Good job, Inspector Holmes
I have been arguing all year that too much is made of OU’s offensive line woes and pass defense breakdowns. And Lendy Holmes just showed why, on the latter. After Tech opened the game with short pass completions of 8, 7, 7 and 7 yards, quarterback Graham Harrell overthrew flanker Danny Amendola — who wasn’t looking anyway — and free safety Lendy Holmes made an easy interception. Then he dashed 63 yards to a touchdown with a nifty nose for running.
That’s a by-product of Mike Leach’s offense. You can move the ball. You can pile up yardage. You can make big plays. You also give the defense the chance to do the same.
Good news, bad news for Sooners
Saturday afternoon brought good news and bad news for Oklahoma football. The good news: Missouri and Kansas both won, easily in fact. Mizzou bested Kansas State 49-32, and KU routed Iowa State 45-7. That means if the Sooners win tonight, the Big 12 will be 2-3-4 in the BCS. The bad news: OU got no help from the Southeastern Conference also-rans.
OU — and its fans — wants no part of LSU in New Orleans. Not that the Tigers aren’t beatable, it’s just that the obnixous LSU fans make the experience unbearable. Saturday offered two hopes to wound LSU’s Big Bowl chances. Of course, Mississippi offered the best chance; just beat LSU straight up. Didn’t happen. Ole Miss put up a fight but lost 41-24. So LSU’s only real hurdle is the Southeastern Conference championship game, in Atlanta. If Tennessee wins out, the Vols will be LSU’s foe. But Georgia would put up a much better fight. The Bulldogs are getting good, and the game is in Atlanta. Tennessee trailed Vanderbilt 24-9 in the fourth quarter but rallied for a 25-24 victory. If Tennessee wins at Kentucky next week, the Vols play LSU in the SEC title game. Sooner fans should pull for Kentucky.
Thanks, Bro
Wow. There’s nothing left to say after yet another wild night in college football in which the national championship race and the Heisman Trophy campaign were turned upside down in the Arizona desert.
All those OU fans who wanted Mike Stoops back now feel a little silly, because Bob’s little brother helped the Sooners as much coaching Arizona as he could have producing sabertooth defenses in crimson. Arizona bounced Oregon 34-24 Thursday night, sending yet another No. 2-ranked team sliding down the polls, and now the Sooners can stop scoreboard watching. Except in their own games, of course.
OU, by winning its final three games, will absolutely qualify for the Big Bowl, the national title game in
New Orleans. It won’t be easy. The Sooners play at Texas Tech on Saturday, a game far more difficult than Oregon’s assignment of going to play an Arizona team that was 4-6. Then comes the holy war against Oklahoma State, but that’s at Norman and the Sooners tend to spank the Cowboys on Owen Field. Finally, a Big 12 title game that shapes up as the biggest in league history, a bonafide national semifinal against the winner of the Kansas-Missouri game.
Here’s a plum to chew on Saturday. It’s not likely, but it’s possible, that top-ranked LSU could lose at
Mississippi. The Rebels are no good; 3-7 overall, 0-7 in the SEC. But Ole Miss isn’t awful at home; it lost by 13 to Missouri, six to Florida and three to Alabama. In fairness, Mississippi also lost by 36 to Arkansas in Oxford. Meanwhile, LSU has been a tad shaky on the road: lost at Kentucky, won by seven at
Alabama. In fairness, LSU opened the season with a 45-0 win at Mississippi State.
But crazier things have happened this season than LSU losing at Mississippi. And if we do see that upset, and the Big 12 takes cares of business Saturday, with OU at Tech, Kansas hosting Iowa State and Missouri at Kansas State, then check out the BCS come Sunday afternoon:
1. Kansas. 2. Oklahoma. 3. Missouri. That’s right. 1-2-3 in the BCS. You’d think it was 1971 all over again, when the final poll had 1. Nebraska, 2. OU and 3. Colorado.
Even if LSU wins, it’s going to be 2-3-4 with the Big 12, barring an upset. Of course, there’s not a lot of comfort in being No. 2. Oregon became the FIFTH No. 2-ranked team to lose to an unranked team this season, joining Boston College (Florida State), South Florida (Rutgers), California (Oregon State) and
Southern Cal (Stanford). This is the craziest college football season in recorded history, so don’t make reservations in New Orleans just yet, Big 12 teams. Anything remains possible.
Two weeks ago, Andre Cohen’s brother visited from California. He’s a huge sports fan and a big Pac-10 follower. In a staff meeting, I mentioned that Mike Stoops might have a little something to say about
Oregon’s national title run. Miss Saigon’s brother looked at me like I was crazy.
But here’s why it was possible. Arizona gets better under Stoops. The Wildcats now have won three straight to get to 5-6, and that’s nothing new under Stoops. In 2006, UofA won three of its last four to finish 6-6. In 2005, Arizona was 1-6 but beat Oregon State and top-10 UCLA in consecutive weeks. In 2004, Arizona was 1-7 but won two of its last three. Mike Stoops clearly is Mr. November and has saved his job with his ability to get his team to improve. If he can get the Wildcats to play well out of the chute, they will be a Pac-10 force.
Of course, it certainly helped Thursday night that Oregon lost its quarterback. Dennis Dixon was the Heisman front-runner, and we saw why. A 39-yard touchdown on the seventh play of the game, then a long pass that had the Ducks on the Arizona 4-yard line. Then Dixon threw to open flanker Derrick Jones in the end zone for what would have been a 15-0 lead.
Who among us believes Arizona rallies from a 15-point deficit? The Wildcats didn’t have to. The ball bounced off Jones’ pads, Arizona’s Nate Ness intercepted and returned it 45 yards. Soon enough, UofA scored, and we had a ballgame.
Then Dixon suffered a sprained knee, and Oregon was forced to turn to veteran backup Brady Leaf. If any team in America should be set with a backup QB, it’s Oregon. Each of the last two years, Dixon and Leaf have alternated. Both quarterbacked against OU in the 2005 Holiday Bowl. Leaf finished off last season as the start. But 2007 has been Dixon’s year, and Leaf was awful against Arizona. He completed 22 of 46 for 163 yards and two interceptions.
Dixon probably is lost for the year, and thus the Heisman nod probably returns to Florida quarterback Tim Tebow. And the BCS is there for the taking for whichever team emerges from the Big 12.
Another college football Saturday
Saturday morning had to be one of the five best mornings of my life. My job: baby-sit my granddaughter, now 16 months old. We had the time of our lives. I gave Rileybird a wagon ride down to the park area in our neighborhood. We got out and played in the gazebo. Then we played over an angled foot bridge that spans a small creek, and when Rileybird headed down one side of the bridge at a speed I thought unsafe, I bolted to get in front of her to cushion a fall. And I was the one who slipped, giving me a good lesson in the cycle of life.
The weather was pristine. Somewhere around 63 degrees and crisp. Smelled like autumn. Nice breeze. We watched dogs and birds and airplanes (she loves airplanes). Then we went home and raked leaves, and Rileybird wanted to play in my truck cab, which is her favorite thing to do, and then grew tired and stretched out her arms.
I took her inside, and she laid her head on my shoulder, and she got a kick out of Lee Corso on ESPN’s GameDay donning the purple cow head of Williams (which was playing Amherst), and then she fell asleep. So I did some work, watched some early kickoffs and wished that every Saturday could be that fun.
ORANGE BLOSSOMS
The Orange Bowl stadium will no longer host football. Miami U. is moving to Dolphins Stadium, where the Dolphins and the Orange Bowl game long ago moved. The last game was Virginia’s 48-0 rout of Miami. ESPN.com listed the top 30 football games in Orange Bowl history, and only OU game made the list — the Sooners’ 20-14 loss to Miami in the 1988 Orange Bowl. So I made my own list. The 10 best OU games played in the ancient old stadium:
10. 1985 Orange Bowl: Washington’s 28-17 victory over OU is remembered for two things — UW’s constant trapping of Sooner nose guard great Tony Casillas, and the penalty against the Sooner Schooner for going onto the field when a penalty wiped out a Sooner field goal.
9. 1956 Orange Bowl: The second showdown between Bud Wilkinson and the man who brought him to Oklahoma, Jim Tatum, who was coaching Maryland. The Terrapins led 6-0 at halftime, but Carl Dodd’s 82-yard interception sealed OU’s 20-6 victory.
8. 1986 Orange Bowl: Keith Jackson’s 71-yard TD catch from Jamelle Holieway helped beat Penn
State 25-10 in a national-title showdown.
7. 1988 Orange Bowl: A national title game was largely a dud; Miami dominated, but OU scored late on a fumblerooski to make it interesting before losing 20-14.
6. 1976 Orange Bowl: The Selmon brothers’ last OU game was a defensive masterpiece, a 14-6 win over
Michigan that sealed the Sooners’ fifth national title.
5. 1975 OU-Miami: Before the Hurricanes became a national power, they gave the eventual national champ Sooners all they wanted before succumbing 20-17.
4. 1986 OU-Miami: Hurricanes won a showdown in which quarterback Vinny Testaverde outdueled Sooner linebacker Brian Bosworth in a battle royale, won 28-16 by Miami.
3. 1954 Orange Bowl: The first Wilkinson-Tatum showdown. Larry Grigg’s 25-yard TD run in the second quarter provided OU with a 7-0 win.
2. 1981 Orange Bowl: J.C. Watts’ late heroics, including a 2-point conversion pass to Forrest Valora, gave the Sooners an 18-17 win over Florida State.
1. 1968 Orange Bowl: Chuck Fairbanks’ first OU team zipped to a 19-0 halftime lead over
Tennessee, then held on to win 26-24 when the Vols missed a late long field goal.
TEN BIG WINNERS FROM WEEK 11
10. Tennessee: Critics said the Vols’ run defense might get gashed by Arkansas. But Tennessee held Darren McFadden to 117 hard-earned yards and routed the Hogs 34-13 to keep the driver’s seat in the SEC East.
9. Clemson: Tommy Bowden is in constant hot water, but he might be nearing his first ACC title. The Tigers routed Wake Forest 44-10 and now host Boston College for the division title.
8. USC: A few weeks ago, the Trojans’ demise was a popular theory. But SC beat California 24-17 and plays at Arizona State on Thanksgiving night for a likely BCS berth.
7. North Carolina State: Tom O’Brien left behind a good thing at Boston College and got off to a 1-5 start with the Wolf Pack. But after a 31-27 win over North Carolina, NC State is 5-5 with two winnable games left, at Wake Forest and home to Maryland.
6. Cincinnati: Beware the Bearcats. Cincinnati routed Connecticut 27-3 to set up what could amount to a Big East title game this week against West Virginia. And the game is in River City.
5. Black shirts: Georgia coach Mark Richt agreed to let his Bulldogs wear black against Auburn, and while I don’t like color changes, I’ve got to admit, pretty sharp. Same as Georgia’s performance: 45-20 over Auburn.
4. Kansas: In the previous 10 years, the Jayhawks had four Big 12 road wins. But after a 43-28 win at Oklahoma State, KU has four Big 12 road wins this year alone, in some tough places. Stillwater, College Station, Manhattan and Boulder.
3. Sylvester Croom: The Mississippi State coach, overlooked by Alabama, his alma mater, in 2003, exacted his revenge for the second straight year. The Bulldogs beat Bama 17-12 and are 6-4, with games left at Arkansas and home against Ole Miss.
2. Nebraska: To all the detractors who claimed the Huskers had quit, check out Nebraska’s 73-31 rout of Kansas State. One week earlier , the Huskers lost 76-39 at Kansas. Surely, no football team in the history of shoulder pads has scored 70 points the week after allowing the same.
1. Ron Zook: The original Internet victim — remember fireronzook.com? — is proving he’s a solid coach. Zook has turned around Illinois, witness the Illini’s 28-21 upset at top-ranked Ohio State.
BOWL BUSINESS
The bowl lineup is a long way from completion but is a little more focused each week. My predictions:
Jan. 7 Big Bowl: Oregon vs. LSU
Jan. 6 GMAC: Tulsa vs. Central Michigan
Jan. 5 International: Rutgers vs. Bowling Green
Jan. 3 Orange: Kansas vs. Virginia Tech
Jan. 2 Fiesta: Missouri vs. West Virginia
Jan. 1 Rose: Ohio State vs. USC
Jan. 1 Sugar: Georgia vs. Hawaii
Jan. 1 Outback: Auburn vs. Wisconsin
Jan. 1 Cotton: Texas vs. Tennessee
Jan. 1 Gator: Oklahoma vs. Clemson
Jan. 1 Capital One: Florida vs. Illinois
Dec. 31 Armed Forces: Air Force vs. Indiana
Dec. 31 Sun: California vs. Cincinnati
Dec. 31 Humanitarian: North Carolina State vs.Boise State
Dec. 31 Music City: Arkansas vs.Wake Forest
Dec. 31 Chick-fil-A: Alabama vs.Virginia
Dec. 31 Insight: Colorado vs. Iowa
Dec. 30 Independence: Kansas State vs.Mississippi State
Dec. 29 Meineke Car Care: Florida State vs. Connecticut
Dec. 29 Liberty: Central Florida vs. Kentucky
Dec. 29 Alamo: Oklahoma State vs.Penn State
Dec. 28 Texas: Texas A&M vs. Houston
Dec. 28 Champs Sports: Boston College vs. Michigan
Dec. 28 Emerald: Georgia Tech vs. Purdue
Dec. 27 Holiday: Texas Tech vs. Arizona State
Dec. 26 Motor City: Michigan State vs. Miami-Ohio
Dec. 23 Hawaii: East Carolina vs.Fresno State
Dec. 22 Papajohns.com: South Florida vs. Memphis
Dec. 22 New Mexico: Utah vs. Nevada
Dec. 22 Las Vegas: Oregon State vs. BYU
Dec. 21 New Orleans: Troy vs. Southern Miss
Dec. 20 Poinsettia: TCU vs. Navy
TEN BIG LOSERS FROM WEEK 11
10. Michigan: The Wolverines played without veterans Michael Hart and Chad Henne and lost 37-21 to Wisconsin, looking much more like the team that lost to Appalachian State than the team much of America was hoping would beat Ohio State.
9. Purdue: The Boilermakers were 7-2 and headed for a prime Florida bowl. But after losses at Penn
State and to Michigan State, 48-31, Purdue is fast sliding down the bowl ladder.
8. Mike Leach: The Texas Tech coach came off looking bad following a 59-43 loss to Texas in which Leach challenged the integrity of the officials. Trouble was, the zebras got right the calls in question.
7. Colorado: The Buffs won at Texas Tech and beat Oklahoma, but a 31-28 loss at Iowa State spiraled Colorado to 5-6, and now Dan Hawkins must beat Nebraska just to go to a minor bowl.
6. Steve Spurrier: When South Carolina opened the season 3-0, including a win at Georgia, 2007 seemed like a magical year for the ol’ ball coach. But now the Gamecocks are 6-5, with Clemson remaining.
5. Bobby Bowden: The Florida State icon had little to preserve from the proud program of the ‘80s and ‘90s. He has even one less, after his first loss ever to Virginia Tech, 40-21, dropped the Seminoles to 6-4.
4. Orange Bowl: The proud old stadium deserved better than Virginia’s 48-0 rout of Miami for its final football game.
3. Pac-10 officiating: Now the Oregon State athletic director is calling out his own league’s officials, after a shoddy fourth quarter against Washington. Of course, if it happens in conference games, the rest of the nation doesn’t care.
2. Ohio State: The Buckeyes drew within 28-21 of Illinois with eight minutes left and never got the ball back. Quarterback sneaks and quarterback draws did in Ohio State’s national title hopes.
1. Football as we know it: Halftime score of the Navy-North Texas game was 49-45. Halftime! OSU-Texas Tech was a 49-45 final, and we all talked about what a wild and woolly game it was. The final in Denton, Texas, 74-62 Navy, might become the trend. And I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit.
Hearing from Jay Wilkinson
Jay Wilkinson called me back Tuesday night. Two days too late to help me with my OU-Notre Dame 1957 project, but not too late to share with me another priceless story about my dad.
Wilkinson, the son of OU legend Bud Wilkinson and a 1960 Norman High graduate, now is a Houston businessman. I met Jay probably a decade ago, when he wrote a book about his father. I had studied Jay’s high school career when I worked at the Norman Transcript and researched Norman High School football history.
Jay was a fabulous athlete, maybe the best in Norman history. Bud Wilkinson didn’t want his son to face the pressure of playing for his father. So Jay went to Duke and was an All-American halfback in 1963. My radio cohort, Al Eschbach, theorizes that OU would have won the national championship in 1963, had Jay been a Sooner. Bud’s final OU squad went 8-2, losing 28-7 to Texas in a No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchup, then losing 29-20 at Nebraska the day after John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Eschbach might be right. Wilkinson played halfback at Duke but could have played quarterback at OU, which in 1963 was QB poor, thanks in part to injuries.
Many years ago, my dad told me about having coached Jay at Norman Junior High in the 1950s, when my dad was a teacher and coach. My dad said Bud never interfered; mostly just came to games whenever he could and watched. Dad also said Mary Wilkinson, Jay’s mother and Bud’s wife, was a wonderful woman who was very supportive of the schools and her sons’ activities.
When my dad died in August, I wrote about him and received so many wonderful emails that my heart leaped. One was from Jay Wilkinson. This is part of what he wrote:
“The article that you recently wrote about your dad … was heartfelt, moving, honest and emotional, and brought back vivid memories of earlier times. I always considered myself most fortunate to have been a member of his Norman junior high eighth grade basketball team (I was in seventh grade), when he instilled in his players a sense of pride, determination and excellence that created a championship team. The lessons and fundamentals learned from him at a young age undoubtedly contributed to a later state championship basketball team in 1959 under Coach Chet Bryan. As if it were yesterday, I still remember your dad scrimmaging with us, challenging us each day to be tougher and more consistent. He was the one who taught me to shoot left handed when driving to the basket. I remember his penetrating eyes; their focus, concentration and warmth. He was a great man whom I loved, admired and respected deeply. It was a privilege to have played for him. He made a profound impact on my life and on the lives of many of my teammates. Thanks for sharing your message with all of us.”
As you could probably guess, that kind of correspondence lifted my spirits in a great way. My dad never talked a lot about the days before I was born in 1961, so to hear any kind of stories from those times was priceless. I heard from several of my dad’s former players and students. It was very therapeutic and very much appreciated.
Anyway, the stories keep coming. Jay shared another with me Tuesday, telling me about a reenactment of “Blackboard Jungle,” with my dad playing the Glenn Ford character, as an inner-city school teacher. A long-ago, long-forgotten little event that someone somehow remembered, and someone else cherishes.
Reliving Notre Dame’s upset
This week I wrote about Notre Dame’s 7-0 victory over Oklahoma in 1957, ending the Sooners’ 47-game winning streak. And I got some very interesting feedback. I thought I would share some of the stories.
The first is from Ross Porter, the long-time Los Angeles Dodgers broadcaster who grew up in Shawnee, went to OU, worked at WKY-TV (Channel 4) and then was hired away by a Los Angeles station. Porter is a class act all the way and shared some great memories:
“Hi, Berry. Really your reminiscing about November 16, 1957. It brought back a lot of memories. That was my junior year at OU, and I was working as a student intern on Harold Keith’s sports publicity staff with some guy named John Brooks and another named Jim Jones, who went on to become an Oklahoma congressman after he was LBJ’s press secretary. Mr. Keith assigned me the job of writing the pre-game story for the OU-Notre Dame football program that focused on the 50th anniversary of statehood that day. I’ve still got it in my office. OU was an 18-point favorite.
“My other assignment on game day was to cover the Notre Dame dressing room after the game for quotes to be handed out to the reporters in the pressbox. Do they still do that? (Yes.) I left the pressbox after Dick Lynch scored (with less than four minutes left in the game) and made my way on the concrete walk between the south end zone and the scoreboard to the east side of the stadium where the visiting team’s dressing room was then located.
“When I walked in, there was not a single person inside. About three minutes remained in the game. There was a large chalkboard at the front of the room. It looked as if someone had taken an eraser and wiped out the X’s and O’s from the coach’s halftime talk. Instead, the only words in chalk on the board were, “WE WON THIS ONE FOR ALL THE CATHOLICS IN OKLAHOMA.” I don’t know whether a student manager or a priest or who knows who else ran in after Lynch’s touchdown and grabbed the chalk. Or, whether it was written as the Irish were leaving the room at halftime. Berry, the words on that board must have been erased as soon as the team reached the dressing room after the game. That one line on the board was never reported by anyone.
“My recollection of what I heard Jack Ogle say on the public address system when the game ended differs with what someone told you. The crowd of 55,000 was 98% Sooner, and the silence when the clock hit 0:00 was eerie. I heard Jack say, something like, ’Folks, if this team has given you any pleasure or joy in the last five years, let it be known now.’ And at that point the crowd stood and roared as the OU team left the field. The feeling of shock that day and for several days after that are still etched in my memory. Thanks for your column. It relived an eventful day in my life.”
A reader named David thinks of his mother every time he hears about the 1957 Notre Dame game:
“My mom was always a big football fan and picked a great time to go to OU: 1952. My grandfather (her dad) had just won his state senate seat from Guthrie, and dad says they used to stop by the state capitol on the way to the football games and pick up four tickets on the 45-yard line at Owen Field. Mom never mentions that because it would sound a little too much like bragging, I think. Dad wasn’t a big football fan, but his law school years kept them in Norman through the ’57 season; so mom witnessed all the home games of the streak.
“Well, mom says the image she remembers most about that time was after the ’57 Notre Dame game. She says it wasn’t just the silence, but that no one left their seats. People just continued to sit there. There was no crying, it was just this stunned feeling of disbelief. It was the longest time it semed before people began to file out — as if to get up and leave would be the final acknowledgement that the game was over and OU had, in fact, lost.
“Mom is one of those people who never has an unkind word to say about anyone or anything. About the closest she’ll come was when my young nephew, who knows little of the history of the game once asked at Owen Field why the fans were cheering a Notre Dame loss on the stadium scoreboard. ‘Why would we care about Notre Dame losing?’ My mom just just turned to me and said, ‘Tell him, David.’ She wouldn’t express ill will toward Notre Dame, but she was perfectly happy to let me do it on her behalf.
“If I ever booed at a football game, I risked mom’s look of disapproval. Our season tickets are all together, so I prepared her before this year’s Miami game that I would boo the Canes with gusto. I just told her, ‘You know, Miami is my generation’s Notre Dame,’ and she understood immediately. I didn’t get the look.”
And finally, we hear from a military perspective:
“I was all of four years old then, but my mother has told us this story through the years. My family moved to Norman in 1956 as my father was a Navy pilot who was located to the Naval base in Norman. Yes, many people don’t know the North Base was home to Navy pilots during that era. My father’s commanding officer gave him two tickets to the Notre Dame game on the 50-yard line, three rows away from where the governor was sitting. Well, my dad should have known better as my mom grew up as a Chicago Catholic listening to Notre Dame on the radio.“Mom wore her kelly green suit to the game and was screaming and yelling for Notre Dame amidst the OU fans. Dad kept tugging on her sleeve, saying, ‘Rosemary, sit down!’ Needless to say, my mom ruled the day. That remained the first and last time my Dad and Mom attended an OU game. While Dad passed in 1986, Mom still likes OU third after Notre Dame and Navy.”
Figuring out the computers
A reader wants to know why the BCS computers rank OU below Missouri, even though OU beat Missouri, and why OU is below and Ohio State and Arizona State in the computers. Well, I think I know the answer. North Texas and Utah State. OU’s schedule is being dragged down by two of the worst teams in Division I-A. Out of 119 teams, they probably rank 116 and 118, something like that. Heck, it’s possible they are 118 and 119. Utah State is 0-10; North Texas is 1-8, with the win over Louisiana-Monroe.
Throw in Baylor and Iowa State, and a bunch of mediocre teams like A&M, Miami, Colorado, etc., and the Sooners don’t have much to brag about on that schedule. Texas and Missouri, that’s about it. Most computers don’t give extra factor to head-to-head result. The computers look at Missouri and OU, which have identical records, and MIssouri has played a tougher schedule, so Mizzou gets the nod.
Arizona State clearly has played a better schedule than OU. Now, I have no idea why Ohio State is head of OU. Its schedule appears pretty weak, but I suspect it’s all about North Texas and Utah State.
Alamo for OSU?
I wrote last night that OSU is Insight Bowl bound. But maybe not. The Big 12 is starting to gurgle for quality bowl teams. Get this. The Big 12 might have only five teams finish the regular season with at least seven wins: Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Texas and Texas Tech (which is 7-4, with OU remaining). If the Gator Bowl decides to pick a Big 12 team, which it almost surely will, and a second Big 12 team goes to the BCS, which it almost surely will, then the bowls are going to quickly run out of teams.
Fiesta: champion. Sugar or Orange: Kansas with one loss or OU with two. Gator: Texas. Cotton: Missouri, unless the Tigers win the league, then OU or KU.
So then comes the Holiday, and the only 7-win teams left would be Tech or possibly Texas A&M; the Aggies will be 7-5 if they upset Texas. But even if A&M wins, Dennis Franchione is likely to lose his job, and A&M’s bowl status will be murky. So put Tech in the Holiday.
Now comes the Alamo, which would have to take a 7-5 A&M. But if the Aggies lose to Texas, where does the Alamo turn? A bunchy of 6-6 teams likely await. OSU, if it splits with Baylor and OU. A&M. The Nebraska-Colorado winner. Kansas State, if the Wildcats split with Missouri and Fresno State. OSU clearly is the best choice.
So it comes to this. OSU to the Alamo Bowl if three things happen: 1. A&M loses to Texas; 2. the Big 12 gets in two teams to the BCS; 3. the Gator decides to take a Big 12 team this year. If the Gator passes on the Big 12, the Sun pops in, and the Sun likely would take OSU.
Oh, Henry
Marcus Henry just took a slant pass from Kansas quarterback Todd Reesing, dodged everyone in the stadium wearing orange and zipped to an 82-yard touchdown play 21/2 minutes into the second half. Ouch.
Henry is from Lawton Eisenhower. Double ouch. Kansas’ battalion of Okies is playing well as the Jayhawks lead 27-14. Defensive end Russell Brorsen, unrecruited by OSU out of Stillwater High School, tackled Dantrell Savage for a one-yard loss on OSU’s first play of the half. And Tulsa Union’s Scott Webb nailed a 42-yard field goal for the Jayhawks earlier in the game.
In all, Kansas starts six Okies. OSU starts four but two are injured. Triple ouch.
Kansas looks strong
This still is anybody’s game, but Kansas looks strong. The Jayhawk defense has at least slowed the OSU offense; the Cowboys have had seven possessions and only two scores, to go with three punts, a turnover and a failed fourth down. One OSU touchdown drive was the result of jump balls to Dez Bryant. So the Cowboy offense must produce more in the second half. I don’t see OSU winning this game 28-27. Kansas certainly looks likely to get to the 30s.
KU’s Todd Reesing is a salty quarterback. Better than advertised, I would say. He’s completed 15 of 22 passes for 152 yards and a touchdown, and he’s throwing to all kinds of receivers.
More bad news for OSU: flanker Adarius Bowman, injured midway through the second quarter, did not come out with the team for the second half. No word on his status.
