Sooners go gray
A reader from Alabama, Larry Inman, was fired up about the OU basketball team’s new gray uniforms, trotted out for the Wednesday night game against Tulsa. “I was rather surprised but pleasantly,” Inman wrote. “We are living in a day when teams are trying some new combos in their uniforms. Some of the uniforms have been pretty good, but who is in charge of West Virginia (all yellow), Tennessee (all orange) and Oregon (all awful,especially those metallic yellow helmets) uniform choices? Those uniforms hurt my eyes!
“I live in Alabama now having grown up in Oklahoma but I come into contact with several Tennessee Vol fans, and they have expressed to me their displease of the all orange the Vols wore against LSU. In my opinion, the uniforms were awful but kudos to them for trying something different. I know tradition is something else to contend with, but I wonder why OU hasn’t done something a little different with their uniforms? They are basically the same as when Stoops first came with the exception of the no-name jerseys of last year. I doubt the home red jerseys will ever change and that is OK with me, but those pants with the heavy double strip look like something out of the 70′s to me, or a Wisconsin Badger uniform.
“Something else I have never understood is that the school colors are crimson and cream, and OU wears white. Maybe the away game uniforms could be Cream? Or even red pants. Even OSU has tried something different in their uniforms (of course that is not going to be helpful to enter into a discussion). I suppose Stoops would never admit that he listened to someone else, particularly media, but it’s time for a little variety in the uniforms. Georgia came out with the black shirts one Saturday and whole stadium was filled with black shirts and it was just kind of fun to watch. So maybe on a slow sports day after all the bowl games, you could write an article about uniforms and stir up a little discussion.”
Thanks, Larry. Uniforms are one of my favorite topics. I don’t like messing with tradition, but I suppose going gray is about as harmless as you can get. Now, if the Sooners had come out in black, that would have been sacrilege. Anyway, I’ve written about this before, and I think I will do a video later today, but what say you, Sooner fans? Do you want more color variation? Do you want experimentation in the football uniforms? Do you want Bob Stoops to wear red polyester pants on the sidelines? Let me know.
When does hoops season start?
I’m sorry, but I just can’t find the energy to get excited about basketball season. No other sport hides its light under a bushel like college hoops. Starts in the shadows, under football’s glare, and plays cool games when much of the American sports fan is preoccupied elsewhere. This week, we can finally focus on college basketball — OU hosts Tulsa and Stephen F. Austin; OSU hosts Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and East Tennessee State — but how much better it would be if this was the opening week. If the Tuesday night doubleheader at Madison Square Garden, featuring three of the nation’s best freshmen (Memphis’ Derrick Rose, USC’s O.J. Mayo and Kansas State’s Michael Beasley) had been a season tipoff doubleheader.
College basketball is a sport that is killing itself. Even in the hotbeds, fans aren’t warming up to the sport. Kansas-Arizona drew 2,000 no-shows on 10 days ago to Allen Fieldhouse. That’s an ominous sign. College basketball needs a scheduling overhaul.
Voting nonsense
I don’t vote in the sporting world. Not in football polls, not for the Heisman, not for all-conference teams. I don’t think journalists ought to be involved in newsmaking, which is exactly what we do when we help determine the BCS and the Heisman and the all-Big 12 tight end.
Voting in civic elections is different. Everyone gets to vote. And we’re in that club. But sports? No. We’re asked to vote because we’re journalists, and I think that’s a bad road. So I cut it out, 10, 15 years ago. Haven’t voted in the AP poll since 1991, haven’t voted in the Heisman since the early ’90s.
And the publication of coaches’ votes in the football poll shows the nonsense. You’ve read of the silly order in which some coaches voted. Howard Schnellenberger, the Bowdens, Mike Bellotti, voting OU below Missouri and/or Kansas. An axe to grind? Maybe. Or maybe they just don’t know any better. I wouldn’t put it past some coaches to not know what the heck is going on. Coaches are the last group in the sport that knows what’s happening outside their cocoon.
And before you mount a posse demanding the head of Schnellenberger, know that Bob Stoops fared little better. Stoops ranked LSU, his prime contender for a Big Bowl berth, No. 6 in the coaches poll. That’s four spots below where LSU actually finished. Schnellenberger ranked OU seventh, also four spots below where the Sooners actually finished. Yes, the rest of the Colonel’s ballot was nonsense — Kansas No. 2, Boise State No. 10 — but that’s due to an addled brain. Stoops’ bias was no less than Schnellenberger’s.
OU-Mizzou: Arguing with logic
A reader sent me a fantastic email. A friend of his was outraged that the BCS computers had Missouri ahead of Oklahoma. He sent out inquiries to the computers and received a response from Anderson-Hester, the computer ranking that seems to factor in proximity to the Pacific Ocean. Anderson-Hester’s final rankings had Missouri second, OU eighth. Here was the response:“Aside from the two Oklahoma-Missouri games, Oklahoma isn’t even close to Missouri. Apart from those head-to-head games, Missouri is 11-0 with wins over (otherwise unbeaten) Kansas and Rose Bowl-bound Illinois and would be clearly the #1 team in the nation. Meanwhile, Oklahoma is 9-2 with 2 losses to very mediocre teams (Colorado and Texas Tech) and zero wins vs. the current top-20. The head-to-head games bring the Sooners almost even with Missouri, but not quite: the 11-2 Tigers have still played the tougher schedule than the 11-2 Sooners, and therefore deserve to be ranked ahead based on season-long results.”This is how the old joke about Mrs. Lincoln got started. Other than the two times OU bloodied Missouri’s nose and knocked the Tigers to the canvas, all evidence shows the Tigers are superior? This is why I’m no good at debate. This is where in a courtroom, I would turn to the judge and say, “Your honor…” with my palms up.
I don’t even want to get into that stuff about Kansas, the biggest fraud since junk bonds. And thus we’ve found the problem with computers. No one, so far as I know, has figured out a way to program common sense.
Looks like LSU
The coaches poill came out today, and LSU is ranked No. 2. OU is third, Georgia fourth, Virginia Tech fifth and USC sixth. Not perfect, but give the coaches credit. They adjusted.
For five, maye six decades, voters have been robotic. Someone loses, move down. Someone wins, move up. Someone idle, no great change. But sometimes, poll voting requires a little study. Like when asking which SEC deserved to be ranked higher, Georgia or LSU? The recent love affair with Georgia was rooted in what, exactly? The Bulldogs’ victory over Florida, I suppose.
But to rank a conference champion below a team in the same conference that didn’t even win its division? Nonsense. Easy call. The voters lifted conference champions of leagues with title games ahead of other contenders. LSU, OU and V-Tech all are ahead of USC. All three teams won Saturday.
I don’t know that I would vote USC below Virginia Tech, but I like the sentiment of adjusting to events. Voters were faced with the prospect of lifting Georgia into the national title game when the Bulldogs didn’t even make the SEC title game. Nonsense, they said. Bully for them, I say.
Patrick gets mad
Allen Patrick has started playing mad. That is a good thing. A very good thing for Oklahoma. OU’s 50-yard touchdown drive was keyed by a couple of passes — 18 yards to Chris Brown on a Sam Bradford rollout and 10 yards on a slant to Malcolm Kelly on 3rd-and-7 — but the Sooners got to the end zone with attitude. Patrick took a pitch, seemed to momentarily lose the handle, then accelerated to an 11-yard gain. Then on 2nd-and-goal from the 8-yard line, Patrick swept outside, was hit at the line of scrimmage and swarmed under but kept running, all the way to the 2-yard line. That set up Brown’s TD run. That was a drive with offensive attitude. Well-timed and well-placed throws, and some hard running.
Ominous sign: no run game
OU is not running the ball effectively. That is not good news. The Sooners have combined for 17 yards on eight tailback carries, and that won’t get it done in a big game. Missouri is loading the box, which smart teams do against the Sooners, and OU has made Mizzou pay only once, with the long shot to Malcolm Kelly. Sam Bradford is throwing well — 9 of 12, for 102 yards — though not for big chunks. But the Sooners will have to start running the ball to stay ahead of Missouri.
OU defense flying around
OU’s defense is playing a whale of a game. Flying to the football. Intensely pressuring Chase Daniel. Hitting hard. Very hard. And the Sooners have turned back two Mizzou red-zone threats, holding the Tigers to field goals. Mizzou has moved the ball at times, but two questionable pass interference penalties have aided Missouri as much as anything.
Curtis Lofton is playing great. The OU secondary is playing well, too. It lost Tommy Saunders on a 3rd-and-10 play for a 21-yard gain, but otherwise, no coverage busts. The return of Auston English has energized the defense. English hasn’t gotten to Chase Daniel yet, but just his presence seems to have been a lift.
Quentin Griffin II
Chris Brown’s 3-yard touchdown run, basically off a shotgun draw, looked like vintage Quentin Griffin. Brown got the handoff in traffic, but traffic that didn’t yet know what was the play. Brown stutter-stepped, dashed outside a little and found an easy opening into the end zone.
Nothing, though, is coming easy for OU. Even after the 47-yard completion to Malcolm Kelly set up the Sooners at the Mizzou 7-yard line, things got hairy. Brown and Sam Bradford had a miscommunication on a handoff, after Bradford changed the play. Then Phil Loadholt jumped early, and OU was back to second-and-goal from the 12.
The Sooners already have 53 yards in penalties. Stop that, or they will get beat.
Where’s the downfield game?
Missouri leads 3-0 with 3:19 left in the first quarter, and OU has 22 total yards. The Sooners have tried two runs, both losses by Allen Patrick, and five passes. Four of the five have been swing passes, and the only downfield throw came on 3rd-and-23 when Sam Bradford threw incomplete, well short of the first-down marker.
Here’s my suggestion. Throw the ball downfield. The Sooners have to loosen up the Mizzou defense.
