Welcome to OKCThunderGround!

A tough day for me as I went 0-2 on my two Game Day spread picks. That was the first and last time in my life I will ever take Texas A&M on a game. A&M is the most overhyped program in college football. Jimbo Fischer said this summer he wanted Alabama….Dude, you’ve got Alabama. Good luck with that.

Chris Jackson took Arkansas and OU so he’s now 5-3 vs my 4-4 mark on picking the spread so far this season. I violated my own Cardinal Rule … I picked games which involved Texas A&M and O State. I deserved to go 0-2 for being that stupid.

Win, survive, and advance is what OU did on Saturday night in Norman against a decent West Virginia team. OU never led in this game until the Gabe B game winning goal saved the Sooners’ in this very hard fought 16-13 win over the Mountaineers.

Here’s what I would say to the OU fans who booed Spencer Rattler on Saturday night…’Grow up. You are pathetic fans.’

OU’s offensive line is a work in progress. Creed Humphrey as a rookie is the starting center in Kansas City in front of a guy named Patrick Mahomes. OU has issues with its offensive line. Last time I looked Caleb Williams wasn’t signed on as an offensive tackle, guard or center.

After the game Spencet Rattler told sideline reporter Holly Rowe he doesn’t care about those fans. He said those people aren’t on the field. They don’t matter to him.

Good for Spencer Rattler. When you sign on to play the QB position at OU you better have some very thick skin considering who’s played the position in the past twenty years or so.

Here’s what matters to me….OU won. They’re 4-0. They have some serious work in front of them, but for me the silver lining is that OU is learning to win without scoring 45 points or more in every game.

The defense is getting better, OU’s kicking game might be the best in the country. But as I wrote when this OU season began it will OU’s ability to run the ball which will be their greatest challenge this season.

Right now OU line coach Bill Bedenbaugh has some heavy lifting in front of him in these next several weeks. The good news is that in these last two games versus Nebraska and West Virginia is the Sooners were able to run the ball on their last possessions of the game to win both games. That’s a silver lining. That’s what you want this to look like when the Sooners play the Horns in Dallas.

Sarkisian finally got it right by inserting Casey Thompson as the starter. Texas can run the football. That will be a war in Dallas. In case you didn’t see. Iowa State got beat by Baylor, TCU got beat by SMU, O State beat K State.

Right now OU getting to the College Football Football Playoff or Spencer Rattler being a Heisman contender doesn’t mean shit. It’s about going to K State next week and winning. Keep in mind it has been K State which has beaten the Sooners two years in a row. OU needs to go to Manhattan and win. Get better. Evolve as a team.

Lincoln Riley knows that if you can’t run the football then your play action stuff which gets receivers open deep won’t be there against the better teams. That wouldn’t be good.

From what I’ve seen these first four weeks nothing has changed as to how I would seed the Big 12 minus Iowa State being a massive disappointment… 1 OU, 2 Texas, and 3 O State.

By the way…kudos to both Mike Gundy and Kasey Dunn for at least being more adaptive to what Spencer Sanders can and can’t do as a quarterback.

And that’s what Lincoln Riley and Bill Bedenbaugh are going to have to do moving forward. That being, finding out what this OU O-line can and can’t do and being adaptive to the offensive line which is in Norman and not in Kansas City.

The feature game today is Texas A&M vs. Arkansas at Jerry’s World with the Aggies being a five point ‘neutral’ field favorite. Both of these teams are physical and can run the football. My question is this in regards to Arkansas QB JK Jefferson…can he throw the football downfield more than fifteen yards against a good defense on third down? He didn’t have to do much of this against the Texas Longhorns.

I say no. I know the Aggies struggled vs. Colorado, but this time they’re prepared for the QB change with two weeks of practice time for the new quarterback. I’m going Texas A&M and reluctantly giving the five points in what should be a SEC West slugfest at the line of scrimmage.

On my second game I think I’ll take K State on the road in Stillwater as a 5.5 road dog versus Spencer Sanders. Same thing…can Sanders connect on enough third down passes to cover the 5.5 in what should be a fairly evenly matched game bewteen two Big 12 unbeatens.

Last week I took Texas and gave the points against lowly Rice who are as bad as the lowly Jacksonville Jaguars. I also took the Denver Broncos and gave the points against rookie QB Trevor Lawrence.

Chris Jackson took Nebraska and the 22 points as a road dog, but he made the mistake of taking Auburn on the road with the points versus Penn State… Big mistake given the shaky QB play of Bo Mix who is a problem for the Tigers moving forward in that he can’t pass very well.

After three weeks versus the spread we both stand 4-2. I’m not sure who Chris has yet this week given Little Robert is probably running his new toy weed-eater/blower set inside the home in Bonnie Brae this morning. I’ll probably wait an hour to get his picks.

Have a great autumn day and night of watching college football.

Boomer!

I just finished reading the Thunder’s Covid policy for the first twelve regular season games. You either show proof of your vaccination or you show the results of a test 72 hours prior to the game is the way I read it.

I would be fine. I had my two shots back in April and wear a mask in certain settings and don’t allow myself to be put in bad situations.

But then again I believe in math, science, history, economics, reading, etc. I would be an outlier in Thunder Nation.

Hopefully, these people will follow the policy so I can come to the arena to watch the Pistons, Kings, Lakers, Milwaukee Bucks, Warriors, Grizzlies, Miami Heat and Houston Rockets when they come to OKC.

If only we had a team like one of these. Exciting team building in the off season by all of the above.

I mean this Thunder policy would be excellent if the team was in Seattle, Portland, New York, LA, New Jersey, Denver, Chicago, San Franisco or probably in any NBA city minus Oklahoma City, Memphis, or Salt Lake–the three reddest cities in the NBA. I’m not sure how Dallas or Miami would handle these requirements given the governors in both of those states.

I agree with the policy and the statement Clay Bennett made, but I mean in all seriousness if you put lipstick on a pig what do you still have?

You have a pig wearing lipstick.

Good luck with this. Enjoy the song… Sam Presti.

I’m struggling right now as a Thunder blogger. A part of me says to cut my ties with the Thunder concept as to avoid ever turning out like Little Nick Gallo, Royce Young, or Michael Cage and selling myself out like a common street whore. But there’s the pragmatic Libra side of me which says to hang in there and see if these two white boys Sam Presti has drafted turn out to be players.

Ever since I got back from Denver…my focus has been abysmal. I find little if any interest in the Thunder whatsoever…as in none.

I find myself yodeling John Denver songs at all points of the day and night.

So let me see if I can finish this entry on my travel blog and gently work my way back into the light as the premier OKC Thunder blogger in the market. Just so we’re clear, Sam Presti…I’m not for sale. El Prez writes the truth and nothing but the truth. I would go on to say apparently a degree in sports journalism means very little these days… as in nada.

So…on Day 2 which was Sunday we in Denver got our game faces on early because the 2-0 Denver Broncos had a 10:00am kick at Jacksonville vs. the lowly Jaguars.

In Denver this is the sports food chain…Broncos, Avalanche, Nuggets, and Rockies.

With new QB Teddy Bridgewater and once again healthy Von Miller these Broncos could be a tough out if they can stay healthy.

Denver easily dispatched of the Urban Myers’ NFL team. The rookie running back Miller from North Carolina is a player I have on my radar screen as a possible ROTY in the NFL.

So… the kids had a bluegrass concert to attend at the iconic Red Rock venue in Morrison so for the rest of Day 2 after the game my wife and I babysat Little Robert and Aubrey.

It was exhausting. Robert never stops talking or moving…as in never. But I love that kid. I do. At the age of two he has more presidential presence than Trump has at seventy-whatever. Not even close.

Day 3 we took the car by ourselves and left the idyllic Bonnie Brae neighborhood to adventure to Mt. Evans a mere sixty miles away with an elevation of 14,265 feet and to explore future trout fishing trips at Echo Lake.

It was breathtaking as the higher we trekked the aspen trees went from dull yellow to bright yellow to red-orange. I interviewed two local trout fisherman at Echo Lake like I was Dave Letterman and discovered they had limited out on this September day.

My wife purchased a tawdry pink Mt. Evans hoodie at the mid mountain restaurant then we headed back down to Idaho Springs in search of food.

We settled on Hard Knocks Brewery in the middle of downtown. I got the basic cheeseburger and Mindy ordered the fish tacos. I’d give the place a seven.

We had some Green Bay and Chicago Bear fans at the table next to us drinking schnapps shots so that was kind of cool. We talked a little bit about Aaron and his malaise in the opener.

We then got back to Bonnie Brae and bought the grandkids two quarts of ice cream at the iconic Bonnie Brae Ice Cream Parlor on University Street. Strawberry and chocolate chip.

Robert took the chocolate chip container from me and headed to the sofa before his mother confiscated the container.

Next day..early Tuesday morning at 4:30 am we hit the road and arrived back in Deer Creek at 3:45pm which is pretty good driving time considering we lose an hour coming back.

I dropped Mindy off at home then proceeded to pick up the diva lab Pauli at the Lucky Dog Salon where she tackled me with joy once she saw me through the glass.

That’s it for this entry on Mike’s Colorado Travel Blog.

Have a nice Friday.

I haven’t blogged in five days because we’ve been in Denver for the past four days celebrating my grandson Little Robert’s 2nd birthday which is actually on the 22nd…the first official day of autumn.

It was a jammed packed four days in Denver which included:

• a Saturday morning watch party of the OU-Nebraska game
• Robert’s 2nd birthday party which was held at lovely Bonnie Brae Park which is within walking distance of the Universisty Denver
• a wind-down watch of the O State 21-20 win over Boise
• This was all on Saturday.
• I’m worn out. I’ll get to Sunday and Monday tomorrow.
• It’s hard not to fall in love with Colorado.

OU is a 22 point home favorite over Nebraska while O State opened as a 6 point road dog versus Boise. Netiher one of these games will be on this week-end’s Pick Two selections this coming Saturday.

Barry Helton rightfully fired at USC today. Gundy should tell Kayse Shrum that USC officials are going to meet with him on Thursday at an undisclosed meeting place in Stillwater to offer him the USC job and see if O State will up him to $6.5 million per for losing to OU every year and basically being irrelevant in the college football landscape.

That will be an interesting hire.

Both Chris and I were 2-0 the opening week-end..then were stupid enough to take Texas and Iowa State this past week-end….giving points no less.

I think we’ll take one SEC game and one PAC 12 game this coming week-end.

We both stand 2-2 versus the spread heading into Week 3.

I think this version of Shallow just basically exposes Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper.

This will be a good song to lead into the second half of MNF.

Boomer!

Nick is my favorite Thunder player of all-time. Russell is second and then Kevin….then Steven, then Andre…then maybe Perk since our family has a lab named after him.

Keep in mind Nick was a Big 12 Player of the Year winner at Kansas under Coach Roy Williams. He was an early first round pick.

But from the moment he joined the Seattle organization he was a role player. But a role player with a significant role as the Thunder teams emerged in Oklahoma City.

His basketball smarts are off the chart. He’s articulate and I think he’s an astute judge of the human element as to what goes into successful team building.

You can tell he’s the son of a basketball coach. He’s one of those guys who could make players around him better. A great interior passer, a fierce rebounder, an occasional scorer.

Some of the best pure basketball plays in the Thunder decade of relevance originated from a Nick Collison pass.

What I hope Nick brings to the Thunder table is a combination of smarts, character, mental toughness, professionalism, and someone who will work with the local media and make the Thunder a more open and inclusive organization.

I hope he has significant impact on the way the team is constructed.

You will never hear one gotcha question from the local media because their respect for Nick Collison is fairly obvious.

Same with me. You can scroll through my entire content on this blog and you won’t find one snarky comment. Not one.

Welcome back, Nick Collison.

Your organization needs you.

My favorite Nick Collison play?

This one as a youngster in Seattle as he hauls down All-Star Yao Ming and doesn’t allow the dunk. It wasn’t dirty. Just a hard-nosed basketball play at the rim. Then of course as a rookie he tells Hall of Famer Tracy McGrady to ‘go fuck himself.’

You had me at hello, buddy.

You can’t teach this as a coach.

This is what I mean when I allude to my metric chart of Toughnesss, Smarts, Snarl, and Nasty. It is my hope at some point we acquire Tyler Herro and Nick teaches him how to play basketball the right way…because I love Tyler’s snarl and they’re wasting him in Miami.

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!