Emails in on Sun Bowl, OSU schedule & Oklahoma Bowl
The new emails are in, and there’s a healthy dose, even for a holiday week. Let’s get to it.
Frank wrote about my column that stated Bob Stoops is in a no-win situation in the Sun Bowl: “Why did you write this very negative article? Do you want to destroy Stoops? He’s had to play the very best teams in the country so many times. Just getting there is rare for any coach. Are you angry that OU trounced OSU? That great win and beating Stanford will propel us into 2010 in a big way. STOP the negativity!”
The answer to your original question is, because it’s the truth and because it was fair. That was an easy one to write.
Wayne:”I have enjoyed reading your articles for many years. However, there is one area where I do not like what you say so boldly in big print. Not many days pass that you do not knock Bob Stoops for his record in BCS bowl games. You make it sound like he is a no-good coach in major bowl games. The fact that he gets his team to the game in the first place is a great accomplishment that most coaches would be glad to be able to do as well as he. The Sooners had terrible luck this year with injuries but still salvaged a winning season. Why not build our coach up and encourage him? I think if a poll were taken in Oklahoma on how many people would trade Bob Stoops for any other coach in America, you would find that Stoops is loved by Oklahomans and would trade him for none. It sounds like you have sour grapes or something. Did Stoops say or do something to you that causes you to write the kind of articles I am talking about? You belittle yourself with each story of this kind. I would like it if you printed a response to my email on the sports pages.”
Not on the sports page, but here’s a response on the blog. You’ve got to be kidding. Bob Stoops gets paid $4 million a year yet needs encouragement? Needs my encouragement? If a poll were taken of OU fans, the majority would say they love Bob Stoops but it’s about time he won a BCS game, and the majority would agree that the Sun Bowl doesn’t count.
Larry: “Normally I agree with you, Berry, but I have to disagree with your article regarding no-win situation in the Sun Bowl for Bob Stoops. It would be a great success for Bob if he brings a team that is disciplined and plays in an efficient and productive manner. It would give us fans something to look forward to for next year. I am pretty disgruntled with our Sooners. I don’t have to tell you that we expect them to be well coached and to play as if they had some discipline. I believe if the Sooners go to El Paso, play well, show discipline and win a game that they should win it will set a tone for these young guys for next year.”
I don’t see it. If the Sooners go to El Paso and beat a Stanford team playing without its quarterback, what does that prove? And even if it does propel the Sooners for 2010 (I never buy that theory; the Sooners lost the 1999 Independence Bowl), that doesn’t erase Stoops’ BCS stigma.
Jim: “Can’t you find anything good to perpetuate, like success in the Big 12 and owning OSU. If OU beats Stanford, that’s a big deal to me, given the way this seasons has gone and hopefully bodes well for next year. Remember this; Stanford beat USC, whom the media loves.”
Sure, it’s better to win than to lose. But again, folks, beating Stanford won’t improve Bob Stoops’ bowl status one iota. Losing would hurt Stoops, but winning won’t help.
Bill wrote about El Paso memories: “I reading your piece on the earlier Sun Bowl and thinking how I would not likely go to this one and how a lot of other people probably have the same reaction. Too bad. I had one of the greatest times of my life in El Paso. I was at a school at Fort Bliss for three months at the end of a longer school at Fort Sill on my way to Viet Nam in 1965. Absolutely perfect spring weather. About half of the class was in the same category as me, on our way to Viet Nam, and another third were just back. The course, something about air defense in the counter-insurgency role, had a real hard time holding our attention, so we looked for other things to do, especially at night, instead of studying. Juarez supplied part of the answer. We spent several afternoons at the race track (dogs in the daytime and horses at night). We went to the bull fights on Sundays. Some, who were so inclined, heavily cruised the Juarez clubs and bars. At night my crowd mostly stayed in El Paso. There were more bars than you could count, and 100% of them had live music, even the military clubs, and not just the usual bar music but really great music. As far as I could tell, 100% of the musicians arrived from Mexico around 7 p.m. and stayed later than I did. They were a wonderful way to pass the time with our families mostly in Lawton or having been sent home to wait out Viet Nam, and we hit them just about every night. Which brings me to the Bar Seville. It was right downtown, fairly small, L-shaped with a little six inch high stage at one end of it where the musicians stood/sat. The wait staff were a mix of young men and women. The first time this happened to me it was unexpected and I was dumbfounded. A waiter brought our drinks, set them on the table, took a step back and broke into an operatic song in a fabulous tenor voice. Then I noticed the women doing the same thing; breaking into a short aria after delivering the drinks. This went on and on all evening, and, in fact, every evening that we went there for the entire time we were there. It turned out that they were all music students at (what was then) Texas Western College. They were just like college kids all over who waited table to work their way through college except that they all had splendid voices and the whole act was coordinated with the musicians. Once an hour or so they would go up with the band and do a couple of real songs. Even allowing for the amount of beer we were drinking, they were very, very good. I never saw anything like it anywhere before or since. Except for being on my way to Viet Nam I loved El Paso. I’m sorry the folks now can’t enjoy El Paso, and certainly not Juarez, like I did 34 years ago.”
I’m headed to El Paso in a couple of days. I’m not optimistic. Sounds like a place that lost its greatest tourist attraction (Juarez) and has a chip on its shoulder. I was on an El Paso radio show the other day, and the hosts were upset with my video, which suggested that OU fans aren’t excited about the Sun Bowl. These guys kept talking about what a great place El Paso is in which to live. Maybe so. But no one from Oklahoma is going there to live. Oklahomans are going there to visit.
Chris wrote about my column concerning OSU’s lack of an annual game in Dallas, in the face of every other Big 12 South doing so. “I enjoyed the OSU-Georgia series, attending both games, as well the OSU-UCLA series a few years back. I am not against scheduling good competition. I am concerned about locking into games outside of Stillwater. The only reason OSU played eight home games this year was because Mike Holder thought OSU would be playing Texas Tech in the Dallas area this year. Didn’t happen. OSU has played 11 games in Texas since Mike Gundy took over…12 with this year’s Cotton Bowl. Have you checked out OSU’s recruiting verbals? Why must people want to fix what isn’t broken? I am thrilled that Texas Tech/Baylor is in Dallas; (thrilled because OSU will not have the opportunity to play them in Dallas anymore during this contract). Don’t make too much about the Dallas area. We have signed Tatum Bell and Byron Eaton under the same conditions. Don’t compare us to OU and Texas. That takes time; this year proves we are not there yet. OSU is not missing the bus, we have our own bus, courtesy of Pickens and others. We will continue to rise. OSU faced a lot of adversity this year and still finished 9-3. I remember Sept. 5, basking in the warm sun after beating Georgia and just soaking up that great win.”
Great points. I guess my strongest thoughts are this. I’m all for a Dallas game if it means an upgrade to OSU’s schedule. If the Cowboys can upgrade their schedule without Dallas, then who cares? But I’m convinced the Cowboys can’t significantly make a dent nationally playing a steady diet of Troys and Louisiana-Lafayettes. Chris is exactly right. Think what that Georgia game did for OSU.
Craig also wrote about the issue: “Good article, I agree. But I will never sit in the very top row of JerryWorld. I am an experienced climber and I could not believe how steep the upper section is! At the BYU game, one of the ladies in our group got dizzy and scared because of the steepness. She and my wife got up and left. I also wish we could play one game in Houston each year. That would be fun and get good exposure.”
I don’t like the Houston idea. Dallas is centralize and easy to get to. Houston is not.
Danny: “I thought about this off and on through the year and wanted to get this idea to you. The NCAA would schedule the last two weeks of the season based on the power rankings after the bowl games. The teams ranked 1-30 would play 2 games each, one home and one away. You might have to switch a team if they are in the same conference, but 1 would play 11 and 21, 2 would play 12 and 22, and so on. You would do the same thing with teams 31-60, 61-90, and 91-120. This way teams like TCU, Boise State, BYU, etc. wouldn’t be able to say the BCS teams won’t play us and it would help ease scheduling. You could have a couple of easier games to start the season to warm up and adjust, or to play a rivilary series. It doesn’t bring the meaningful games to the beginning of the season like you would like, but conference play would begin earlier and everyone would have a more equal schedule. You wouldn’t have teams scheduling four easy wins any more. I like playing at least one easy game first to try to work out the kinks in the offense and figure out what you are doing with your players.
Look, I know college football needs fixing. Some believe the postseason is an absurdity, some of us believe the regular season is the outrage. But can we please stay sane? Play regular-season games after the bowls? Why not schedule by drawing out of a hat?
Tommy wrote about my Oklahoma Bowl column: “At one time in the early and mid ’60s, an All Sports Bowl in Oklahoma City did exist. The All Sports Association sponsored it. The home team was the winner of the regional college system. They would invite sundry same-sized teams from the U.S. I am not sure how long it lasted. I saw one game at Taft, the venue. Slippery Rock (Pa.) vs. Northeastern. Northeastern smothered them. I remember the wind blowing so hard out of the south that Slippery Rock punted into that wind and the ball hung in the air and then drifted back behind the line of scrimmage. I remember a small attendance that got smaller as the game progressed.”
Speaking of wind, can you imagine a football game played in the kind of wind we had Thursday, the day of the blizzard? Forget the snow or the cold. That was 40-50 mph wind consistently. That would have been a wild football game. No one in their right mind would pass into that wind. Pass? Heck, no one would punt into that wind. When you had the ball, you would run three plays up the middle, milk the clock as much as possible and try to hang on til the wind came your way.
Don, same subject: “The Oklahoma City All Sports Association has hosted a bowl bame. It was called the All Sports Bowl and was held at Taft Stadium during the early 1960s. The All Sports Bowl matched games between small colleges. The one with which I am most familiar was held in 1961 between Panhandle A&M and Langston. As I recall, Panhandle was a member of the old Oklahoma Collegiate Conference and Langston was not — or maybe it was the reverse. I attended the game at Taft, and it was a classic matchup. Panhandle was a perennial NAIA power, ran a fearsome single wing and was old-school tough. Langston was flashy. They featured the rollout passes and scrambling of Donald Lee Smith from Ardmore Douglass. An added attraction was the black vs. white aspect. Panhandle narrowly won, and I still remember the game fondly. Another All Sports game I recall was between Northeastern State and Slippery Rock (Pa.). Many Okies had heard of Slippery Rock because the PA announcer at OU would always announce the Slippery Rock score with great fanfare. Some even thought Slippery Rock was a mythical school. Northeastern State won handily.”
Here’s an interesting thought. Would small-college teams – NAIA or lower NCAA divisions – prefer the bowl system? Everyone talks about how great a playoff would be, and how every other division does it, but does anyone ever wonder if the players like it? Would they prefer a bowl trip. San Diego and Miami wouldn’t be available, but would they prefer one of the minor bowl destinations? Mobile, Shreveport, some place like that. I don’t know, but the answer is not automatically no.
Then there were a variety of off-the-wall subjects. Steve: “What’s up with the new Dallas place kicker? I can understand them cutting Nick Folk, but I can’t understand them picking up someone the ‘Skins cut who also missed his share of field goals. Is there something I’m missing here? Do they just want someone established? Or would they have to go through the union and league physical hassles to get someone else? It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.”
It’s a lot like politics. You don’t really ever look at who you’re putting into office. Most votes are thumbs up or thumbs down on the incumbent. As a Redskin, Shawn Suisham missed chip shots against New Orleans and Dallas, probably costing Washington both games. But Dallas only knows that Nick Folk had to go, and Suisham won a kicking contest in practice. Who replaced Folk was largely irrelevant. Only that he was replaced.
Bruce: “I know I’m a bit late getting into this discussion, but as someone who follows the South more closely than the North. I have a question about the KU hire. I just don’t get the idea that Gill is some sure-fire, can’t-miss program builder. Here is a coach who is 10 games under .500 and plays in the can’t-walk-and-chew-gum division of the MAC. Yeah, last year was a great story and all but they still went 8-6 and had to go to overtime to get three of those wins and get another in an extremely fluky Hail Mary. I know Buffalo is near the bottom of I-A schools, but it’s not like the difference between Buffalo and Bowling Green (I guess the best job in the MAC East) is as great as the difference between KU and Nebraska. Again, I am not saying that Gill will fail, but there is nothing =yet to indicate that KU will be the best or second to best team in the North five years from now.”
Who besides Lew Perkins is claiming Turner Gill as a home run? Pete Carroll and Nick Saban weren’t interested in the job. But don’t dismiss the job Gill did at Buffalo. The difference between Buffalo and Bowling Green might very well be as great as the difference between KU and Nebraska. Buffalo was the ultimate dead-end job, and Gill did something with it.
Jeff: “I was needing a little input for my fantasy football league. I am in the championship game and have a 13-2 record. However, I can only start one of these two players and am not sure which to start. Ricky Williams, who plays against Houston, or Ray Rice, who plays against the Steelers. Which defense is better against the run? Rice has done better throughout the year, but Williams has done better the last couple of weeks. What do you think?”
I think I don’t play fantasy football. I know millions of people do it, and they say it makes the NFL fun. But for me, fantasy football ruins the real stuff. I’m watching Chargers-Titans as I type this, free to cheer for whoever I want (in this case, Tennessee), and don’t have to worry about individual performances. The NFL is great competition. Never know what will happen. I love to watch the games to see who wins. Not who rushes for 100 yards.
Steve: “If you’re looking for a good column sometime, let me suggest one on some of the classic games the MLB Network shows. Those are really fun. Not only the great stars of the past, but it’s a look how the coverage of the World Series has changed, and it’s fun to hear from the old broadcasters. Gowdy and Cosell. Amazing how much bigger the players are today. And you look at 1970, or so, and everyone is wearing a tie to the ballpark.”
You know, I do not watching sporting events in which I know the result. Prrobably 90 percent of my television-sports watching is with DVR, and if I find out the score, the game is ruined for me. But with that said, I would rather watch a 1970 baseball replay game, playoffs or World Series, than a live game. And much of the reason is what Steve said here. The broadcasters, though not Gowdy or Cosell. I loved Howard Cosell on football, but he was a bore in baseball. And I never liked Gowdy much. But when it was Joe Garagiola and Tony Kubek, and later Vin Scully, well, that was as good as it got.
Andrew wrote about the Big Ten expansion: “I noticed you claimed Mizzou had a better academic standing than Nebraska. That is a fictitious claim. NU and KU are ranked as 96th in the country with Mizzou just behind them at 102. What is interesting though is NU has a low acceptance rate at 63% and MU is in the 80s. You also failed to mention NU’s other athletic programs rather than just saying that it only has football. Remember the Big 10 network is an all year network, not just August to March Madness. NU consistently ends in the top four of the Big 12 for all-sports standings. MU rarely enters the top five or six. You also failed to mention Nebraska’s athletic budget is also closer to the Big Ten than is MU’s. The other issue I’ve seen is TV audience. Don’t forget the two largest city populations in Missouri are border cities. This in itself actually limits Mizzou. Nebraska consistently pulls more fans in attendance and on the TV tube. Problem is Berry, that Nebraska, like it or not, is a better fit than Mizzou. Don’t be surprised if NU makes the move to the Big Ten.”
You’re right, I was wrong, on the academics. Turns out they’re all ranked about even – NU, MU and Kansas. And yes, TV ratings for Nebraska are better than for Missouri, which matters. But other sports, this side of basketball, don’t matter. But here’s why Missouri will be in the Big Ten before Nebraska is. The Huskers aren’t likely to go. Nebraska loves its tradition and embraces it. Missouri has little tradition. Nebraska would be a hard sell. Missouri would say yes to the Big Ten in five seconds.
Edgar wrote about the closing of State Fair Speedway: “This is just heartbreaking. Fools don’t know what they have. Nice how they waited a polite week and a half after getting citizens to agree to pay for their wish list before dropping the bombshell on the Speedway. The reasons are bunkum. It’s selfishness, a land grab. The well-heeeled connected get all their dream projects approved, then stick a knife in the heart of motorsports fans in gratitude. Greedy hicks. Snakes have schemed it for a time, letting the facility go to seed, mothballing the half mile, taking OKC off the World of Outlaws circuit and then point to falling attendance. Really. Perhaps the tragic melon-headed decision to pull down the monorail, a charming hip relic of space age optimism, a first step. Have to get rid of it first. Always dangerous to OKC heritage when there are Republicans making the call. Remember Kirk Humphreys’ bizarre zeal to raze the Gold Dome. There are two others in existence I believe. Let the lab have my Thunder gear to chew on. Screw it. I’m with Sonic fans. Hope Kevin Durant bolts the hick town when his contract is up.”
I agree, this was squirrelly politics, scrapping the Speedway write after the MAPS3 vote. But time marches on. The Speedway was a relic, it didn’t bring much money, if any, into the city, and the State Fair could make better use of the land. Tulsa’s track closed a few years ago, for no reason as good as making way for State Fairgrounds improvement. The charge of “hick town” is laughable. Oklahoma City’s move away from hickville is what killed the speedway. Time was, OKC needed working-class entertainment to keep its sports profile afloat. That is no longer, and while the working class is the big loser, that’s what happens when cities grow.
-------------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
Regarding El Paso: It ain’t Pasadena, New Orleans, Phoenix or Miami — but I’m willing to bet the city can show you a good time without a Juarez donkey show. Fun places to visit make for a good bowl game, but so do good people. You’ll meet a few here.
And don’t form opinions based on sports talk hosts — nobody I know has gone to Juarez to cruise the bar scene for at least a decade, so there is no chip on our shoulder about “losing our biggest attraction”. We ARE cheesed about losing access to excellent (and cheap) dentistry and pharmaceuticals, though.
Lack of interest in the game is one thing. But when we hear that fans are afraid to visit, it rankles because to us it just seems a little stupid. We feel the need to tell folks that the stats are hard to beat — you’re safer in El Paso than in OKC or Tulsa.
I know you like to think that you have the pulse of the students that you cover. I have not doubt that back in the 70′s and 80′s they didnt give a dame about winning one bowl game to the next but i strongly disagree that this is the csse this year even if it is in the Mexican murder bowl. I think that we want to win because they havent felt it in real way in a long time.