Sooners in trouble?
Oklahoma is down 7-0 to Iowa State at halftime.
That’s not an insurmountable deficit by any means. The Sooners could score two or three times in a couple minutes, so a one-touchdown lead is nothing to this team.
But still, there’s reason to think the Sooners might be in trouble. The offense has mounted nothing close to a touchdown-scoring drive. Sam Bradford has been erratic, but his receivers have been lousy to poor. They’re run several bad routes and dropped a couple passes, most notably the one that went off Jermaine Gresham’s numbers, ricocheted into the air and was intercepted by the Cyclones.
To make matter worse, Gresham laid on the ground for several seconds instead of getting up and trying to tackle the guy who picked off the ball.
The Sooner defense has frankly stood as strong as possible. The offense has put them into some predicaments, and still, the Sooners have managed to hold the Cyclones to only a touchdown.
But can the defense hold them off forever?
This game smacks of OU’s game at Colorado. And we all know how that one turned out. Sure hands on the offense failed to make plays, the defense finally broke and the Buffaloes scored one of the season’s biggest upsets.
Will the Cyclones trump the Buffs?
Stay tuned.
Kudos to ‘Clones
Iowa State just missed a 35-yard field goal attempt that would’ve given it a 10-point lead at half.
The Cyclones managed no points, but they took some precious time off the clock. They’ve been managing the clock well against the Sooners. Their last drive lasted almost seven minutes to go with at least one other drive that took almost five minutes.
If you’re not going to get points, running time off the clock is the next best thing for Iowa State. The Cyclones need to shorten this game as much as possible.
Time of possession is almost as precious as points to Iowa State.
Right now, they’ve got the advantage in both.
Talk of upsets
The Oklahoma coaches issued a reminder to their players this week.
A sheet of all the big upsets in college football this season.
It was meant to make the Sooners aware that crazy things have happened this season, that big-time favorites have been upended by the likes of Appalachian State and Stanford.
Perhaps the message missed its mark.
Through the first 10 minutes at Iowa State, the Cyclones have been the better team. The Sooner offense has been stagnant, punting once and turning the ball over once. That turnover put the defense in a tough spot, and it gave up a couple big plays on an Iowa State scoring drive.
The Sooners need to get going and put the Cyclones away.
Don’t want to reinforce the hope that Appy State and Stanford have given every underdog this season
Homecoming opponent?
It’s homecoming at Iowa State.
And Oklahoma’s in town?
Didn’t it used to be that teams scheduled someone they could actually beat on homecoming? The day you have alumni come back and a full house for your game is a day you’d like to have a win. Or at the very least a competitive game.
Apparently, Iowa State didn’t get that memo. The Cyclones have arguably their toughest test of the season in the Sooners.
Of course, if this Iowa State team wanted a homecoming opponent that was a slam-dunk win, it probably would’ve scheduled homecoming in August. Kent State came to Ames on Aug. 30, and frankly, that looked like the most winnable game on Iowa State’s schedule.
It ended up being a 23-14 loss for the ‘Clones, though.
These Cyclones have turned out to be dreadful.
Maybe it’s just as well they scheduled OU for homecoming. It’ll give folks a chance at least one good football team.
Something sour in the Big Apple
Things in New York have me scratching my head. You can watch my video commentary or read here:
Someone needs to explain this one — Isiah Thomas still has a job with the Knicks but the Yankees might ax Joe Torre.
What’s up with that?
Isiah has done nothing but destroy everything he’s been involved with since his playing days in Detroit ended.
Torre has done nothing but win four World Series title by melding groups of potential prima donnas into stellar teams.
And yet the Yankees are the ones having meetings to try to determine the fate of their on-field leader.
Torre is a beloved figure in New York, a place that chews up sports figures. When he announced several years ago that he had cancer, some of his players wept openly. These are the some of the same guys who make up the biggest payroll in baseball.
Torre somehow managed to connect with his high-priced crew. Every manager or coach says they want the problem of too much talent, but with a bunch of superstar players, you always have their super-sized egos. It takes a special leader to manage the personalities AND the play.
Torre is special. In his 12 seasons as Yankees manager, they have been to the postseason 12 times and won 10 AL East titles.
Oh, and lest we forget, the Yankees made the postseason this year even though they were 9 1/2 games back in the wild card race the first week in July. Amazing stuff by Torre.
Then, there’s the amazing stuff from Isiah, though it’s amazing for a whole different reason.
Two weeks ago, a jury found Isiah and his employer, Madison Square Garden, guilty of sexual harassment. A former team executive endured crude insults and unwanted advances from the Knicks coach. She testified that he routinely called her names that are frankly too crass to be repeated here.
Now, the jury has put Madison Square Garden on the hook for $11.6 mil.
Seems that would be enough to get most folks fired.
Not Isiah.
The Knicks are sticking with him. Maybe they’ve just gotten used to squandering money because of him. They haven’t won a playoff game since Thomas joined the franchise in 2003, but he has masterminded several free-agent busts that have cost the Knicks millions.
Maybe they want to see if he can run them into the ground the way he did the CBA and the Pacers.
Far be it from me to understand why Isiah’s job is secure and Torre’s is not. Listen, I’ve been to New York several times and seen plenty of bizarre things. Nothing, though, has been nearly as weird as this.
Ghosts of Cornhuskers past
A couple years back, I interviewed Trev Alberts for a story about Nebraska football.
For whatever reason, the story never ran, but I found myself thinking about that conversation this week. Nebraska fired athletic director Steve Pederson, then brought back Tom Osborne to be its interim AD. No doubt the Cornhuskers are trying to reconnect with the glory of yesteryear.
Who can blame them?
Nebraska football hasn’t been the same since Dr. Tom left, and of late, it’s been abysmal. The Huskers have lost their last two games by a combined score of 86-20.
The balance between reconnecting with the past and living in it can be a tricky one to strike, but frankly, Nebraska may have tried to go too far away from their roots. That’s why I started thinking about that interview with Alberts. He played at Nebraska, then became a television commentator, and while to miffed many a football fan while on TV, he knew Husker football.
He told me that day that after Osborne left, the Huskers strayed from one of the things that brought them the most success over the years. Their walk-on program produced several All-Americans and even a handful of NFL players. Basically, Nebraska asked a bunch of kids every year to come and be walk-ons. Many of the players were life-long Nebraska die-hards. Some could’ve been scholarship players elsewhere. Some probably didn’t have that much talent. But Nebraska gave them a chance, and occasionally a great player emerged from the program.
The walk-on program was all but done away with after Osborne.
Despite the loss of players, Alberts said the biggest problem with that decision was that it cut tied to the Husker faithful. Kids came from all over the state to be walk-ons. Beatrice. York. Valentine. Little bumps in the road. Every Saturday, folks from those places tuned in sometimes just with the hope that they might see their hometown favorite. It helped create the state’s intense passion for the Huskers.
When the walk-ons were reduced, some folks in those little towns started to lose that sense of belonging to the Husker Nation.
Alberts wasn’t suggesting that alone was the downfall of Nebraska, and neither am I. A mighty program like that does not fall from glory without several missteps along the way. But Nebraska may need to reconnect with some of the methods and some of the people that led them to greatness in the past.
The only trick for Nebraska is making sure they learn from the past rather than living in it.
Cowboy carnage
When Oklahoma State notches a big victory, it does more than just win.
It costs someone their job.
OSU has scored its biggest wins of the season against Texas Tech and Nebraska. The Cowboys outlasted the Red Raiders, 49-45, in Stillwater about a month ago. Then last weekend, they throttled the Cornhuskers, 45-14, in Lincoln.
The day after the Tech game, Red Raider defensive coordinator Lyle Setencich quit, citing personal reasons. My guess is, his personal reasons had something to do with head coach Mike Leach asking him to step down. Call me crazy, but that seems entirely likely after Tech rolled up 718 yards of offense and lost.
Then Monday, only two days after the Huskers’ worst loss in half a decade, they fired athletic director Steve Pederson. Safe to say, Pederson was probably on his way out sometime this academic year, but an embarrassing loss to the Cowboys was the final straw.
Had the Huskers just kept Saturday’s game close, Pederson be the Nebraska AD right now. But the Cowboys stepped on the Huskers’ jugular, and Pederson is on the unemployment line.
Safe to say, there’s a lot on the line these next few weeks when Kansas State, Kansas and Texas roll into Stillwater.
Maybe even someone’s job.
Coaches in hot water?
A couple of college coaches have made waves these past two weeks.
Will it doom them?
You can listen to my latest video commentary or read here:
Kelvin Sampson is at it again.
The former Oklahoma men’s basketball coach left Norman amid dark clouds of recruiting misconduct. Too many phone calls to recruits. The NCAA slapped him with one-year sanctions on recruiting.
Now, after a little more than a year at Indiana, Sampson is back in the recruiting doghouse. Indiana announced over the weekend that the coach broke his one-year penalty phase by participating in three-way recruiting calls on 10 occasions.
Indiana took away a scholarship for 2008-2009 and a $500,000 bonus for Sampson.
Ouch.
Many a Hoosier fan expressed outrage on internet message boards. Some even demanded that Sampson be fired. No doubt some would be angry regardless, but the truth is, as long as Sampson keeps winning, he’ll keep his job.
Winning is priority one, two, three and probably even four for a coach.
Look at Dennis Franchione. The Texas A&M coach is in hot water for providing an exclusive newsletter to a select group of boosters. For $1,200 a year, those boosters could buy the service, which included inside info on injuries as well as candid, and sometimes not-so-nice, assessments of players.
Texas A&M knew nothing of the newsletter.
Athletic director Bill Byrne talked last week of the embarrassment that the school felt over this incident.
I don’t doubt their embarrassment, but the significance of the situation depends solely on how Coach Fran’s teams do on Saturdays. For example, if the Aggies win the Big 12 South this season, go to the Big 12 Championship Game, maybe even play in a BCS bowl and turn around what has been an otherwise abysmal stretch for Texas A&M, the newsletter will be a footnote to the season. But if last week’s four-touchdown loss to Texas Tech is the start of an ugly slide that ends with a so-so season, the newsletter will be a much bigger deal.
The same goes for Sampson.
His Hoosiers made the NCAA Tournament a year ago, and if there’s more of the same or something even better this season, the recruiting issues won’t seem so bad to even the most incensed Indiana fan today.
It used to be that coaching college athletics was about more than winning. Graduating a high percentage players and running a clean program were important. Now, those things are nice, not necessary.
Bad for college athletics.
Good for coaches like Kelvin and Fran.
Looking ahead to the weekend. Watch here on my video commentary, or read here on my blog:
All signs point to Oklahoma-Missouri being a big game.
The Sooners are ranked sixth, the Tigers 11th. The Sooners have one loss but are still in the national title hunt. The Tigers are undefeated but are still trying to work their way into the national title hunt.
Pundits and prognosticators are buzzing about this game. ESPN is bringing GameDay to Norman. Anticipation is building, and excitement is growing.
My guess? It’s all for nothing.
I predict a blowout.
No doubt the Tigers are an improved team. They had a crazy-good offense a year ago, and it has only gotten better. And I suspect their defense is better, too. Then again, it really couldn’t get much worse.
But everyone seems to think that Missouri’s 41-6 victory against Nebraska last week is a sign that the Tigers are legit.
Uh, anyone remember what Ball State did to Nebraska?
Ball State pushed the Cornhuskers to the brink. They eked out a one-point victory, and it was at home in Lincoln. This is not your daddy’s Nebraska team. Heck, this isn’t your older brother’s Nebraska team.
Missouri blowing out Nebraska isn’t exactly the most impressive victory ever.
Granted, Missouri beat Illinois in its season opener. The longer the season goes, the better that win looks. The Illini have been surprisingly good this season, but let’s not forget, Illinois’ two big wins have been against Big Ten teams, Penn State and Wisconsin.
Repeat after me: the Big Ten stinks.
On the surface, Missouri has played good ball, but dig down a little deeper, and you see the Tigers have yet to really be tested. Rest assured, they will be Saturday.
Oklahoma isn’t going to shut out Missouri, but I’ll be shocked if the Tigers stay within two touchdowns. The Sooners have a defense capable of handling the Tigers’ offense, and OU’s offense is unlike anything Missouri has seen so far.
My prediction: Oklahoma 42, Missouri 24.
And you think Bedlam gets ugly
Word out of Lubbock is that a fraternity at Texas Tech has been banned from selling T-shirts bearing the likeness of Michael Vick hanging Reveille, Texas A&M’s canine mascot.
The slogan on the shirt: VICK ‘EM.
It’s just another ugly chapter in the Texas A&M-Texas Tech rivalry.
Back in 2001 after a Red Raider victory in Lubbock, about 1,000 Tech fans tore down the goalposts and hoisted them into the A&M section. Aggie fans were none too pleased and retaliated by throwing ice. A skirmish ensued.
Two years earlier when Tech won in Lubbock, Red Raider fans rained batteries down onto Aggie players, then tore down the goalposts and paraded them past the A&M team buses.
Then back in 1992 and 1993, Tech fans tossed hundreds of tortillas onto the field. That second year, many of the tortillas carried nasty messages aimed at A&M.
The good news is Texas Tech nipped these latest shenanigans in the bud. The school temporarily suspended the fraternity that tried to sell the T-shirts and will submit it to judicial review. The school said it wouldn’t allow items that are “derogatory, inflammatory, insensitive or in such bad taste” to be sold on campus.
And what about the knucklehead who was the mastermind behind the T-shirt?
Geoffrey Candia is the Texas Tech student’s name. He told Texas A&M’s student newspaper sometime on Monday for Tuesday’s edition that he wanted to give 50 percent of the proceeds to an animal defense league in Lubbock.
“Because we knew there would be a controversy about the shirts, you know, animal rights, stuff like that,” Candia told the paper.
Hmm, you think?
Of course, Candia then had a posting on his Facebook site about 4 a.m. Tuesday — AFTER he talked to the Texas A&M paper — that said: “a little tshirt get aggies all worked up … its a t-shirt people!”
The Texas A&M-Texas Tech rivalry isn’t the most storied or most revered, but that hasn’t kept it from having some of the most intense and ugly moments you’ll ever see in college football.
