As an OU fan I’m totally aware the current world of big boy college football resides in the South. As in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Florida.
They play real tackle football in these locales while the rest of the Union plays touch football. Maybe it’s a Blue-Red thing. These states all love Donald Trump as well. In Alabama and Oklahoma they love the New York yankee. Very odd. They love Trump in Bama more than they love Jeff Sessions. I won’t play the Dave Chappelle video today.
College football is life in these states. David Boren made a horrible mistake by not moving OU to the SEC for the simple reason his then university went thru a decade of not being able to recruit defensive players from this part of the country on a level with the elites. David Boren never came to the real life realization college football drives the University of Oklahoma…not the other way around.
My wife attended Auburn. We used to go to watch Auburn play Arkansas every other year in Fayetteville. It’s a lovely campus and downtown Fayetteville is idyllic if you love the South. I love the South…I just don’t love Donald Trump. I don’t have a personal thing with Trump. I just think he’d be better suited for hosting a Jerry Springer-like slutfest reality TV show then being POTUS.
SEC football gets in your blood because it’s real football. Sure LSU and Alabama use variations of the spread offense, but the kids coming out of high school in the five or six state region from which these college programs recruit primarily play tough in your face defense in high school. They play tackle football.
With the national attention focused on concussions and making the game more safe only five states in the most recent years have seen an uptick of participation of high school football.
These states are moving from West to East….Oklahoma, Louisiana, Alabama, South Carolina, and Florida. I need to go back and make sure I read the data correctly on Mississippi.
Another words, these are the states where the data on head trauma associated with the game hasn’t hurt high school football participation rates. These are the states where kids and their families still see football as a ticket to something better down the road in college and maybe at the professional level.
Oklahoma should have joined the SEC when they were asked to join. For crying out loud a group of Oklahoma state legislators are in the process of naming a part of Route 66 after Donald Trump. Are you kidding me? If ever there was a school which was a cultural fit for the SEC it’s OU.
Missouri should have stayed in the Big 12 and it was OU who should have joined the SEC along with Texas A&M.
It’s about recruiting and having a pipeline to a certain type of athlete which separates college football programs. Do you think when Jalen Hurts played at Alabama that Kansas State would have hung 48 points on one of his teams in a must win situation?
I don’t think so.
And so while I still think Jalen Hurts is having a season which should have him in New York as a finalist for the Heisman–he doesn’t have a defense in Norman which will allow him to win the Heisman…and that’s sad for not only Jalen, but for Lincoln Riley as well.
The college football national play-in games start to commence this Saturday with LSU at Alabama. I would think both teams will be in the Final Four unless this is bad blowout loss for the loser. Then it might become interesting.
OU’s chances are two-fold: slim and very slim. When you can’t tackle people at Manhattan, Kansas and give up scores on eight straight defensive possessions you pretty much aren’t sending the right message to the committee. The only difference I have with the committee on OU currently is that I would have OU at No. 8 ahead of Utah.
You make your luck. OU knew they didn’t have the luxury of losing a game this season given the weakness of their schedule. This is on OU.
But I still love college football and I can’t wait for LSU vs Alabama then Alabama vs Auburn.
So why is Nick Saban’s program different? They have better players and better coaching staffs. Duh.