won a championship in Oklahoma City.

I put it on Sam Presti. He never reeled in Russell Westbrook’s game. He never really added a true starting shooting guard to the Thunder while the Durant window was still in place from 2012 thru 2016.

Presti never hired a head coach who could control Russell Westbrook’s worst inner basketball impulses in the last six minutes of meaniful games and it is what it is.

You will never ever hear Little Nick Gallo or Royce Young say this on a Thunder telecast. Because quiet frankly both are Sam Presti puppets versus being journalists with any hubris whatsoever. They’re puppets on a payroll. It would be like asking the Trump kids to evalulate their father’s presidency.

I have no agenda. I’m not on Presti’s payroll. I want the Thunder to be good. I’ve forgotten more basketball than either of the puppets will ever know. I’m not writing this to be mean, but on a blog you’re supposed to write honestly. It bothers they never are just truthful in making evaluations on the team they ostensibly cover. A journalist is supposed to be a conduit of truth and knowledge versus just being a paid for pimp.

As far as the Thunder… I hope Sam Presti really knows what he’s doing with this Sam Hinkie rebuild of his.

Here’s my Vegas Thunder take on the Thunder from an actuarial point of view. I just turned 64 in October. Let’s say realisticly I live to be 75. I’m not trying to be morbid, I’m just trying to be somewhat pragmatic about the Thunder and why I’m adopting the Warriors and the Heat this season. If I were Vegas I would calibrate the Oklahoma City will not win another first round playoff series during the remainder of Mike Jackson’s time on this earth.

I don’t mean that in a snarky way. I’m not trying to be hateful. I hope the team holds enough interest for the people in Oklahoma City to keep buying tickets and sustaining the team, but I don’t at this point have any faith that even if some of these draft picks actually hit that Presti can in this sleepy little Donald Trump redneck market keep players here who really don’t want to be playing here.

I’ve written this on my blog before. Even though my birth certificate says I’m white. I don’t consider myself white. I’ve consider myself mixed ever since my liberation at John Marshall during my high school years.

If I were an elite black NBA player… Oklahoma City would be the absolute last city in the league I would want to be playing in. And I write this in spite of all the wonderful things which have been done via MAPS thru the years.

It’s not the city’s infrastructure per se which would drive me away, but it’s more to the point it would be hard for me to ignore the fact the people I was playing in front of in my own arena see America thru the same prism as Donald Trump.

That would bother me. That hypocrisy would eat at me day by day. The fact I still have relatives who defend Trump bothers me. It has altered the way I evaluate people. Maybe that’s a sad commentary of me, but it’s a truthful one…and I’m truthful on my blog.

So when I think about Kevin Durant’s career post Oklahoma City and contemplate these fans who still hate him… I smile to myself for Kevin Durant. He won his two rings. He won two Finals MVP trophies. Maybe he’ll win another at some point…. if Kyrie would pull his shit together and Harden would lose some weight.

Kevin needs to damn well stay off Twitter would my primary suggestion to him, but otherwise Kevin Durant is evolving as a player and a human.

Moving forward, always forward.

I’m happy for him. Not happy enough to adopt him over Tyler Herro and the Miami Heat this season, but happy for him from an avuncular lense of sorts. Kevin’s journey is still a work in progress.

Tyler Herro in town tonight as the Heat need to take care of Sam Hinkie’s tanking Thunder squad.

Light ’em up, Tyler.

Note to Sam Presti…play Mike Muscala tonight and quit cheating your own paying customers and see if that gives the game the appearance of something beyond a fixed outcome. Your working defintion of sustainablity and mine are virtual worlds apart. Maybe galaxies apart.

Note to self…I love the fact I just used ‘avuncular’ in my Kevin Durant column today. It’s a great adjective Americans should use more often.

With all due respect to Lincoln, I not only would have kicked the field goal…I would have run a fake field goal and scored six for the tiebreaker system. Coach Aranda was fine kicking the field goal.

This is what you need to address with your team is my estimation of the situation with your underacheivers:

If you take the time to read my blog what you will observe is that I’m not a homer fanboy sychophant like the Toby Rowlands, Dave Hunzickers, Little Nick Gallos and Low Energy Royce Youngs of the local Oklahoma sports media.

I take pride in being passionate, yet cold steele objective in my takes at the end of the day.

I may bleed crimson, but I’ll drop Crimson in my poll when they lay an egg and be big enough to put Oklahoma State where I think they deserve to be in this week’s poll.

I still can’t believe though that Texas actually lost at home to Kansas.

Vanderbilt > Texas….right? James Franklin actually went 24-15 during his time as Vandy’s coach. Maybe in retropect he should have been the hire in Austin.

Right now Mike Gundy is my leader in the clubhouse for National Coach of the Year. He still needs to loosen the reins a little more with Spencer Sanders, but he may be waiting to do that on Nov. 27th in Stillwater. I would think O State’s style of play would translate well in cold, wet weather. Just a thought looking forward.

I don’t know if Buckeye Homer Kirk has his poll out yet, but here’s my 12 Team Poll which should be the template for this year’s bracket.

1 Georgia

2 Alabama

3 Oregon

4 Ohio State

5 Oklahoma State

6 Michigan (If they beat Ohio State they invert with Kirk’s Buckeyes…pretty simple and the Buckeyes drop beyond Cincy)

7 Cincy

8 Michigan State

9 Notre Dame

10 Baylor

11 Oklahoma

12 Ole Miss

On my bubble

13 Wake Forest

14 Houston

15 UTSA

16 Team Leach in Starksville

I’m going to recap the Thunder’s game tonight at Brooklyn to see what the Thunder can do with Kevin Durant on the road. I told you both the Thunder and Sacramento Kings are pretty much mirrors of themselves currently. That was a robust 4th period on Friday night at the Peake. Lots of fun energy on the floor.

Note…I’ll always call it the ‘Peake’ because I don’t think OKC would have ever landed an NBA team without Aubrey’s chip on a shoulder vision of what Oklahoma could be if they would just move beyond the Dwight D. Eisenhower window of American history/culture.

Not to take anything away Baylor but to write OU’s offensive play calling was weak is an understatement.

I’ll have to sleep on it, but I thought it was by far Lincoln’s worst game as a play caller since he’s been head coach at OU.

He didn’t utilize Caleb Williams’s running ability. No naked bootlegs, maybe one semi QB draw, not enough of putting Caleb on the corners and utilizing the very skill set which makes him an effective QB…that being his ability to run the football.

Think back to the run packages Lincoln created for Jalen Hurts that one season. I’m not saying go that far, but utilize Caleb’s legs. Do with Caleb what Dave Aranda is doing with Gerry Bohanon. Quite frankly… I thought it was a complete coaching mismatch in this game. Not even close.

Aranda came out gambling from the onset going for a 4th and two inside OU’s five yard-line on the first possession of the game. Baylor was clearly the aggressor in this game and it manifested itself by the fact the Bears controllled both line of scrimmages.

Very vanilla. No Mario Williams, not much Jadon Hazlewood, not enough of Jerimah Hall with the pass game on a spin route or two, no real creative usage of Eric Gray as a perimeter threat. Marvin Mims wasn’t a factor. Marcus Major never saw the field. Tights end weren’t a factor. Kennedy Brooks dropped the only pass thrown his way.

I mean at some point I think Dave Aranda just figured if he stopped Kennedy Brooks on first down and put OU behind the chains his team would find a way to win this game.

Baylor ran for 296 yards. Baylor had ten more minutes of time of possession and intercepted Caleb Williams twice. The Bears also sacked Caleb and Spencer Rattler a combined five times.

OU has the best place kicker in the nation and yet Gabe Brkic was a sum negative liability in this game in missng both of his field goal attempts and then opening the second half by kicking the ball off out of bounds.

Two incredibly stupid fifteen yard personal fouls called on Perrion Winfrey and Andrew Raym which led to two field goals for Baylor’s freshman kicker.

You cannot play stupid on the road against a good team and do all the things I just listed.

I can only legitimately hand out one helmet sticker to a Sooner in this game and that would be to linebacker Brian Asomoah.

Let’s be frank…OU hasn’t improved much if at all since the opener versus Tulane. Comng off a bye week and relatively healthy this was a tough loss.

If Caleb’s hand was compromised then throw shorter routes and allow him to run the football and be a dual threat.

I can’t rank OU in my Top Ten this coming week. Maybe in either the 12th or 13th spots. For a team which started the season ranked No. 2 this isn’t the way the Sooners wanted their season to turn out. I would describe this loss as the most disappointing loss so far in the Lincoln Riley Era.

Iowa State in Norman next week. Can the Sooners play quality football for sixty minutes? So far…the answer is no. The Committee sadly has the Sooners evaluated spot on so far. A soft team with a lack of mental toughness and smarts.

At this point you can’t really say OU is anything beyond perhaps what Ole Miss and Texas A&M are in the current hierarchy of the SEC West.

OU still has plenty to play for this season, they just won’t be playing for a spot in the four team College Football Playoff.

How ironic OU could conceivably be playing the spoiler’s role to Oklahoma State in Bedlam?