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I think this is good for Oklahoma State and the other seven surviving members of the Big 12.

With the additions of BYU, Cincinnati, UCF, and Houston the conference gets four things.

1 The Big 12 gets the best possible team in BYU as far as fanbase following and TV sets.

2 The Big 12 gets the currently highest rated team available in No. 8 Cincinnati.

3 The Big 12 gets a UCF program which has three New Years Day Six Bowl appearances under their belt and a huge enrollment and fanbase which should be able to be grown even more.

4 The Big 12 gets the Houston basketball brand just several months removed from a Final Four appearance.

This could be a nice football conference especially if Iowa State can keep Matt Campbell from moving on to the Big 10 at some point.

With twelve teams the conference can get back to two six team divisions and I would assume the Big 12 Championship Game would remain at Jerry’s World.

What Oklahoma State would get specifically would be the chance to actually win their conference every now and again, stay in the wheelhouse of their Texas recruiting base, but most of all finally the chance to get out from OU’s shadow and create their own national brand and identity.

My question to all O State fans has always been this…Why would you want to continue Bedlam since you very rarely ever win Bedlam?

I ask one of my knowledgeable O State friends this and he laughed. He said, “I agree. If you got your ass kicked for over a century by a neighbor and he finally decided to move on…. why would you want to follow him?”

It will be refreshing to not hear the back and forth nonsense from these two fanbases anymore in regards to this one-sided football series.

With the college football playoff expected to expand to twelve teams you would expect the champion of this league to be given an invite every year.

From the college basketball standpoint for me this is fantastic because as a hoops fan I’ll be able to watch Mike Boynton’s O State team play in the best college basketball conference. While OU with Porter Moser and Texas with Chris Beard will give me SEC basketball to follow with teams like Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, and Kentucky.

Could you visualize at some point OU vs. O State in the hoops Big 12-SEC Challenge? Now that would be a Bedlam worth watching.

Just work out the money issues with the OU-Texas exit and the exit fees from Houston, Cincy, and UCF with the AAC and I don’t see why this couldn’t all be put in place for the 2022 season.

For a sports addict like me this is the best of all possible worlds.

And if O State prez Kayse Schrum needs to pare her budget she could start with getting rid of former Mullet King Mike Gundy’s over priced salary if he doesn’t make the Big 12 Championship Game this December.

Win, win, and win for Kayse Schrum is the way I see it.

You got off to a rough start, but maybe the internet lunch we did got things headed back in the right direction. The USC fight song would have been nice, but sometimes you don’t always get what you originally wanted. It’s all about compromise and butterflies.

Have a nice football season.

I think a song would be nice about now. It’s time to let all this angst go is the way I see it. Nobody got stabbed in the back. Nobody got screwed. People just grew up, made some adult choices, and moved on is the way I see it.

I actually watched some college football tonight and both games I watched were pretty good.

I watched the Buckeyes subdue Minnesota on the road by 14 points in a competitive game. The new Ohio State quarterback Stroud and the new feature running back Hightower are both excellent. I see no reason Ohio State won’t be a top five or four team once again as the season rolls along.

The other game I watched was Boise at UCF…which turned out to be an excellent game won by UCF 36-31.

This was a great game as Gus Malzahn’s new team roared back from a 21 point deficit to open the season with a win.

Both of these teams would be nice additions to the new look Big 12 if Bob Bowlsby and the remaining eight teams get serious about getting the league back to twelve teams.

My list for the Big 12 expansion for the four spots would go in this order… 1 BYU, 2 UCF, 3 Cincy, 4a Houston or 4b Boise.

I’d probably prefer Houston becaus if you add Kelvin Sampson’s Cougars to the basketball mix to go along with Kansas and Baylor the Big 12 would still be the best hoops league in the country reaping all that Texas high school basketball talent.

It would be a pretty good football league as well…maybe even better than the current PAC 12 given where USC and UCLA are right now. I have LSU at UCLA this Saturday circled on my kist of games to watch. I want to see how that goes before I make any judgements on UCLA.

Let’s do this hypothetical exercise…if you removed OU and Texas from this season’s Big 12 and replaced them with BYU, UCF, Cincy, and Houston this is how I would seed the top six teams in the league:

1 Iowa State, 2 Cincy, 3 Oklahoma State, 4 UCF, 5 TCU and 6 BYU.

This would be about right for Oklahoma State. If Spencer Sanders grows as a QB this season and doesn’t kill his team with critical turnovers I could even see O State maybe winning this league. This Big 12 could conceivably be the fourth best football conference and would be the best basketball conference in the land.

If I were Kayse Shrum and I had this option…this wouldn’t be horrible given the woes the PAC 12 faces in becoming relevant in football given the landscape.

On Saturday in Norman..I’ll be focused on Nik Bonitto and the Sooners’ defense. I want to see if OU is ready to take another step forward on this side of the football. I want to see how they tackle in space and their overall physicality. I want to see opposing players tackled and dropped at the point of contact. I want to see some nasty because if the Sooners want to beat Alabama and Clemson at some point some serious nasty will be needed in the trenches.

I want to see if these Sooners without Ronnie Perkins and Rhamondre can replace that physicality on both sides of the football. Rhamondre had a very nice pre-season with New England scoring six touchdowns and along with Mac Jones will be two rookies I spend time watching this NFL season.

As far as where I have OU ranked…I have them somewhere in my top six, but I want to see the defensive culture under Alex Grinch continue to evolve before I make some statement claiming the Sooners are a legit national championship caliber team.

As far as Covid goes…I watched two minutes of the Tennessee vs. Bowling Green game. The stadium was packed with very few wearing masks. Yikes. The Tennesee state COVID numbers in the next few weeks will be interesting.

We all love college football, but please be smart in the stadiums.

BOOMER!

This is for those thirteen families. When my Dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and told he wouldn’t live another year…this is the song I adopted to get me through it.

It gave me some comfort. It made me appreciate all the good things in my life and my past.

These thirteen families are going to need some incredible grandfathers and grandmothers to get through their own journeys of life.

‘A woman you can love on, a refuge to come home to, a Bible, a good dog named Pauli, and a song to sing on.’

Life is really very simple if you don’t make it too complex.

These thirteen families might need two songs to sing on. I’m going to lend them this one too. Luke’s voice has kinda of grown on me thru the years.

I haven’t felt any desire to blog about sports this week. Even though the Sooners will now be hosting Tulane in the season opener on Saturday. With Louisiana under water and with Lake Tahoe on fire it all kind of feels overwhelming. Beyond surreal.

I feel very subdued from a human standpoint.

Maybe it’s just the fact I’m getting old. Those thirteen young people dying as they did is haunting. They were thirteen young people doing the right thing for the right reason even though it was an extremely difficult task.

One of my customers is a Marine mom in Edmond. She has two Marine sons who have each served multiple tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan. One of her sons was at her place on Sunday while I was working there. I knew about him from his mom and went up to him and told him how much old people like me appreciate his service to our country.

I asked him, “By chance did you know any of the fallen thirteen?”

His eyes teared up a little. Just an All-American kid in every regard. Everything was ‘no sir’ or ‘yes sir’.

“Yes, sir…I did. The thirty-one year old officer from Utah was my officer in training camp. Just a great guy. Two young kids and a wife.”

You could see the hurt in his eyes.

How do you respond to that?

So…I hope if I post this video from The Outpost by Jake Tapper you at the least take the time to read the epilogue of the book if nothing else about these incredibly brave Americans who served at Camp Keating and were the inspiration for this book.

I’m such an odd political person. I voted for Obama twice, actually voted for John Anderson the Independent in 1980…and yet I love this video from Ronald Reagan on what it means To Be An American. I know some will sigh and say this was over thirty years ago, but in my opinion this is what we’ve lost as a country in these past thirty years or so.

That being, regardless of political leaning being able to view issues from the prism of being an American first.

I just love this video. Such innocence back then after the fall of the Soviet Union and the eventual fall of the Berlin Wall.

Thr Brits, the Soviets, and now the Americans have all failed in Afghanistan.

What should that tell us from a history standpoint?

It’s been very sobering seeing the pictures and bios of the twelve Marines and one Navy Seal who died in the recent bombing in Kabul.

Each one of them was doing the right thing in trying to save others from tyranny. Each one had a face, a story, and a family.

It kind of puts things in perspective.

Thank you for your courageous service to our country.

Our prayers are with you.

What a tragedy for thirteen Americans and their families as they lost their lives on August 26th doing their duty as Marines in the U.S. exodus from Kabul.

We should all pray for these families. This shouldn’t be about politics.

They are heroes though as to date over a hundred thousand have been airlifted to safety away from the Taliban and Isis… and other extreme groups in the region.

Again…if you get the opportunity read The Outpost by Jake Tapper. Today was not a surprise. Just an extension of a failed U.S. policy. Then maybe watch The Fall of Saigon if you’re too young to have lived through that period of American history.

We as Americans not only didn’t learn from our experience in Vietnam, we didn’t heed the Soviets’ failed occupation of Afghanistan.

This is why we ostensibly record and study history.

And sadly this is what happens when you ignore history.

We as Americans should all be praying that in the next five days no more Americans are killed in Afghanistan ending a failed policy which was never going to succeed.

Sigh.

Bless their hearts.

That’s what Nikki Haley says about Trump and the rabble…Bless their little racist hearts. I picked this up from her. It’s my way of reaching out.

I haven’t played the Dave Chappelle video since January 6th, but this might be the time. You can only be kinder and gentler so long.

What Biden should be doing is sending about 100,000 of the Trump domestic terrorists over to Afghanistan and turning them loose on Isis and theTaliban.

I wonder how Vegas would handicap that as far as the last terrorist group standing?

Turn ’em loose.

Isn’t it odd that in 2016 when Trump started his bid for the GOP nomination he got on a stage at a rally in Alabama with Jeff Sessions? And here he is again in 2021 going back to Alabama. I wonder why. That was sarcasm.

I was born in 1957 and in reality not all that much regarding racism has changed in the South.

I actually kind of like Nikki Haley and her story. I could have maybe voted for her at one time. So what is Nikki Haley doing when she tells Trump and his rabble…’Bless your hearts.” She’s stalling and trying to figure out a way to get your vote by not calling you idiots in public. Tell me I’m wrong.

This closing summation from the Frankie Galvin character in the film The Verdict is how I remember my father the most.

I miss my Dad.

I miss the talks, the meals, the sporting events, the fishing trips and just the time we spent together.

A day doesn’t pass when I don’t think of him.

Sometimes a memory will make me tear up.

But you get better every day and work through it. That’s life.

This character Paul Newman played in The Verdict is my father. They both shared the same storyline of personal redemption.

I know he’s in a better place, but still selfishly…I miss him.

My Dad was a people person who loved helping people with their legal problems. He was a street lawyer who helped those who needed help whether thay had money or not.

I know he’s extremely proud of the fact Little Robert Jackson his namesake is approaching his second birthday in less than a month.

Little Robert looks just like Dad and like him never stops moving or talking.

I miss my Dad.

If I were sitting at a karaoke bar with Sam Presti lamenting last season’s 22-50 disaster in which he didn’t land a top five pick. This is the song I’d sing with him.

You know, SP…Kevin Durant jsn’t around this train station anymore…maybe you should take some of my suggestions and we could get serious about the rebuild in Oklahoma City.

A little humility might be good for you.

There would be nothing wrong with you just focusing on ticket sales and entertainment acts for the intermissions. Take a break and let Nick Collison and I handle this.

Sincerely, El Prez

What a crazy diverse weather week. There are storms all around us out here in Deer Creek but no real precip so far after a blistering hot August day. I thought it was one of the toughest days of the summer.

I literally have not watched one sporting event since Davion Mitchell and the Kings routed the Celtics for the Summer League Championship. Four days is close to a record for me.

I’ve had some great seafood, listened to some music, fed blackberry cobbler to my lab, just hanging out and being very careful of this heat dome which finally caught up with us.

I did however see some Jon Rahm’s highlights from the Northern Trust golf tournament. That young man is in a serious ball striking zone. I would assume he just won the tournament after 54 holes since Huricane Henri should engulf that course tomorrow.

Quite an intersting golf season for Jon Rahm. That dude can hit some serious irons. It’s like in the old days watching Ray Floyd on steroids with his iron game.

Take this advice all you Okie gringos from a non-gringo…be extremely careful in this heat. Hydrate in a very serious manner.

Thirteen days till the Sooners start the season on the road with Tulane.

BOOMER!

The CNN Central Park Concert was weather shortened tonight. So this is for me…one of my all-time favorites.

We all need to organize our Hurricane play lists for tomorrow. With all due respect to Neil Young and Bob Dylan …this Luke Combs song is my favorite.