Author: Mike

A tough week to be a Texas Longhorn. It wasn’t just the fact Steve Sarkisian had to pull quarterback Hudson Card, it was even more disturbing how Arkansas ran the football for 330 yards against the Horns.

Don’t hold me to it, but I would guess OU sees a lot of the more mobile Casey Thompson in the Red River Rivalry.

Only two Big 12 teams remain in this week’s AP Poll…OU at No.3 and Iowa State at No. 14.

Oregon moves all the way up to No. 4 and there are seven SEC teams currently in the Top 25.

OU hosts Nebraska this Saturday in a replay of the ’71 Game of the Century. The Sooners open as a 22 point home favorite.

My Top 8 after Week 2 would go 1 Alabama, 2 Georgia, 3 OU, 4 Oregon, 5 Iowa, 6 Cincy, 7 Clemson, and 8 UCLA.

In looking at the BIg 12 objectively right now there is a real possibility OU will not face a Top 10 team this season….another reason they need to move to the SEC as soon as possible. This will not play big with the committee.

OU very well may need to go 13-0 to make the College Football Playoff. They can’t have a bad loss to a team like Kansas State or at this point even to an Iowa State team which benched QB Brock Purdy on Saturday in their loss to Iowa.

Ask yourself this…if OU wasn’t in the Big 12 this season would the committee advance an undefeated Cincy team to the four team College Football Playoff?

I would say probably no.

It will be interesting to see if Lincoln Riley can keep his team playing with an urgency edge the rest of this college football season.

So how did the Tulane Green Wave do this week? They won 69-20 over Morgan State. Wouldn’t it be something if it turns out Tulane was the best team on this year’s OU schedule? We know one thing…their coach isn’t afraid of running his quarterback like one Big 12 coach we know of in Payne County, Oklahoma.

Not a good day for Big 12 commish Bob Bowlsby as the three teams picked to challenge OU for this season’s league championship were all in a word ‘terrible’ on Separation Saturday.

Texas and its starting QB Hudson Card were not ready for the bright lights of an Arkansas overflow crowd and the SEC. It was embarrassing. It was a mismatch in every conceivable way as the Hogs avenged their 15-14 loss in the ’69 Game of the Century with a 40-21 win.

The only bright spots I saw in this game were that Casey Thuompson might become the Horns’ QB and stud running back Bijan Robinson might consider using the transfer portal to join Sooners’ QB Caleb Williams next season in Norman.

In Ames it wasn’t much better as the Iowa Hawkeyes handled the Iowa State Cyclones by a 27-17 count for their sixth straight win in this series. Here’s the truth about Iowa State right now…their starting QB Brock Purdy would be the third string quarterback in Norman behind Spencer Rattler and Caleb Williams. Truth hurts.

Almost every regional scribe picked Iowa State and Texas to be the second and third best teams in this year’s version of the Big 12. I’m not saying they aren’t the second and third best teams…I’m just saying they better figure out some things at the quarterback position in a hurry if the Big 12 hopes to have someone beyond OU in the Top Ten heading into Conference Championship Week.

O State was brutal in Stillwater, but at least held on to beat Tulsa 28-23. Mike Gundy says he needs to rethink his offense. No fucking shit, Sherlock.

Let me help you out there Mullet King stud hoss. What is Spencer Sanders’ best skill?

It’s running on the corner, dumbass. That’s what Spencer Sanders does best. Get him on the corner and allow him to create space and time for the other O State playmakers. This isn’t nearly as complicated as rethinking the U.S. health care system.

TURN SPENCER SANDERS LOOSE!

O State plays at Boise next week-end. That will be their Separation Saturday either good or bad. That O State coaching staff and Mullet King better have a come to Jesus reckoning somtime later this afternoon watching film would be my take. Kind of like when Switzer and Chuck Fairbanks back in the day said to themselves, “Let’s run the wishbone,” the week before the Texas game.

What did Lincoln Riley do with Jalen Hurts? He created an offense which matched Jalen’s skill set. Pull your brain out of your ass and earn your $5 million plus.

With Ohio State’s bad loss at home to Oregon where the Buckeyes couldn’t tackle a pylon–the Sooners as a de facto SEC team will be No. 3 in the AP Poll this week behind Alabama and Georgia.

So…for OU it was a good day in a way, but I can’t think if the Big 12 doesn’t at the least have another good team that will be good for OU with the committee in November since the Sooners don’t have a customary national marquee opponent on their schedule this season with Nerbraska not being all that good.

Anyway, have a nice Sunday and I hope all of us reflected on what 9/11 should mean to us twenty years later.

What a week for the Big 12! After commish Bob Bowlsby claimed collusion by ESPN led to OU and Texas leaving the conference…the league raided the AAU of UCF, Cincy, and Houston to go along with BYU to rightfully get the league back to twelve teams.

But I think all of this is good in the long haul big picture take.

Who in their right mind isn’t tired of watching OU beat O State every year? Mike Gundy doesn’t have to go thru this anymore beyond November 27th circa 2021.

The new Big 12 is going to be a nice football league and a monster basketball league. Fran Frascilla who along with Ron Franklin let me sit at their table back on that winter day in Norman when Kevin Durant came to Norman would absolutely be going ape-shit crazy about what this league is going to be from a basketball standpoint.

But we still have a Big 12 football and basketball season to be played here in the present.

Last week was SEC week, this is Big 12 week with what I think are the two best games in the land being played in Big 12 country this week:

Texas at Arkansas in a throwback Southwest Conference game which will be a future SEC rivalry while Iowa plays at Iowa State.

Two very tough games to pick spread-wise. Texas on the road with a quarterback who’s never played on the road is a seven point road favorite over Arkansas.

Why is Texas favored? Because they may have the best running back in the country in Bijan Robinson who last week got 20 carries and 169 yards against ranked Louisiana.

Tom Herman never gave Bijan the ball twenty times in a game last season. Steve Sarkisian did it right out of the gate and thus we have a Heisman hopeful in Austin to go along with Spencer Rattler in Norman and running back Bryce Hall in Ames.

The students are camped out in Fayetville as I write. No one in the state will ever forget the ’69 Game of the Century between the two teams which led to the Horns winning the national championship. This is a big game for the Razorbacks as well. Seven points on the road is tough to swallow. So I called the most ardent OU fan I know in my son Chris who hates the Texas Longhorns with an unbridled passion and asked him for his take. He didn’t even hesitate which is not like him. His take was…Texas and give the seven….Bijan is a beast.

In Ames we have two top ten teams going at it in a series which has been tough on Iowa State for the most part in recent years. Iowa State though is a home 4.5 Vegas favorite despite their struggle with Northern Iowa last week.

For the Cyclones they didn’t have Charlie Kolar last week and Bryce Hall was held to 69 yards. Brock Purdy wasn’t anything special either. Iowa looked good beating Indiana, but keep in mind they had two pick sixes which accounted for the inflated margin.

This is a huge game for Iowa State and the new Big 12 moving forward. This is a chance for Bob Bowlsby’s new league to beat a ranked Big Ten team.

4.5 is tough to give though considering Iowa has the nation’s #3 ranked defense. So…I’m going to go with Iowa State winning the game, but not covering the 4.5 points.

Hope you have a great Game Day watching your favorite college team today.

Boomer!

I saw this yesterday on a Thunder Nation platform…ESPN beat writer Royce Young is leaving the network to work for Nick Collison and the Thunder.

Nick Collison was Royce Young’s favorite player and Nick was my favorite player as well. So beyond loving the Thunder we had a respect of Nick Collison in common.

This move makes sense on multiple fronts. Royce Young created the Daily Thunder which became the most read internet source on the Thunder. He has some experience in radio, television, and podcast production as well. I have no idea if this means he will be working with Little Nick Gallo or replacing Little Nick Gallo. Que sera.

Plus…he’s a young father about the same age as my son and being a beat writer with two young kids probably isn’t the ideal situation for a young family.

He always wrote a solid recap and probably had the most off the record access to the Thunder of anyone covering them.

Back in the day when I was dr el prez on his board he never once gave me any grief about violating every one of his posting policies on almost every post. He never threatened me with being banned or any other heavy handed bullshit. He let me be …me.

He was fair and he pretty much allowed people to bring their own personalities to his blog and create somewhat of a Seinfeld feel to his blog.

I loved that Daily Thunder and will cherish my memories from that Daily Thunder. The one in place currently…not so much.

Anyway…good luck to Royce Young and Nick Collsion as they begin the process of improving the media operations of the Oklahoma City Thunder.

The NFL kicks off its season tonight with the Dallas Cowboys vs. the Tampa Bay Bucs.

The amazing Tom Brady will continue his quest for another Lombardi Trophy with Patrick Mahomes, Aaron Rodgers, and others trying to stop him from doing the unthinkable.

Tom Brady’s journey has been totally on the surreal side of a sport like the NFL.

George Blanda was a backup quarterback and a placekicker. What Tom Brady has done transcends modern professional sport.

If not for Tom Brady…what we NFL fans today would be pondering is if Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs could complete a threepeat for Andy Reid in the coming months ahead.

I still marvel at the thought Tom Brady wasn’t selected in the draft until the 6th round as the 199th player taken.

Granted he didn’t have a Heisman-type college career at Michigan, but one would think just the one singular performance in the win over Alabama would have gotten him picked no later than the second round.

Back in the day…Bart Starr with Lombardi’s Packers was a 17th round pick.

It just goes to show things which don’t go into modern metrics at times still do matter.

Tom Brady hates to lose…that’s the Tom Brady metric.

If you get a chance..watch the video above. It was truly an amazing college football game.

I heard this song today on the way home from work. I can’t believe I left this off my Donald Trump-Lindsey Graham Love Song Collection.

I don’t know what it is that I bring out with all this angst in Trump people, but I had another incident with a Trump person in the exact same 7-11 in which I had a semi-altercation with a drunk woman almost a year ago to the day.

Of course…those nice black women bailed me out on that one.

I don’t know what specific vibe I’m projecting with these people, but it’s there. That’s for certain.

This guy was just like the woman from a year ago. Dumb, fat, white, and stupid.

I wonder if there’s any chance whatsover this guy was that woman’s husband or boyfriend?

What would be the odds of that?

I verbally admonished him for cutting to the front of the line in front of me and several others who were standing on their appropriate Covid spacing spots on the floor.

He then…without looking at me says to the clerk, “I’ve never been talked to like that in my life. I’ll never be back in this store again.”

I have to admit…I do love it. I’ve missed this from my days of being cursed at from youth hockey mothers in Edmond.

He told me to go fuck myself…then ran out of the store like some hysterical little woman and slammed his car door on his leg getting into his car.

I’m standing there laughing and this nice young black woman walks up to me and puts her arm around me and says,”Don’t blame yourself. It happens to me everyday.”

Anyway…this U.S Open tennis with the men’s quarters is lit.

Have a great Thursday.

Hope you like the song.

On my drive home from work this afternoon while listening to the Sports Animal I was pleasantly shocked when Al Eschbach and his crew were talking the NHL coming back to ESPN after their fifteen year run on NBC.

This is where the NHL belongs as far as quality game telecasts.

I sat next to Al and his girlfriend at the Denver playoff game where Durant went for fifty-one points and the game winner. He bought me beer all night long. Great guy to watch a game with.

Anyway… Al was trying to remember the name of the play by play man who worked with Bill Clement back at ESPN.

The name is Gary Thorne…the best voice in play by play hockey I’ve ever heard.

Gary Thorne was doing play by play for the Baltimore Orioles from 2007 thru 2020. What a waste of a glorious voice.

Assuming their health is okay…I’m hopeful Gary Thorne and Bill Clement are both involved with ESPN’s coverage of the NHL.

Here we go. This is from March 25th, 2020. He looks pretty good to me. If you’re a hokey fan you’ll love this video.

I wonder how many Oklahomans realize Oklahoma City came in second to Columbus for that NHL franchise. That’s when the MAPS people kicked it in gear after not getting the NHL in Oklahma City.

In retrospect…I don’t think the NHL would sustain itself in Oklahoma. But who knows…the NBA might not as well.

I’ll be very curious to see how Thunder games are attended this coming season.

I currently don’t even have the Thunder in my Top 6 Oklahoma Sports storylines sheet in 2021 unless we see something from Josh Giddy and Poku which would energize the fanbase.

I’d go 1 OU football, 2 O State football, 3 OU and O State hoops combined, 4 the NBA as a whole excluding the Thunder because the league is absolutely going to be lit this season, 5 Big 12 basketball as a conference, 6 OU womens’ softball…then maybe the tanking Thunder at No. 7.

I plan on following at least eight NBA teams on my blog this season, but not the Thunder if they start tanking again.

If they don’t tank this season…then obviously I move them up just behind OU football.

Hopefully, more people in Oklahoma will start watching hockey again back on ESPN.

Hope you had a great week-end. This song holds special meaning to me. It was the song I gave to my wife at our wedding over forty years ago.

Hard to believe in the blink of an eye…we raised a son, became grandparents and have lived a pretty good life.

We were married on a boat dock at Lake Kiowa just outside of Gainesville, Texas at my grandparants’ retirement place.

Had our wedding reception at the McGehee’s catfish restaurant on I-35. Then honeymooned in Puerta Villarta.

It’s like Jake Owen says…don’t out think yourself. Find a woman you love, a home you can come home to, a Bible, an exceptional dog, and a song you can sing on.

You gotta have a sense of humor and there are times a line has to drawn in the sand. Don’t ever get above your raising . But most of all appreciate the little things.

Very big shoes to fill for Lincoln Riley. If you think back when both Rhamondre and Ronnie Perkins had to sit a seven game suspension starting with the LSU game the Sooners lost three games.

They not only lost to LSU, but lost to Kansas State and Iowa State as well.

Rhamondre not only scored touchdowns and had a nation leading yards per carry avreage, but what he did was help keep that OU defense off the field with time consuming drives in the second halves of games when Lincoln Riley wanted to ride his run game.

From the point Rhamondre rejoined the team last season…Spencer Rattler threw only two interceptions in his final seven games of the season.

Rhamondre gave the Sooners noy only a power threat, but an edge threat with his speed on a 235 pound frame.

So if you don’t have a big back on your roster currently…what’s the next best thing?

A big quarterback who can run who when teamed with Kennedy Brooks could conceivably be an option for OU as the opponents get tougher as this season moves along.

Back in the day…Urban Myer while at Florida won one of his national titles using both Chris Leak and Tim Tebow as situational quarterbacks in a two quarterback system.

I feel pretty good about the pass rush OU will be able to manufacture this season.

But championship teams have to be able to run the football …especially in the second half of games when it’s time to wear down an opponent and shorten the game.

This is Lincoln after the meltdown home loss to Kansas State in the second half last September. The good thing for OU is that they didn’t lose this game to Tulane and the fact Georgia, Ohio State, and Clemson all look to be flawed as well.

Georgia didn’t score an offensive touchdown in their win over Clemson. Clemson allowed their QB to be sacked seven times. Ohio State’s defense was gashed by Minnesota.

What I’m saying is I didn’t see a team on Saturday that I think deserves to be ranked No. 2 in the country.

The thing which would concern me the most about OU is the fact they couldn’t run the football in the second half against a Tulane team which plays in the same AAC conference as Tulsa.

OU without Rhamondre Stevenson rushed the ball 35 times for a 116 yards. To me…that’s the glaring hole for OU right now. They don’t have a physical NFL level back who can move the chains in the second half of a close game.

Rhamondre scored six touchdowns for the Patriots this exhibition season and was so good New England traded Sony Michel.

Texas has a big time running back in Robinson. So Lincoln Riley is going to have to come up with something in the running game. I thought Kennedy Brooks was okay, but someone else will have to step up.

Lincoln might even have to consider using Caleb Williams along with Kennedy Brooks in certain situations where the Sooners need to move the chains and stay on the field milking the clock. Not like the Blake Bell package, but more like Jalen Hurts when the Sooners want to run the football with some physicality.

After the first week of the season to me the Big 12 looks pretty good with 1 OU, 2 Texas, 3 Iowa State, 4 TCU, 5 K State, 6 Mullet King. Iowa State was very sluggish in their close win over Northern Iowa and will be an underdog against the Iowa Hawkeyes this coming Saturday. I thought K State’s win over Stanford was a nice win for them. OU has to play in Manhattan later on so we need to keep track of their season as this moves along.

For O State—I think their road game in a couple of weeks in Boise will tell us if they have a team which can contend for a spot in the Big 12 Championship Game or just be a team like they’ve been in the past three seasons which ends up playing in a fourth or fifth tier level bowl game.

Kansas even won this past week with a win over South Dakota…so good for them.

OU needs to work on the run game and their tackling this week.

Because The Eyes of Texas might be relevant this college football season.