Here comes the NBA
It’s not happening with a big boom. It’s a series of smaller cosmic events, which tempers the excitement. More of a boil than an explosion. But make no mistake what is happening. The NBA is on its way to Oklahoma City.
Listen to this Seattle Times quote from Seattle city council president Richard Conlin, concerning the Sonics’ $26 million offer to buy out the franchise’s KeyArena lease: “I think they were bluffing and hoping to panic people into making a decision, but that’s something lawyers do. On the other hand, as an opening gun in negotiations, while it’s not an offer we’d accept, it’s not that far from a credible offer. So I don’t think it’s a bad-faith effort on their part.”
Some others in Seattle are talking nonsense. City attorney said that if the Sonics offered $200 million, then there might be talks. But Conlin was much closer to the truth. I don’t think the Sonics were bluffing, and I don’t think Clay Bennett’s lawyers were hoping to panic Seattle into taking the first offer, but I do think it was an opening salvo in the negotiations. The $26 million was lower than what I thought it would take — I’m guessing around $40 million — but like Conlin said, that’s not that far from a credible offer, and the number is fluid anyway. Over the next few months, dates arrive that will change each side’s negotiating power. The OKC vote March 4 and the April NBA vote, which if all goes well for the Sonics will swing power to Bennett. The June court date on buying out the lease, which I expect Seattle to win and would return the advantage to the city. The nearing of the drop-dead relocation date, probably early August, which will give Seattle the upper hand until it passes, when that hammer is gone and the Sonics, knowing they face another lame-duck season, will drop their offer dramatically.
It makes for great theater. It doesn’t make for great excitement, not Sonic boom excitement, but all told, it means the NBA inches closer and closer to OKC.
Surprise leader in Big 12
What a difference a week makes in Big 12 basketball. Both the Sooners and Cowboys are in much better shape than they were last Monday. It was a good week for both; two-game winning streaks for each, including big road wins in the Lone Star State.
How big was David Godbold’s 28-foot 3-pointer that beat Texas Tech? If that shots bounces off, the Sooners and Cowboys are tied in the real Big 12 standings, which take into effect home/road records. Remember, you get point for a road win and lose a point for a home loss. It’s a great way to tell what the standings really look like as we go down the stretch.
1. Texas +4: Longhorns are tied with Kansas and have fewer road games remaining.
2. Kansas +3: Jayhawks play at Stillwater on Saturday.
3. Kansas State +2: Wildcats showing signs of staggering.
4. Texas A&M +1: Aggies were thought to be riding high until OSU came to College Station.
5. OU & Baylor Even: Sooners and Bears play Tuesday night at Norman. When it comes to NCAA Tournament consideration, Sooners have a big edge, thanks to non-conference schedule.
7. OSU, Texas Tech & Missouri -1: At this point, a seventh-place finish by OSU would have to be considered a great turnaround. Last place wasn’t out of the question a week ago. Missouri is slumping fast, while Tech’s home/road consistency finally ended with home loss to OU.
10. Nebraska & Iowa State -2: I really don’t know what to say about either team.
12. Colorado -3: Last place seems certain.
What does it all mean? It means OU is in prime position for the coveted fifth spot, which should secure an NCAA Tournament berth. And OSU, if it could hold serve at home (not easy with Kansas coming), could finish 7-9 and create an optimistic air in Stillwater.
A wedding rich in spirit
Saturday night, my wife and I attended one of the most unique weddings either of us had ever seen. It was a wedding of two former OU athletes, but it was not a jock-filled, sports-honored ceremony.
The wedding of Shannon Selmon and Vince Carter was rich in spirit. I was invited because I’ve gotten to know the Dewey Selmon family.
The very best thing I ever wrote was a 1995 Mother ‘s Day column on Mrs. Jessie Selmon, mother of the Selmon brothers. I sat down with her and Dewey in her Oklahoma City home, and I just let her talk, and she told me about raising her kids outside Eufaula, and it took me about 15 minutes to write the whole column. I’ve also written about Dewey’s three daughters playing basketball together on the same Norman High School team, a second coming of the Selmon III. And I wrote about the family’s adoption — spearheaded by the girls, not Dewey and his wife Kathryn — of Christiana, a Liberian refugee.
I chatted with Dewey at the wedding. He told my wife I had been adopted as “another Selmon brother,” which is the best compliment I’ll ever receive but probably not terribly unique, since Dewey’s family makes everyone feel that way. It was a marvelous wedding, not opulent, not outrageous, but full of honor towards God and family. It included a choir from the Everlasting Life Baptist Church and a ballet dance from Christiana Selmon and wonderful words from two ministers.
Shannon, you remember, played basketball at OU for Sherri Coale. Vince was a four-year starting center for Bob Stoops. Shannon had a maid of honor, her sister Megan, and a matron of honor, her sister Lauren. Vince had three best men, including former Sooners Tommie Harris and Jonathan Jackson. But this was not a night that honored Sooners. It was a night that honored love and commitment, and one of the finest families I’ve ever known.
Emptying the Fiesta Bowl mailbag
Today we bring back a popular feature, one I hope will appear weekly. The mail bag. I’ll share some interesting emails I received from readers. Today’s topic: the Fiesta Bowl meltdown by the Sooners.
A fellow named Dave wrote and was not happy with the state of OU football: “I’m beginning to think that Stoops himself may be the problem and it may be time for him to move along. He can talk all he wants about ‘winning championships,’ but no one in this country is really impressed if OU wins the Big 12 championship. What impresses people is winning the national championship or at least soundly winning your bowl game. OU has become the joke of NCAA football because of our 4 BCS ‘choke’ games. Most of those games have been humiliations. Something is wrong with that program and Stoops is either too arrogant or stubborn to fix it. So, it’s time he moves on and let OU bring in somebody who is willing to really turn OU back into the powerhouse they have always been ,.. honestly, I can’t see OU being a legitimate national contender for many, many years to come.”
Here’s where I normally respond with some affirmation or confrontation or something terribly witty. But I didn’t have to. The guy’s brother wrote in. Fellow named Sean.
“I am sorry he has such a negative attitude about OU and the coaching etc…. He is definitely the ‘Glass Half Empty’ brother and I am the ‘Glass Half Full’ brother. HaHa. Sorry for the distraction story, I am elated how Bob Stoops has brought the football program back to its rich tradition of one of the winningest programs in the nation. It is frustrating, like my brother has said, but I look at all of the other institutions that would love to have 10++ winning seasons, year after year after year. And the fact that we are winning enough to make it to the BCS bowls year after year. That says a lot for a program that really IS in the hunt year after year for the national championship. Anyway, all this being said, my brother will never see it as positive unless OU wins everything all the time and it simply can’t happen that way.”
Wow. Now if all my readers would monitor the emails of all my other emails and answer them that soundly, my work load goes way down.
A reader named William said, “Go look at Lloyd Carr’s career at Michigan … I see a lot of parallels to Stoops. Fast start, win national title and then does OK by Michigan and OU standards but not great, with the occasional random mid-season losses thrown in for good measure. The only difference is Stoops has benefited from Mack Brown being at Texas versus (Jim) Tressel at Ohio State. In the venture capital business we have three kinds of deals — ones that become home runs (10x our money), ones that fail miserably (and we get the capital tax loss) and ones that are in the middle called the ‘walking dead.’ Those deals will neither take off nor fail miserably so you can move on. They limp along and do just good enough. OU’s program is the walking dead right now much like Michigan’s program became under Carr. Can’t get to the 10x return or won’t fail so you can move on. Sooner fans better get used to it.”
Wow. And I thought Kelvin Sampson was Dead Man Walking (as John Rohde termed him a couple of days ago). Of course, Stoops is not Dead Man Walking. Five Big 12 titles in eight years is a lot better than what Michigan has done in the last eight years. Stoops has a bowl problem, but he most certainly does not have a regular-season problem. And isn’t that an interesting twist to the OU-Texas series. Stoops thrives Mack Brown is at Texas. I would tend to say it’s the other way around. Mack Brown is kept from greatness because Bob Stoops is at Oklahoma.
Armon wrote, “I have been an OU fan since the beginning of the Great Bud Wilkinson Era. I consider Bud the best coach OU has ever had. I cannot understand why Stoops called for the two-point conversion and the onside kick. This was plain dumb, especially when OU had finally gotten the momentum back and was only down less than a TD. I absolutely could not believe this. Two bonehead plays in a row.”I don’t know if Bud is the greatest OU coach ever, but I can’t disagree on those plays. The two-point conversion and the onside kick. Just plain dumb.
And of course, we haven’t even gotten to the coordinators yet. Al wrote, “You missed the whole problem with the Sooner football team. OU played not to lose and they lost. Every coach knows that OU will run the ball on first down 95 percent of the time, 80 percent of the time on second down and almost always on third and short. The coaches have not shown any innovation or imagination in the game. They are too conservative. As long as their offensive staff remains the same, OU will never ever win another national championship or even come close to winning one. Coach Josh H (I can’t spell his name) would have had a game plan much different than the plan they had at the Fiesta Bown.”
I had a sudden thought. Fans always want the head of the offensive coordinator, and OU fans always say Chuck Long or Kevin Wilson are too predictable, and they all long for the days of Mike Leach. So how do they explain this. Leach has the most predictable offense of all time. He ALWAYS throws and almost always throws short.
Phil wrote and gave us cart blanche to investigate the curious case of the Sooners: “How about a series of articles on what the $3 million man and his pals actually do after the end of the Big 12 and the time to play a bowl game? Did they actually look at WV film or did they just go to the movies? In any event, you and your pals have my permission to fully probe the state of the football Sooners. Perhaps an intervention with each coach might be useful.”
Well, Phil gave me a couple of rich mental images. Bob Stoops at the movies — I don’t see Stoops sitting through “27 Dresses” – and the intervention. Now there’s an idea. How about us media guys, me and Jake Trotter and Scott Wright and Jenni Carlson and John Rohde and Eschbach and Traber and Blevins take about 10 fans each and stage an intervention with each coach. Put them in a room and demand they start winning bowl games. I’ve got dibs on Chris Wilson.
Sixto wrote in and asked, “What the hell is going on? Our multi-million dollar a year coach just got his (butt) handed to him by an interim head coach. This team looked listless, disinterested and completely unprepared. OU showed signs of life at the beginning of the second half, but quickly imploded after that misbegotten onside kick attempt. And why the hell wasn’t Kevin Wilson calling passing plays on every down when the team was down by 20? It looked to me like they just gave up midway through the fourth quarter! And let’s address the off-the-field crap: the fact that Demarcus Granger got pinched shoplifting tells me there is something systemically wrong with the program. Are the coaches simply not reaching these kids? Is the program out of control? Is Bob Stoops turning into Phil Fulmer? Ever since USC destroyed OU in that Orange Bowl debacle, Bob Stoops has not been the same coach in bowl games. This is an embarrassing, shameful loss, and I for one am seriously considering terminating my season tickets commitment.”
Well, I thought OU gave up the ghost a little early myself.
Ryan wrote, “Thanks for being tough on Stoops. I am not exaggerating when I say that I think the majority of us Sooners fans just aren’t that enamored with this guy anymore. Let’s just say this. We’re like some old married couples now — we can co-habitate, but we ain’t in love anymore. I don’t want him to go, but if he does, I won’t be heartbroken. I’d be kind of stoic. And I do really think we’re much closer to the end of Stoops’ tenure here at Oklahoma than to the beginning of it.”
Well, Ryan, unless Stoops stays 18 years, you’re right. He’s already gone nine seasons.
David wrote in “wondering why no one is talking much about the OU defense….especially in bowl games. I realize they were without three starters, but since Mike Stoops left, this defense has never been the same. Here are some quick stats: OU has been in 40 bowl games; the most points given up have been in 1) 2005 – 55; 2) 2008 – 48; 3) 2007 – 43. Before 2005 in 36 bowl games OU averaged giving up 15.8 points a game. Since 2005 in the 4 bowl games played they have averaged giving up 40.0 points a game. How come there seems to be no outcry from the media about Brent Venables and the defensive woes? We’re not talking about just bad defense but truly record-setting bad defensive efforts?”
Well, first off, this is great statistical research. This is why I love football fans. They really get into this stuff. But that said, you can’t really compare, because football has gotten so out of whack with points. Mike Gundy said throw out the records the last 10-15 years, but I’d say it’s more like the last five years. Offense has gotten so out of control, with the rules and the length of games. Also, Brent Venables’ defense has been superb. In the two games before the Fiesta Bowl, OU played high-powered offenses, OSU and Missouri. And held each to 17 points, less than that when the game was still in question.
Chuck wrote in with a heck of a story. “I think you’re right on about the team not being prepared. None of the bowl games did they appear ready to play in the losses. That goes back to the head man. A friend of mine, after his third divorce said, ‘You know, it might be me.’ Stoops should ask himself the same question. Do you still think his mojo didn’t leave town with his brother? This is not to say Venables isn’t a good coach. Just look at the results since the brother left Norman. I’m not one that wants to dump Stoops, I enjoy winning nine or 10 games a year. But being a realist, I came to the realization after last year’s bowl game that OU will never win a national championship again under Bob Stoops. I really like Stoops, but it just ain’t going to happen.”
I don’t think Chuck is necessarily right about his prediction, but I think his story about the divorce is a beaut.
Stand up and cheer
This morning in The Oklahoman,I wrote about the special-needs cheerleading squad at Empire Elite, a gym in Bethany. I thought it was a good story, I thought it was inspiring and frankly, I was pleased with my work.
I had only one hangup. Did this story belong on the sports page? One of my editors asked that question, not necessarily because he believed it didn’t belong, but because it’s his job to cover all the bases. I responded that the answer was yes. And here’s why.
Do you remember the M*A*S*H* episode where the wounded soldier suddenly believes he is Jesus Christ. The docs send psychiatrist Sidney Freedman in for some therapy, and the conversation goes something like this.
Freedman: I’m Dr. Freedman.
Soldier: I’m Jesus Christ.
Freedman: But you died.
Soldier: Yes, but I arose.
Freeman: If you’re Jesus, what you are doing here?
Soldier: This is a hospital. Where else should I be?
I say the same thing about the kids on the Heart of the Elite cheer squad. This is a sports page. Where else should they be? Where else should be a story about kids wanting to compete and belong? Where else should be a story about getting the opportunity to run and dance and yell? Where else should be a story about cheerleaders, who we see at virtually every game yet remain so invisible at times? Where else should be a story about some kids who make us stand up and cheer?
Maybe this story belongs on the sports page because who needs Jesus more than sick folks? Who needs a reminder about the important things in sport, the important things in life, more than those of us who gravitate to the sports page to check Byron Eaton’s turnover total and Blake Griffin’s free-throw percentage and the latest scandals from Kelvin Sampson and Roger Clemens.
Maybe this story belonged in sports because sports fans are people, too.
Slow night at the box office
OSU and OU played two reasonably-important basketball games Wednesday night. OU hosted Iowa State for its NCAA Tournament life; OSU hosted Baylor maybe for its coach’s life. Here’s how interested the fans were.
The combined attendance of 14,433 barely would have filled Gallagher-Iba Arena. OSU drew 8,608, some 5,000 shy of capacity, which all in all, considering the Cowboys’ downward spiral, is not a horrible crowd. OU drew 5,825, some 6,000 shy of capacity, which all in all, considering Blake Griffin is on the squad, is an awful crowd.
The OSU victory was great news for Sean Sutton, but more huge blocks of empty seats can’t be good news for the beleaguered coach, whose fate could rest as much with the fans as anyone else. The OU turnstile count is not new, although the no-shows seem to be rising in Soonerville. No way that can make Jeff Capel happy; this is a guy who grew up on Tobacco Road amid all the passion for college hoops. You know the apathy showed toward his still-interesting basketball team has got to be eating at him.
Grand night at the Thorpe
The Jim Thorpe Banquet always is one of the best non-game nights of the year in Oklahoma City sports. Lynne Draper, Greg Slavonic and the Jim Thorpe Association staff do a fantastic job putting on a quality event. Here’s just one example. The banquet is scripted and was scheduled to end at 9:25 p.m. Tuesday. It ended at 9:27. That’s organization.
Here’s another example, and maybe something we don’t truly realize in OKC. The Thorpe Award is a big deal across the country. In fact, 2007 Thorpe winner Antoine Cason of Arizona told a touching story from four years ago, when he was being recruited, how he had always been told he was too small to play football and was not highly-sought coming out of high school in Long Beach, Calif.
Cason said he had set winning the Thorpe Award as a goal, even in high school. Think about that for a moment. In Long Beach, where there’s plenty, good and bad, to occupy the mind of an 18-year-old, some kid was intent on winning an Oklahoma City trophy four years in the future. Cason told his story from the podium at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum and set it up nicely, talking about how much support and encouragement he received from his parents during his high-school days, when his football future was not always so rosy.
An uncle, too, was on his side, and when the few Pac-10 recruiters who took an interest in Cason came to his home, this uncle would ask, “What are you going to do to help Antoine win the Thorpe Award?” And Cason’s father interjected, “Hey, we’re just trying to get the kid a scholarship.”
Here’s another example of the Thorpe’s rising status. Its alumni are starting to build a fraternity. In past years, recent winners have returned to help celebrate with the new award recipient. Last year, Chris Hudson (Colorado 1994) and Bennie Blades (Miami 1987) attended. This year, past Thorpe winners were in abundance: Rickey Dixon (OU 1987), Darryl Lewis (Arizona 1990), Hudson, Lawrence Wright (Florida 1996), Michael Huff (Texas 2005) and Aaron Ross (Texas 2006).
Texas’ media relations director, John Bianco, attended with the ex-Longhorns and said the players had been talking about it all year. Huff and Ross are NFL starters; Huff for the Raiders, Ross for the New York football Giants, a team that perhaps you’ve heard of. Nine nights before the Thorpe banquet, Ross and the Giants took down the greatest team of all time, Bill Belichick’s Patriots, in the Super Bowl.
Here is the simple truth about the Jim Thorpe Award. Draper and the organizers of the award more than 20 years ago took a concept from nothingness and turned it into something special. The city and the state have reaped the benefits.
Coaches on the hot seat
A few weeks ago, I blogged about coacheshotseat.com, a website that tracks the status of college football coaches. I wrote about the grades given Bob Stoops and Mike Gundy for the 2007 season; each received a C, which I thought was low. Stoops, I said, deserved a B+ for winning the Big 12, while Gundy earned at least a B- for going 4-4 in the Big 12.
Anyway, Joe Gillis contacted me. He’s the fellow who runs coacheshotseat.com, and we corresponded a little bit about coaches and newspapering, and it was good stuff. He expounded on his takes, and I thought I would share some of his thoughts with you.
On Stoops: “You, I (I run a technology company in my day job), and 7 other people from Coaches Hot Seat (Of our group of 28 people, most work in the technology business in Silicon Valley) could have coached Oklahoma to a 11-3 record in ’07! Seriously, make that 12-2, because our ’staff’ would not have lost to an incredibly mediocre Colorado team that even Bill Callahan and Nebraska ran points up on. The problem with Stoops is that he has lost his fire, no, he still has more fire than most coaches, but it is way down from 5 years ago. You can really see his passion go down when the game doesn’t matter, like the recent Fiesta Bowl, which meant about as much to OU as the touch football game I played in on Saturday meant to me. Not much.”
On Mike Gundy: “Gundy is one of the few coaches in I-A that truly does not deserve to be a head football coach. If not for T. Boone, Gundy would probably be an offensive coordinator somewhere right now, and would be up for head coaching jobs in the next couple of years, but as you well know, if T. Boone wants it, T. Boone gets it. Just ask Mike Holder about that! If T. Boone wanted Holder and the boys to come to work with Hawaiian shirts on singing Don Ho songs, then one would think June Jones had been hired in Stillwater if you happened to wonder into the athletic offices there. As my buddies in the venture capital business say, if T. Boone invests in your company then he has you by the —–, and T. Boone has Oklahoma State by the —–, and no doubt he could get Howdy Doody hired as the head football coach there if he so wished. If Gundy doesn’t beat Texas Tech last season, then his biggest win would have been at Nebraska, and you and I could have beaten Callahan in Lincoln with the ’07 OSU team. I do think Gundy is becoming a better coach though, because I and another guy were at that Troy game last season, and we had sideline passes and Gundy looked like he was on another planet coaching that game. I followed the OSU team towards their locker room, after they got clocked in the first half, and you would have thought OSU was winning the game, because if I had been coaching them I would have been chewing them out from one end of Troy to the other, but Gundy acted like he was at an English tea party. Of course, he showed some fire, and his ass, when he jumped all over Jenni Carlson about the Bobby Reid story. If Gundy had done anything in his life except hang around football fields, like work in the real world and serve his country in war (as several people here at Coaches Hot Seat have done on the latter), he wouldn’t have acted like a spoiled brat over the Reid story. I almost jumped through the TV screen watching that moron, thinking about all the 18 year old “kids” in Iraq that are living and dying over there, and here is Bobby Reid acting like a baby and getting away with it. One thing for sure, if you dropped Gundy in Baghdad for 30 days he might actually get a lesson in how the real world works, because there he would not have a billionaire benefactor protecting his ass at every turn.”
Well, I thought that was dang interesting. I still say he’s too harsh on both Stoops and Gundy, but it’s always revelating to get an outsider’s take. This is a guy from California who observes from afar. He doesn’t know nearly as much about our state or its football as I do, or you do, but you still can learn from someone who has a fresh perspective.
I wrote him back and he responded with even more nuggets.
“Stoops is a better coach than Brown, Pinkel, Leach, and Hawkins. He has as good or better talent, but for some reason he has been having 1 to 2 letdowns the past few years. All you have to do is watch him, and his coaches, on the sideline in a big game, and then in a lesser game. There is just huge difference in intensity. I had a sideline pass for the Oregon game two years ago, and Bob and his coaches were just going crazy, which is what coaching a game in Autzen Stadium will do to you. (My wife went to Cal, me Stanford, so I have been in Autzen a few times! Of course, that Oregon game was one of the great rip-offs in the history of sports!) Then at Lubbock against Tech this year, our Coaches Hot Seat guy that went to the game said Stoops looked bored during most of the game. I am sure his players pick up on that, and that was really evident in the Fiesta Bowl.
“Speaking of Bob Stoops being bored, for the Super Bowl we had almost the entire Coaches Hot Seat group together and we put the top 25 coaches in the game up on a board and then guessed where they would be in 10 years. In 10 years the votes came out to:
“Mike Gundy: Asst coach in the NFL;
“Todd Graham: Texas A&M head coach;
“Urban Meyer: Head coach at Notre Dame or Ohio State;
“Bob Stoops: Head coach at Florida.
“The most interesting prediction you ask? Nick Saban: unemployed!”
Like I said, Joe Gillis and coacheshotseat.com is nothing but interesting. But I need to ask Joe; if you really speculated on the top 25 coaches, were Gundy and Graham really in the top 25? That’s a pretty big compliment. Joe’s comments about Gundy didn’t seem to support that theory, but if they really think Gundy is a top-25 coach, then I can see why they hold him to such a high standard and gave him a C.
Thanks for returning my call
People who return my phone calls rank high on my list. Doesn’t matter what they have to say, even if it’s “I have nothing to say.” Returning phone calls is a big deal.
I thought of that last week when I had occasion to call OSU athletic director Mike Holder two straight days; once for a variety of questions I had sort of been sitting on, and then again when Eddie Sutton made his comments to a Tulsa radio station about giving Sean more time to turn around Cowboy hoops.
Holder called me back with an hour or so the first time, then took my call the second time. I appreciate that. It’s good business for both of us. Holder always calls back, even when he has reason to be upset with something I’ve written.
Who else is good at returning calls? Well, Kelvin Sampson was excellent. Always called back, even when he was mad. Sean Sutton always calls back, too; Eddie Sutton, same way, though late in his OSU coaching career Eddie often would just give his phone messages to Sean and have Sean return them.
I don’t have occasion to call Bob Stoops or Mike Gundy very often. Maybe once a year, or maybe not even that much.
Joe Castiglione always calls back, too, though sometimes it’s late, because he’s in Dallas or California or someplace, doing some kind of committee work.
Returning phone calls can be revealing. For instance, I put in a call to OSU assistant football coach Doug Meachem two weeks ago, leaving the message I wanted to talk about Brad Seely, Meachem’s O-line coach at OSU in the 1980s and now New England’s special-teams coach. This was the height of recruiting season, so I didn’t know if Meachem would call back or not. He called within the hour, which told me that Seely was the real deal when it came to impacting Meachem.
Tennessee coach Phil Fulmer called back within the afternoon when I put in a request to talk about Gerald Jones’ letter of apology over his marijuana arrest. I missed Fulmer’s call, but that’s my fault, not his, and it told me Jones’ letter was fully accepted by Tennessee football.
Rough climb for the Sooners
OU’s road to the NCAA Tournament is becoming rocky. Chances are, the Sooners won’t get there. In the real Big 12 standings, OU is in seventh place. The Sooners have to get to 9-7 — I don’t see a Big 12 team making it at 8-8 — and then hope that’s good enough. It probably will. But can the Sooners get there?
Even giving OU home wins against Iowa State, Baylor and Missouri (no sure shot on those last two), the Sooners have to win three out of these four games: home against Texas A&M, at OSU, at Nebraska, at Texas Tech. Nebraska and Tech are tough at home, OSU is Bedlam and A&M has emerged from its slump. A 9-7 record does not look likely.
Let me show you what I mean, with the weekly Big 12 standings using the plus/minus system (one point for a road win, one point deducted for a home defeat):
1. Kansas & Texas: +3
3. Texas A&M & Kansas State +2
5. Baylor +1
6. Texas Tech even
7. OU & Nebraska: -1
9. OSU, Iowa State & Missouri: -2
12. Colorado: -3
