Bailing on the BCS
West Virginia has lost its football coach for a BCS bowl, and Oklahoma has been down this road before. Mike Price resigned as Washington State’s football coach before the 2003 Rose Bowl to take the Alabama job. Price agreed to stay on for the Rose Bowl as co-head coach, with his defensive coordinator Bill Doba, who was named to replace Price.
The whole thing was a mess, and OU dominated Washington State 34-14.
Coaches who bail before BCS bowls are rare. Urban Meyer resigned at Utah in 2004 but stayed on to coach the Utes to victory over Pitt in the Fiesta Bowl. Bobby Petrino didn’t leave Louisville for the Atlanta Falcons until after the Orange Bowl against Wake Forest.
It’s scandalous that any coach walks away from his team. But it happens every bowl season. Just not very often with teams that reach the BCS.
Heupel the winner?
On KREF radio yesterday, Toby Rowland asked former OU quarterback Paul Thompson who on the Sooner staff would be the best head coach. Thompson said Josh Heupel.
Interesting answer. Heupel, by seniority, is on the bottom of the OU pecking order. By title, he is far down. But expect Heupel to quickly move up. Bob Stoops’ loss of Kevin Sumlin, to Houston U., opens a spot for advancement. Expect Heupel, OU’s quarterback coach, to move up to co-offensive coordinator.
I thought if Kevin Wilson got a head-coaching job this year, Heupel would be the choice, even above Sumlin, to be OU’s next offensive coordinator. Stoops hired Mike Leach as his offensive coordinator in 1998 and has subsequently had to hire three more o-coordinators. All came from in-house.
Mark Mangino had been offensive line coach under Leach and remained so even after becoming offensive coordinator. When Mangino left, Chuck Long became the coordinator, after serving as quarterback coach under Mangino for two years. When Long left at the end of 2005, Wilson moved up to coordinator after three years as offensive line coach.
Stoops promotes from within. That leads to continuity and good morale on the staff. Heupel is a rising star in the coaching ranks. You could tell when Heupel played that he had the mind of a coach. He will be OU’s next offensive coordinator.
Sumlin continues Sooner trend
It happens like clockwork. Every odd-numbered year, Bob Stoops loses an assistant who becomes a head coach at another Division I-A school. Today, it’s Kevin Sumlin, the OU receivers coach who will be named coach at Houston U. on Friday.
Good for Sumlin. Houston is a good mid-major job. The Cougars are poised to be the class of Conference USA’s West Division. Tulsa and Texas-El Paso have been competitive in recent years, but UH should be the most consistent winner in that group. The recruiting ground is fertile, the tradition solid and while facilities don’t rival the Big 12 schools, Houston still can win.
Sumlin just missed out on the Washington State job, which went to Eastern Washington’s Paul Wulff, but I think Sumlin might have come out ahead with Houston. WSU is a better job, but Houston probably is a better stepping-stone job. If Sumlin’s goal is to be a head coach at a big-time school, Houston can be a launching pad. Art Briles went to Baylor from Houston, but you can beat that job.
This keeps the Stoops pipeline on track. In 1999, Mike Leach went to Texas Tech. In 2001, Mark Mangino to Kansas. In 2003, Mike Stoops to Arizona. In 2005, Chuck Long to San Diego State. Now 2007, Sumlin.
And with Kevin Wilson and Brent Venables still in the stable, the clockwork could continue in 2009. Of course, either could be gone before then.
Southern Miss a solid job
Last September, I was given an assignment. After Appalachian State upset Michigan, we did a big project on college football upsets, and how the little guy isn’t so little anymore. I was asked to identify the next Boise State. The schools that could rise up from mid-major status and knock off a big boy in a BCS bowl.
I listed Southern Mississippi No. 1. That’s the job OSU offensive coordinator Larry Fedora apparently is going to get, and it’s a good one. The Golden Eagles don’t have a lot of money, but they’ve been playing good football for a very long time, under a series of coaches. In the last quarter century, Southern Miss is 24-71 against BCS-level foes, with most of those games on the road. The Eagles have beaten Nebraska, Florida State, Georgia, LSU, Virginia Tech twice, Auburn twice and Alabama three times, plus OSU twice, Illinois twice, North Carolina State and Pitt.
Southern Miss is in a solid league, Conference USA. The East Division includes Central Florida, Alabama-Birmingham, Memphis, Marshall and East Carolina. That’s not a bad grouping. Competitive. But Southern Miss is the best football school in the bunch. Southern Miss can compete favorably in Conference USA and spring the occasional upset.
This is a good job. Fedora can win there.
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.
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.
