Berry – in writing up this game, pls tell the truth – which is that OU is a top 10-20 team and nothing more. For the last 7 years they have had no heart, no guts, no fire, no emotion, no toughness, and the coaches are so dumb it’s obvious why they became football coaches – they don’t have the intelligence to do anything else. You saw this when they came out at the start of the 2d half and threw instead of running. To have any chance, they had to run the ball every time. If you’re going to have a running game, commit to it. Tell those big slob offensive linemen who are grossly overrated you are going to run every time, 4 downs. If you can’t get it done then, fine. Also, Stoops needs to start getting salary decreases. The shine is completely gone in my opinion – in fact, I’m more than ready for a coaching change.

Totally agree with you Keith. The Sooners have been in a steady decline since the 2000 miracle season. You hit it right on the head when you say that for the last seven years, they’ve played with “no heart, no guts, no fire, etc. For the past several years, I’ve been saying that Venables needs to be fired. To this day, I’m still stupified as to why he still has a job! He should have been let go after the fiascos at Oregon and the Fiesta Bowl! Come on, who besides OU lets some WAC team like Boise State get 4th and 18? And, not only let them get it but let the score a freaken touch down!! We will be the laughing stock of Division 1 ball for eternity for that stinking performance (Fiesta Bowl)! Also, we will have to endure that 2 point conversion clip until the second coming of Christ! I hate to say it but, I’ve lost all confidence in Bob Stoops coaching ability. He’s making what, over 2 million a year to coach mediocre teams to dismal bowl finishes? He needs to clean house starting with Venables and agree to a pay cut until he can produce a team we can all be proud of! If he’s not man enough to do that, it’s time for him to move on.
I think a lot of players, at OU, feel that just because they suit up at OU they don’t have to do anything but walk on the field and someone will hand them the victory on a silver platter. What a joke! I’m embarrassed to be a Sooner fan!
Also, does anybody remember all of the media theatrics about who would be OU’s starting quarterback earlier this summer? It is now obvious that our 2nd and 3rd string quarterbacks stink bigtime!! I hope Sam Bradford will be back for the Bedlam game or we will get another beating like we did a few years ago when Josh Fields and Rashan Woods came into Norman and surprised us all. It makes me want to puke!

Hey, Berry,

This was no surprise to many of us. There was little doubt the Sooner D would struggle against the Tech spread. (Let’s not even talk about what happened to the offense. That was straight out of Bellotti’s playbook.)

So, my question for you is this: What next? The Sooners struggled to slow Tulsa, Baylor, and Tech. The Sooner D *has* to adjust by next Saturday…but will they? Can they? This has been a problem for years. We know they have the defensive talent…what gives?

Puh-lease, if you have room this week, try to shed some light on what the core of the problem is.

Thx!

ps. Keith, you are right-on about the pass-attack 3rd Q. How could EVERY Sooner fan in the country see that the Sooners needed to go to the run, but the coaching staff adjusted too late to save the game? I don’t get it.

Have Tramel tell the OU fans the truth?!

YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!

Neither can the OUklahoman.
The OUklahoman’s motto is: “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.”.
It’s been a daily mantra of the Three Musketeers, make that Mousekateers….NO, make that Three Stooges, Tramel, Rohde and Carlson.

Of course, in their indefenseable defense, they’re just towing the company line. After all, they work for Gaylord (the same Gaylord that stuck his name in front of Family, Memorial and Stadium), OU’s major Sports Information Director and Marketing Department.
They’re paid to pump up the rabid expectations of overrated Swooner fans…..and quite honestly, they do a good job of that.
Every year, Swooners get the idea that everyone on the team is an All-American and their headcoach took Walking On Water lessons from Jesus Christ himself.

Then inevitably somewhere along the line, Stoops and his Swooners always swoon (hence the Swooner moniker) and Swooner fans wail like cats in heat, rend their crimson and cream garments, and gnash their teeth — both of them.

But, don’t kill the messenger, right?
That’s what the sports staff is counting on at the OUklahoman.
They’re just doing what they’re told…..like good little worker bees.

Maybe next year the Swooners will be playing for championships….until the next swoon.

Berry, Everyone….Hello from Vermont!

It seems that the situation is this (after 2000): This team, this program does not do well with a target on their back. In virtually all of the years since 2000, OU loses late and they lose miserably. We have great coaches. These guys are winning Big 12 titles and have played for the National Title 3 times in the last 7 years. Aside from USC, who else can say that? Stoops and the boys have only lost 2 times at home. So calling them stupid…….I am not so sure that is anything more then our own frustration due to the knowledge that we lack certain levels of control over things we would really like to control…….like winning every game.

That being said…..there is a clear pattern that this program doesn’t have the intestinal fortitude, at the end, when it counts. If you smack them in the mouth at the end of the season….heads will drop. They have lacked the leadership on field to bring them through these times. They have lacked emotion and they have lacked the instinct to want it more then the other guy.

This comes from coaching. It is possible that their creativity, spirit, emotion, drive for success is blunted by the approach of the coaching staff at this point of the season. It is possible that the system that they are employing for preparation for these bigs games is actually working to stifle the talent of the players.

You can see it in them. They come out in a business-like manner and the moment something begins to go bad (over the years), like long, dagger-like passes at A&M, OSU and Tech….defensive pressure at K-State, Everything from USC…from the start….and who knows what happened at Colorado. I can barely mention Oregon in a sentence, muchless look at them on TV at any moment. But it is all there in the heartbreak, and the team looks like a deer in the headlights when it is happening. Confused, scared and lacking of enough confidence to make it to the bathroom before wetting their pants. You’ve all seen it….right?

We are young. We are led by Freshmen at the skill positions….aside from the receivers…….but who gets them the ball? A freshman!

My only knock here is that when you are up big on someone…..build some depth…get Joey in the darn game! Get some other players in and not in the last 2:50 of the 4th quarter. That is meaningless. Have them feel some real pressure. That is coaching 101 stuff.

On the defensive side: I love that we recruit speed. Problem is if you don’t tackle and you over pursue and you spend all of your time trying to strip the football instead of making the play…….you are going to be stretched game after game….and then…….things like last night occur.

We need more toughness…..we need more leadership and Stoops and company have to encourage that on field more. Look at the 2000 team. There were leaders all over that field. Guys who made plays when we needed them. Guys who stepped up and never let a smack in the mouth drop their heads. So what has happened since then? We have been getting the same levels of talent, if not better. Its in the mentality, the toughness. Its in the hunger and the desire. You can’t teach speed……but you can teach this.

USC wins with talent……anyone does. But they also win with emotion and spirit and confidence. Their players are loose even with the target on their backs. Good teams find a way and believe.

Heck, even the coaching staff has been tight…..I mean when is the last time we blocked a punt or pulled off a trick play. Where is RiverBoat Bob?

Sooner Magic existed….exists…only because of this factor: the will to win more then the other guy. It isn’t about luck….you make your own breaks and that, in the end, is what luck looks like.

So to Bob Stoops: Get these guys confident, let them show it and finish strong. There is still a lot worthwile to accomplish.

To the players: Get your heads out and start playing with some heart. No excuses….be tougher then the guy on the other side…..even if your not. Just want it more. Stop hanging your darn heads. Don’t let anyone surprise you….hit them first….and hard.

And a reminder to all fans like me: We really can only control what we can control. This evidence is clear when they do not respond to our yelling and cursing.

Thank you all! I feel a bit better now. Go Sooners!

To all of those who say that for the last seven years that we have played with “no heart, no guts, no fire, etc. – Pull your collective heads out! It’s amazing that anyone could think that. Even though we lost Saturday night – there was no quit under adversity. I love that about Stoops teams. We played without arguably our best defensive player (Austin English) and our best offensive player (Bradford) and came back to make a run at it. If the refs had made the right call and ruled Manny J’s catch a touchdown with 5 minutes to go, who knows? I realize that in Lubbock, that’s a stretch. I don’t imaging we will hear Leach run his mouth about that one. We still sucked it up after that and had a shot an on-side kick at the end. We make a miraculous comeback, on the road, in a hostile environment, with our back-up QB, and people have the nerve to say we didn’t play with any guts?

Remember last year when we lost Bomar and AD, not to mention Allan Patrick for awhile also, and won eight in a row and the Big 12 title. In 05, have early losses to TCU and Texas, AD with another injury and freshman QB and we win seven of eight (all eight if you count the last debacle in Lubbock). Minus a handful of games – the USC Orange Bowl game, the 05 losses to TCU and Texas, and I’m hard pressed to think of any other game since Stoops has been here that we didn’t havde a shot to win down the stretch. How many teams can say that over the past nine years. Everybody stumbles once or twice a year, get over it people, it happens. We can still win the conference and play in a BCS bowl – as I have said countless times, that’s what really matters. Thank you for your column after the game Mr. Tramel, I have said all year that this team was good, actually very good, but not national title material. That will come next year – in the meantime, let’s accomplish our goals, they are still within reach.

I knew the defensive backs could not do it last night. It’s been like this for years, after mike left. We struggle in the big games, and they say it was lack of experience, or injuries caused us to lose the LSU, USC, Boisie St., CU, and TT games. You have the video’s, you can see it. We have the guns, we don’t how to use them. Boisie St. was basic Defense. This year we have the guns, we have experience, and we have depth, but no Defensive coaching.
I had people call or E-mail me from Chicago, Little Rock, and pensacola, and ask what happened to OU last night. And all I can say is I don’t know. I don’t want to be like a lot of these guys that think they know football. but something is wrong?

I’m not sure what I enjoy more – watching OU lose or watching the media and their fans turn on them so quickly.

i agree. i love watching the fans go crazy. the only thing better is listening to them on the radio right after the game. after living in OK for 6 years it was apparent they’re all crazy. in august they can’t stop talking about how great they’re going to be. in sept and oct they run through the weak non-conference and big 12 schedule and come nov and bowl game time they get beat and all heck breaks loose. it’s like watching a train wreck. the best part is you can park at the intersection and watch it unfold. OU fans are a joke. I’ve lived all over the country and never have I witnessed this type of behavior. it’s not because you’re all great fans, it’s because you’re all fanatics. you drink the Kool-aide each year and mistakenly believe if you’re on OU fan you’re somehow better than an OSU fan. I’m here to tell you it doesn’t. Your trailer is just decorated in different colors.

My dad graduated from Oklahoma A&M in 1948, so I was raised as a Cowboy fan. Scholarships and other opportunities resulted in me going to Norman and getting 2 degrees from OU.

I have to comment on the comments from OSU fans here. There aren’t any hate-filled comments about OSU from OU fans in the OSU-related blogs. None of the OU fans commenting here said a thing about OSU, negative or positive. Tramel and Rohde both stated clearly that OU was not an NCG caliber team.

There are some great OSU fans, but there is no excuse for the venomous name-calling from Danny and Jeff’s hypocrisy. It’s fine to be an OSU fan and root against OU, though my father taught me to love BOTH schools because we are all Oklahomans. danny is the kind of fan that NO team wants for a fan who substitutes invective for rational argument. And to jeff I say, people who live inlass houses shouldn’t throw stones, and your house is not exactly in order.

I AM proud of the way the Sooners made a game of it when it looked like they were KO’ed. And I am happy to see OSU become bowl-eligible despite the misfortunes they have encountered this year. But I do NOT suffer fools gladly and it’s easy to see who the fools are here.

carl,
I’m not an osu or ou fan. i just think it’s funny watching you guys get so bent out of shape with each other. i mean look at you with all those fancy words. and the capitalization for effect, that’s awesome. you need to watch BET or something so you can relaxe. no one talks that way anymore.

When will Bob Stoops win the big one again. In his first five years he was somewhat living a mircle existence and everything he did was right.
But lets get real he has lost virtually EVERY BIG game in the past five years. Yes he beat a mediocre Texas twice. Lost every bowl game of substance and lost every big game OU had to win. They have their pick of players and his constant excuses for his horrific offensive coordinator and over rated defensive coordinator. Lets get real Bob is a good coach often of late OVERLY rated and cant win the big game. Time to change his asst coaches and take responsibility for poor prepartation and terrible coaching decisions. How many years are we to suffer a defense that cant pass defend in the ages of pass offense? Wake up Bob.

Carl, you have rose colored glasses, I went to OU and OSU. OU fans are generall fanatics. You have not been reading OSU blogs as there is always negative comments from OU fans. Berry himself says he gets lots of comments from OU fans when trying to do an OSU article and they generally are not postive.

i like how carl let us know he has 2 degrees before going on his diatribe. i’m impressed.

is this the barry manilow blog? from the pic at the top of the page i can’t tell.

Stoop Dog is a great coach, but i wonder about Venebles and Wilson.

JT asked when OU’s pass defense will get better in this era of crazy passing attacks, and it’s a great question! Ever since Mike Stoops left the pass defense has been horrible! I hate the soft coverage they’ve had the conerbacks play for the last few years. When the defender is lining up 8 or 10 yards back from the receiver all you have to do is throw a five yard out route. If the receiver breaks one tackle you have a huge gain. I hate it. LSU does it too (Anyone remeber Bo Pelleni?).

As for the offense, who doesn’t pound the ball against Tech? The best way to stop Tech’s offense is to make it sit on the sideline. OU has three good runnings backs that barely touched the ball. Instead they had a second-string-for-a-reason QB over throw over the heads of every receiver they had. Halzle got it going late, but i still don’t understand the game plan. I also agree with questioning leaving Bradford in the games when they are well decided. Maybe OU could’ve pulled it out had Halzle thrown more than 8 passes for the year. He might have been able to get it going at the start of the second half and got OU a win. OSU did the same thing this week. Why, when up 28 on Baylor with around 6 minutes left, are Zac Attack and Savage still in the game? Sometimes these coaches drive me crazy!!

I think maybe Stoop Dog should mix up the assistant coaches. OU has had chances for greatness ever year, but it always seem to slip away at the end of the season. Great teams start out good and become great by the end of the year. Lately OU has started out great and ended up average at the end of the year. Maybe getting some different coordinators would get OU back over the National championship hump.

I’m looking forward to what has shaped up to be a great Bedlam game!

stoop dog? oh, i get it. like snoop dogg. that’s funny. not really. what’s a shrouded llama? more humor?

Jeff:

I see a “shrouded llama” as a llama in a hooded cloak. Almost like something you’d see in a Ninja Turtles cartoon or something. It’s something i came up with a long time ago (when i was like 5!) so i probably thought it was pretty funny then! I have just used it for a screen name ever since. It’s not really humor, although i guess it is kind of silly.

As for Stoop Dog, thats what i’ve called Bob Stoops for awhile now. I’m not sure why, but i like it and its pretty much habit now. Its not a slam on Bob or meant to be disrespectful at all, if thats what you think.

Thanks for commenting on the only to parts of my post that have absolutely nothing to do with the football game Saturday night or the Sooners in general.

It is Thanksgiving and that means only one thing:

On Thursday, at my annual game, I am going to call the Statue of Liberty, Hook and Lateral (not ladder) and even the Fumble-rooski (illegal now, I know….but not at my house). I might even pull the hidden ball trick. Whoops, thats a different game……but they all better be ready.

If all the plays are successful, I of course, will win. I am going to anyway. It is my house, my ball, my game essentially. Lets be real!

Maybe then, I will finally be healed and finally recovered from BOYZEE STATE. Hey, if that is what it takes. Some people take medication, do yoga, meditate, drink. Not me….in order to exorcise these demons, I am going this route. I have invited Linda Blair, Jimmy Swaggart and The Great Creskin…..by the way.

To Berry and all Sooner faithful……Happy Holidays!

Jeff, when you wrote:”mistakenly believe if you’re on OU fan you’re somehow better than an OSU fan. I’m here to tell you it doesn’t. Your trailer is just decorated in different colors.” what would lead me to think you’re not an OSU fan? Sorry if I was mistaken.

If you have a point to disagree with my comments, other than to criticize the way I write or my education, make your point.

If you can’t see how hypocritical it is to berate one group of fans and laugh at them for attacking someone else and then go on and make fun of another person because of their writing style, I can’t help you other than to mention the old phrase “the pot calling the kettle black.”

If you read or will re-read what I wrote you will see that I care about both schools and I don’t approve of the trolls from either school. Are there more BAD OU fans than OSU fans? Probably NOT as a percentage of the TOTAL fanbaseof each school.

I think Berry’s article was fair and accurate and I don’t like the nastiness of Danny’s post, and the unfair “OUklahoman” – and “silly “Swooners’ comments. Pointless.

And, Jeff, whether you are an OSU fan or not, if you’re honest you will admit that OSU fans have just as much venting going on after games about coaching calls, Fedora, changing QB’s, the “swoon” to Texas, etc. as OU fans, there’s just not as many OSU fans in total.

In general, I don’t like the growing hostility I’m seeing between Sooner and Cowboy fans. I was in the stands as an OSU fan in ’65 and ’66 when OSU won. Cowboy fans were elated, but you heard “poor Sooners” for about 10 minutes and then everybody went home. And there was a billboard on Highway 81, pretty tame stuff.

In those days OSU simply did not often compete with OU in football, so OU fans sort of ignored OSU and expected to win. Since 2001 and 2002 the OSU fans have really gotten into the faces of OU fans and OU fans have gotten hostile right back, that’s how we got to this nastiness we see today.

My dad was an ex-WWII POW, one of the “greatest generation” and he knew how to be classy, win or lose. He said he took pride in both schools, because he was proud to be an Oklahoman, and BOTH schools have done great things to represent OUR state.

The problem is BAD fans from both schools. If you’re an OSU fan, my advice is, when you win, act like it’s something you expect to do every game; you don’t need to be obnoxious about it and don’t have a paranoid inferiority complex. And to OU fans, would YOU want to be treated the way LSU fans treated you in NOLA? Then you should never act that way to anybody else! Jeff, Danny and everyone out there – Treat other people the way YOU want to be treated. Cheer for your team but don’t embarass your school
by stupid, rude behavior. Is that so hard to do or understand?

Carl….guys…relax….breathe…it is the Holidays!

Jeff

Have a GREAT Holiday Season!!!