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Bob Stoops was asked yesterday why he closes practice, what’s the benefit, and Stoops gave what I thought was a very good answer. He said he wasn’t sure there was a benefit, also said he wasn’t sure that was benefit to keeping practices open, but just feels like it’s better for a young player to not get reamed out by coaches while perhaps hundreds of eyes aren’t watching.

That’s certainly a legitimate concern. But here’s another side of the story.  I chatted with one of my wife’s co-workers yesterday. Her husband I’ve known on a very elementary level for two decades. Huge, huge OU football fan.One of those guys that really knows the team. I don’t mean he knows or cares what kind of car Austin English drives, but the fan knows the depth situation at linebacker. Knows who’s the backup right guard. Knows the names of all the new recruits.

This fan recently retired and is bummed out by the timing. Last August and this August, he’s finally got the time to follow the Sooners. Go to the two-a-day practices, watch and study, really take in each player’s strengths and abilities.

Except they’re closed. Closed practices are perceived as a shot at the media, and maybe they are. Certainly closed practices hurt some media, including even some Oklahoman writers. They don’t bother me. That means one less thing I have to do. One less place I have to be. As long as we get to talk to the players and coaches on a regular basis, I’m set.

But the retired fan is screwed. A great outlet for his passion has been squelched. Call him a casualty of the 21st-century order between media and college sports.

Kevin Wilson pointed out a scary little fact the other day. His OU offense on occasion will have NO seniors on the field.

Tailback Allen Patrick and tight end Joe Jon Finley are the only seniors who figure to play extensively, and both have superb backups, DeMarco Murray and Chris Brown, plus Brody Eldredge and Jermaine Gresham.

 Thus the scary part. If OU gets solid quarterbacking, and develops an efficient offense, think of the prowess of 2008. The Sooners would field an offense of veterans, led by a veteran quarterback. 2007 seems promising enough. The Sooners don’t figure to ask too much of their quarterback but have enough weapons to challenge for championships. Give whichever quarterback a year under his belt, with an offense even more experienced, and 2008 looks very, very strong. 

There’s a word you’re going to hear often in the next few weeks.

Access.

The media often complains about limited access, particularly when it comes to football, and the public can misconstrue what we mean.

The public thinks we mean letting us in on stuff. Practices, gameplans, who’s in trouble. That kind of stuff.

That’s not what we mean. We understand keeping us at arm’s length on those issues. Sure, we’d love to poke our heads in huddles and sit in on film watching. But we don’t expect it.

What we do expect is to be able to talk to players and coaches. Simply ask them questions.

And that’s what we mean by access. And that’s what been more and more limited over the years.

Who you can talk to. When you can talk to them.

College football programs have become much more protective of players over the years, and you can understand why. The media has exploded in the last decade. Time was, maybe 3-4 guys would cover a typical OU football practice. Today, anywhere from 15-20 reporters could be there.

Also, unscrupulous forces  —  agents or agent runners, betting representatives, heck, even professional autograph collectors  —  can mix into the media throng. The schools’ response has to batten down the hatches.

OU and OSU are neither worst nor best in terms of working with the media. Some schools are remarkably open with access; USC for example. Some schools are remarkably closed; any school that employs Nick Saban, for example.

OU in 2006 set an offense day and a defense day. You could talk to offensive players after practice on Monday (or Tuesday, I forget which) and defensive players after practice the other day. That’s a once-a-week shot.

If you’re doing a story on wide receivers  —  and 98 percent of college football stories are harmless features just like that  —  that means it could be difficult to chat with Malcolm Kelly, Juaquin Iglesias and Malcolm Johnson in the short time allotted. That’s what we mean by limited access.

OSU set a policy that first-year players were off limits to the media. So when Dantrell Savage ran for 100 yards against Texas A&M, he couldn’t talk to the media. That’s just silly.

A bunker mentality does NOT help a school’s public-relations image, even though schools think it does. Most people in power on college campuses  —  presidents, athletic directors and coaches  —  are into control. They think they can control even the media, which means they are ignorant of more than 300 years of American history.

The professional sports leagues figures this out long ago. They do not try to control the media. They work with the media, not against them. They have access that is tenfold greater than that found on college campuses.

The pros figured out the media propels their billion-dollar business. Not all colleges have figured it out, even though it’s true. 

Oklahoma football has been ordered to vacate its eight wins in 2005, and what’s next? Rafael Palmeiro’s home runs be stricken from the Baseball Encyclopedia? Richard Millhouse Nixon’s portrait be removed from the White House gallery? The Oklahoma
Land Run be cast out of history books?

Rewriting history to make it fit what we wish it had been is goofy ground, and frankly not all that common in a free society. This smacks of totalitarian Russia, where Saint Petersburg becomes Leningrad becomes Saint Petersburg, as the Russians keep coming to grips with their past.

History can’t be squashed, not in this century for sure, and the NCAA Infractions committee clearly doesn’t understand its industry.

Entertainment.

You can’t turn back the clock. You can’t tell people who paid good money for tickets and who spent precious hours spilling their passion that an event didn’t exist.

This is nonsense.  This was not a sanction against
Oklahoma. This was a penalty against Bob Stoops, if he cares about his personal won-loss record, and those of us who chronicle college football history. Not just media, but fans alike.

 We will not pay attention to the NCAA’s decree. The Sooners were not 0-4 in 2005. They were 8-4, and they really did play in the Holiday Bowl, and Rhett Bomar really was the game MVP, and Clint Ingram really did make the game-saving interception. You can’t change history, and the NCAA shouldn’t try.