College Football Week 15: Arrowhead a House of Pain
Here’s a Kansas City leftover that might be the most long-lasting effect of this 2008 OU season. Even longer than the great Texas BCS controversy. Even longer than the Big Bowl against Florida, win or lose. Even longer than a possible Heisman Trophy season for Slingin’ Sammy Bradford.
After the third quarter at Arrowhead Stadium, the public-address system at Kansas City played House of Pain’s “Jump Around,” the rap song that Sooner fans jumped to and danced to all night against Texas Tech. And Saturday night in KC, OU fans went wild again.
Then I got an email from an OU fan who had written a clever pledge of allegiance for Sooners, which included the promise to treat every home game like that magic night against Tech.
It all made me think. What is Owen Field is transformed. What if the Sooners suddenly make every home game as electric as Nov. 22? Well, it will be hard to duplicate every element; you don’t get the nation’s No. 2-ranked team coming in every week.
But Bob Stoops’ ploy to get his fans jacked up worked famously. What if it has an even better effect? What if it takes hold? What if Owen Field becomes the ultimate snakepit?
OU fans actually are pretty good at adopting new traditions and embracing them quickly. Case in point: the national anthem. “And the home … of the … SOONERS!”
Some of us with a patriotic bent aren’t crazy about the practice, but you would have an easier time getting Sooner fans to wear orange than you would getting them to stop inserting Sooners at the end of the “Star-Spangled Banner.”
Maybe same with this deal. The crowd at Kansas City already was impressive in number and volume. But it really came alive with House of Pain. Trot out House of Pain about 60 seconds before every opening kickoff, and Stoops might have a homefield advantage that would rival his beloved Florida’s.
TEN BIGGEST WINNERS OF THE WEEK
10. Virginia Tech: Yet another ACC title for the Hokies, who beat Boston College 30-12 for the championship. Let there be no mistake. The best football program in the ACC is not Miami and not Florida State, but Virginia Tech.
9. East Carolina: The Pirates started strong, with upsets of Virginia Tech and West Virginia, and finished strong, a 27-24 upset at Tulsa in the Conference USA championship game.
8. Jahvid Best: The California tailback ran for a school-record 311 yards and four TDs as the Bears routed hapless Washington 48-7.
7. Mike Teel: The Rutgers quarterback was booed a few weeks ago, but Teel heard nothing but cheers Thursday, throwing for 447 yards and a Big East-record seven touchdown in a 63-14 rout of Louisville.
6. Atlantic Coast Conference: A record 10 ACC schools are in bowl games. None are marquee games; ESPN’s Mark Schlaubath ranked the bowls, and no ACC game is in the top 10. But still, that’s a lot of teams playing in postseason.
5. Dustin Grutza: The Cincinnati quarterback suffered a broken leg at Owen Field in September, but he returned for a token appearance at Louisville on Nov. 14, and Saturday night Grutza came up huge. Grutza relieved starter Tony Pike and threw a 69-yard TD pass to Mardy Gilyard with 4:42 left to give the Bearcats a 29-24 win at Hawaii.
4. Turner Gill: Who knew that the former Nebraska magician would make such a good coach? But for the second straight year, Gill has done wonders at Buffalo, this year winning the Mid-American with a 42-24 upset of Ball State.
3. Sam Bradford: On yet another national stage, Bradford was fantastic again in a 62-21 rout of Missouri – 384 yards, 34 of 49 passing and two touchdowns. The Heisman might be his.
2. San Diego bowls: The Holiday Bowl usually is a solid game, but its little brother, the Poinsettia Bowl, has barely been a blip on the postseason landscape. That changes this year, as San Diego will host four of the nation’s top 15 teams. No. 13 plays No. 15 Oregon in the Holiday, and No. 9 Boise State plays No. 11 TCU in the Poinsettia.
1. Tim Tebow: The Florida quarterback owned the fourth quarter, leading the Gators to a 31-20 victory over top-ranked Alabama, putting Florida in the national title game and himself in contention to repeat as Heisman Trophy winner.
MY FAVORITE RESTAURANT IN THE WORLD
Friday night in Kansas City means a trip to Garozzo’s, my favorite restaurant in the world. It’s a KC institution, and while they’ve got several locations spread through both sides of the state line, I like the off-downtown venue.
It sits in the old Little Italy neighborhood, which now has turned into an Asian district, just like Little Italy in New York.
But inside is pure Italian. Frank Sinatra over the PA, a menu with all these Latin or Italian terms, pictures on the wall of literally hundreds of celebrities, from politicians to entertainers to athletes who have dined at Garozzo’s.
It’s small and quaint and dripping with ambience.
And the food is fantastic. I mess up every time I go. They will give you a combo plate; half and half. I always order the chicken spedini Garozzo and the steak modiga. And I always wish I had gotten straight steak modiga. Best steak in the world. You can cut it with a fork, and it’s got a lemon mushroom sauce over it. Unbelievable.
Anyway, this was one of my favorite trips to Garozzo’s, because it included a little adventure.
One of the great things about my job is the people I meet. There’s a guy from Kansas City who has been emailing me for years to talk a little OU football. Sooner grad who grew up in Oklahoma.
Anyway, a few months back, my wife, the Dish, comes home and says she ran into a guy named Mark Cosby from Kansas City. They went to school together; graduated from Moore in the same class, 1978.
Same guy from Kansas City. So that was cool, and last week we hatched a plan to get together for dinner. He and his wife, Jimmie, met us at Garozzo’s.
Well, on the road, us OPUBCO guys tend to stick together, so OU writer Jake Trotter and videographer Damon Fontenot joined us. And Jake invited along three other writers: ESPN’s Tim Griffin, the Austin American Statesman’s Kirk Bohles and the Kansas City Star’s Bill Reiter.
Kirk and Tim are great guys; I’ve known them since the Big 12 formation. I’d never met Bill, but we became kindred spirits because he’s a Garozzo’s junkie. Eats there often and even has some kind of points card for frequent diners. I have to get one of those.
So we had a great time, talking sports and old high school days and common people we knew – the Cosbys once attended the church my wife’s uncle pastured until retirement this year. It’s a small world.
At the table next to us were a couple of guys who introduced themselves. Heath and Matt Thompson, sons of Mickey Thompson, who once wrote sports for the Ada Evening News, then got into petroleum. Mickey emails me from time to time, too, and both Jimmie Cosby and the Dish have tons of family in Ada, so the Thompson boys basically joined the dinner party.
It was a blast. The Dish ordered the combo, too, and liked the chicken Garozzo best, so she gave me half her steak modiga, so I came away completely satisfied.
I always do at Garozzo’s.
REALITY RANKINGS
Rankings based not on what anyone thinks a team will do or should do, but on what they have done
1. Florida
2. Oklahoma
3. USC
4. Alabama
5. Texas
6. Penn State
7. Texas Tech
8. Utah
9. Oregon
10. Ohio State
11. Boise State
12. Georgia Tech
13. Georgia
14. Cincinnati
15. Oklahoma State
ROLLING HILLS OF KANSAS
You know, I could really grow to hate the Kansas Turnpike, and on this trip I figured out why.
The drive from Wichita to Emporia is actually fantastic. It’s not as scenic as the Rocky Mountains, but the Flint Hills are just completely awesome. Rolling mounds of grassland. Looks like something straight out of Gunsmoke. You half expect to see James Arness come riding that golden horse of his over the range.
At Emporia, you can stay on the turnpike and go up to Topeka, then I-70 through Lawrence into Kansas City. Or you can exit the turnpike and stay on I-35 into KC through Olathe and Overland Park. Since I was headed to south Kansas City, I stayed on I-35.
And the Flint Hills disappear. From Emporia to Kansas City is just ground. It’s like the turnpike authority said, whenever the ground levels out, put up a tollbooth.
That drive from Emporia to KC is the worst part of the trip. The drive from Wichita to Emporia beats any interstate stretch in Oklahoma. But every interstate stretch in Oklahoma beats the drive from Emporia to Kansas City.
TEN BIGGEST LOSERS OF THE WEEK
10. David Johnson: The Tulsa quarterback entered the day as the nation’s passing efficiency leader. Five interceptions later, East Carolina had a 27-24 victory on the Conference USA championship game and Johnson’s final home game was a disaster.
9. Fashion: On the day of the greatest uniform matchup of the last quarter century – the return of USC red vs. UCLA blue on the green grass of the Rose Bowl – Army debuted its camo pants and helmets. Not a good look. Not a good look at all.
8. Vanderbilt: The Commodores break a 26-year bowl drought, the longest among power-conference schools, and Vandy’s destination is … Nashville? Vanderbilt is in the crosstown Music City Bowl.
7. Navy: The Midshipmen rout Army 34-0 but get little bowl reward: The EagleBank Bowl just down in Washington, D.C., against a team, Wake Forest, Navy already has defeated.
6. Boise State: You knew it was coming, but the Broncos’ sensational season – 12-0, a No. 9 national ranking – didn’t earn them a BCS bowl bid. Boise State instead will play TCU in the Poinsettia Bowl, a great matchup worthy of a bigger stage than San Diego’s second-string bowl.
5. Alabama: The Crimson Tide failed to repeat the Oklahoma Renaissance of 2000, winning an unexpected national championship in Year 2 of a coaching Messiah. Now if Bama can just hang onto Nick Saban as long as OU has kept Bob Stoops, everything should be all right in Tuscaloosa.
4. Bowling Green, Arkansas State, Louisiana-Lafayette and San Jose State: Those 6-6 teams did not receive a bid to bowl games. We had 68 bowl berths available and 72 bowl-eligible teams.
3. Nate Davis: The Ball State quarterback had a hand in all five Cardinal turnovers as Buffalo pulled a 42-24 stunner in the Mid-American Conference championship game. Davis had been mentioned as a prime NFL prospect, and maybe he is. But on this night, he didn’t shine.
2. Truth: For several days, Auburn and Tommy Tuberville let the silly idea float that Tuberville stepped down as the Auburn coach. But his mom finally spilled the beans Monday that her boy had been fired. Gary Gibbs taught me a long time ago; nobody quits these jobs.
1. The Independence Bowl: In the last 10 years, here are some schools that have played in Shreveport – Alabama, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Notre Dame, LSU, Texas A&M, South Carolina, Colorado, Oklahoma State, Missouri, Arkansas, Ole Miss, Texas Tech. This year, the Independence Bowl matches Louisiana Tech and Northern Illinois.
TWILIGHT ZONE CHEESEBURGER
Another Kansas City institution is the Town Topic, a hamburger dive downtown on Broadway that never closes.
I hadn’t been to the Town Topic in several years, but me and Jake Trotter went late night after the Big 12 championship game. Jake said he was hungry, and I told him I had just the place for him.
We got there about 2 a.m., and the place was packed. Which frankly is not hard to do.
Town Topic is a little strip of a place, with about eight stools at the counter and two little countertops where you can stand and eat. Maybe room for 15-16 to eat and another dozen or so people to stand and wait.
This is a place right out of 1937, the year the joint opened. And it might have the same employees from back then. Four people were working behind the counter, and I swear, two were there the last time I came into Town Topic. An old woman foreman who kept things humming and a fry cook.
Town Topic’s Ground Zero is a little grill in the corner where all the magic takes place. Burgers and breakfasts and everything that’s not good for you.
Their specialty is an omelet called the Truck Stop. Every blessed ingredient you can think of in an omelet. The burgers are small but inexpensive and scrumptious. And the smell is fantastic.
The only downside? It’s not fast food. Don’t get in a hurry. You’ll order quickly, but your order won’t hit the grill for 15-20 minutes. Accept and enjoy.
The clientele is the ultimate melting pot. Debutants and blue-collar workers. People walking up from who knows where and others arriving in limos.
Straight out of the twilight zone.
-------------Berry Tramel can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including AM-640 and FM-98.1. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter @BerryTramel. Visit Berry's website here.
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Comments
Berry, You ever consider a side career as a travel writer? I’ve never thought about going to KC, but I wanna go NOW! And I’m hungry!
Dave in Greensboro, NC
“his beloved Florida”? One of the great aspects of this Big Bowl matchup is that I cannot imagine how big this game must be to Bob. Will he ever have a game in his life he’ll work harder to win? And as for the House of Pain playing at Owen Field at some point every game? That’s one of the best ideas I’ve ever heard. I think we should do it not just at the start, but at some point in the fourth quarter to celebrate impending victory, as we did at the Tech game. It could be to our fans what lighting up the cigar once was for red Aurbach. It would also give the fans a fourth-quarter “happening” that’s worth sticking around for if the game is a blow-out. It’s such a shame to see all those empty seats we often have in the third quarter.
Has Stoops gone from Big Game Bob to Back Door Bob? This will be the second time he has backed door his way into the National Title Game. It has been clear that Back Door Bob likes to run up the score. He would leave Jason White and Bradford in the game after the game was out of hand. He proved last year in the loss at Tech that his back up QB does not get enough work. If any of our local media had any intergity and show their bias towards Ou they would actually critize Back Door Bob and worship the ground he walks on.
Thanks for great information for next vist to KC. Pokes and horns please let it goes and enjoy your Holiday & Fiesta bowls. Try again next year to stay afloat in B12 champ.
Good luck Cowboys in Holiday Bowl!
Good luck Horns in Fiesta Bowl!
Go Sooners….
The Army uniforms were a hit. I suspect your dislike has something to do wtih generation, but I would bet that they will sell a ton of that look to the urban crowd especially.
I, like many relative youngsters (30), never pay attention to Army-Navy, but this year I at least know about the game because of the uniforms.
based on what they have done???? bwaaaahahahahahahahahahaha. Number 5 beat number 2 on your list on a neutral field by DOUBLE DIGITS. Only you homer Okie writers think leaving your starting QB in and throwing it in the end zone with a 5 TDs lead with 4 minutes left is impressive. Texas has the better loss than OU and Florida. Running it up at every opportunity doesn’t change a thing. 45 to 35 Neutral Field