Looking for HS football playoff traditions
The high school football playoffs kick off this week, and at many schools and in many towns, that means the keeping of long-time traditions.
Midwest City players paint their shoes gold.
Jenks players die their hair bleach blond.
So, what does your school or community do when the playoffs start? We want to know. Tell us about your playoff tradition, and if you know any details about it — when it started or why it started, for example — we’d love to know that, too.
Email me at jcarlson@opubco.com, and you might see your school featured in this Friday’s edition of The Oklahoman.
Both Cowboys, BPS Earthquake Proof
Sitting in the press box Saturday night after one of the most exciting college football games I’ve ever seen, I was typing furiously trying to get everything done before deadline.
Oklahoma State and Kansas State gave us a gem of a game, but it took forever to get done. With less than an hour to deadline when the game ended, I decided to stay in the press box while my teammates Gina Mizell and John Helsley went to postgame interviews.
Who knew I’d have a chance to test Boone Pickens Stadium’s earthquake readiness in the process?
Yep, the big 5.6 magnitude tremor that hit near Sparks was felt at the stadium. And felt. And felt.
What I first thought was being caused by some rowdy fans — hey, they sway at Texas A&M and the whole press box goes side to side — was quickly pinpointed as an earthquake. The strong shaking lasted a good 20 seconds, but the stadium was still vibrating for another 30 seconds or so.
Not sure Boone Pickens had earthquake-proof on his wish list when he gave all those millions to OSU for a stadium, but he sure got it.
He got a team that is equally solid.
The Cowboys were on the ropes Saturday night. No other way to say it. Their offense was committing uncharacteristic turnovers. Their defense was not only allowing yards but also points. That Cowboy D has been known to do the former but not so much the latter in recent games. It was a recipe for disaster.
The season was crumbling around them. Ditto for their national championship hopes.
Ironically, Pickens talked to a few of us media types at halftime. That was before the game unraveled and the press box shook, but I asked him, a man who’s been so highly successful in business, what it was about this team that he thought made it successful.
He mentioned a lot of things, including coach retention and strong recruiting, but he also brought up Brandon Weeden. Pickens talked about the Cowboy quarterback’s maturity, about what he’s been through, about how that sort of experience comes in handy.
Darn if that wasn’t one of the main things that saved the Cowboys on Saturday night. On OSU’s last three drives, Weeden was 8 of 10 for 149 yards and one touchdown. And had Joseph Randle not weaved his way into the end zone for the game-winning touchdown, something told you that Weeden would’ve found a way to get that score.
In the most important moments of the game, he was at his best.
The Cowboys feed off of that steadiness. There didn’t seem to be panic on offense or defense, and part of that flows from the confidence that Weeden exudes. He wasn’t intimidated. He wasn’t fearful. He wasn’t shaken.
Earthquake proof, just like the stadium around him.
The Morning After: Perspective Needed
I woke up this morning in a hotel room in Kansas City. Our flight home after yesterday’s Oklahoma State game at Missouri isn’t until noon, so as I slowly came into consciousness, I was thinking about how to spend the time before we board the plane.
Trying to figure out how to write about the end of the “Name The Game” contest topped the list.
We had such grand plans to give this year’s Bedlam a special nickname. We asked you to send your submissions about what else to call this Oklahoma-Oklahoma State game, and hundreds of you joined right in. It was an overwhelming response, and every time I got an email or saw a blog comment with a new suggestion, it made me smile. All of you were like all of us on our staff — so excited about the possibilities of two undefeated teams in this year’s game.
But, of course, after Oklahoma’s 41-38 loss to Texas Tech late Saturday night, that isn’t going to happen now.
And neither is the eventual end to our contest.
As I sat down at my computer and started to think about what to write on the blog, I scrolled through my emails first. That’s when I saw an email that looks like several others I’ve received over the past couple months.
The sender: CaringBridge.
The subject: Journal Update Notification for Matt Allen.
As you may remember, Allen is a volunteer softball coach at Bishop McGuinness High School who is battling the most invasive, insidious form of brain cancer. He’s had three brain surgeries. He’s had two years of chemo and radiation. He’s had every reason to be gritchy.
But Matt walks around with a smile on his face.
He’s the most amazing man with the most unbelievable family.
And now, he’s facing more surgery. As Matt’s wife, Kelly, wrote on the CaringBridge website where they keep family and friends updated, doctors discovered this week that a spot on his brain is growing. Because it’s near a ventricle in his brain, chemo isn’t an option. If the chemo gets into the ventricle, the consequences could be extremely dire.
So, Matt is going back under the knife on Tuesday.
Brain surgery No. 4.
That, as my boss said, is bad news unless you’re looking for something to pray for this week.
When I read what Kelly had written about the surgery, everything else I was worried about seemed so irrelevant. Yes, I know OU fans are disappointed today. Yes, I realize Sooner Nation is reeling. And yes, I also understand that this might not make any difference to anyone who bleeds crimson and cream.
But to me, it was a needed dose of perspective.
Use it as you see fit.
“Name The Game” Submissions Abound
The suggestions for our “Name The Game” contest are already coming in. I’ll try to update the list as we go — submissions are due by 9 a.m Monday — but here are the ones that have made the cut so far:
Armabedlam
Armagedlam
Bayou or Bust
BCS Bedlam
BCS Bedlam Brawl
BCS Through BPS
BCSlahoma
B-Day
Bedlam Bonanza
Bedlam D3
Bedlam for Bourbon
Bedlam for Bourbon Street
Bedlam of Bedlams
Bedlam Shootout
Bedlam Slam
Bedlamania
Bedlamgeddon
Bedlamination
Bedlammageddon
Bedlamocalypse
Big 12 Championship Game
Bourbon Bedlam
Hypocalypse Now
Land Rush Bowl
National Semifinal
Occupy Bourbon Street
Occupy Hall of Fame Street
Occupy New Orleans
Oklahoma Shootout at the Cowboy Corral
Oklahoma Showdown
One Bedlam to Rule Them All
Shootout at the OK Corral
Shootout at the OK State Corral
The Bedlam of the Century
The Mother of All Bedlams
The Really Big One at the End
The Semifinals
Ultimate Bedlam
***
Thursday, 11:05 a.m. update
Just when I thought there couldn’t be THAT many more ideas out there, submissions are coming in a steady stream this morning. I’m so glad everyone’s joining in the fun. Here are some new options that we’ve received:
+1
Battle for the Bayou
Battle to the Big Easy
Bayou Battle Royal
Bayou Bedlam Battle
Bayou Bedlam Battle Royal
Bedlageddon
Bedlam and Then Some
Bedlam Battle Royal
Bedlam Behemoth
Bedlam Brawl
BCS: Bedlam Championship Saturday
BCS: Bedlam Championship Series
BCS: Bedlam Cowboys Sooners
Bedlam Eleven
Bedlam for the Ages
Bedlam Galactic
Bedlam Red Dirt Rumble
Bedlam Squared
Bedlamonium
Bedlampalooza
Bedlamship
Big Bad Bedlam
Big Easy Bedlam
Bourblam
Canadian-Cimmaron River Rivalry
Clash of the Oklahomans
Interstate of Hate Date
Mega-Bedlam
Mega Bedlamania
National Bedlamship
Oklahomageddon
Oklahoma’s Newest Lottery
Okie Bowl
Pistols N Ponies for All the Money
Red Dirt Rivalry
Red Dirt Rumble
Showdown in Poke Town
Territorial Dispute
The Bedlam Supremacy
The Bedlam to End All Bedlams
The Bedlam Ultimatum
The Dust Bowl
The Oklahoma World Championship
Bedlam 2011: This Game Needs a Name
This year’s edition of Bedlam is so big that the nickname Bedlam just won’t do.
This game needs a name.
While every Oklahoma-Oklahoma State game is a big deal, this season is setting up for a monumental showdown. The Sooners are No. 3 in the initial BCS rankings that came out Sunday. The Cowboys are No. 4. Even though both teams have hurdles between here and their Dec. 3 game, the chance of an undefeated showdown is high.
What grand fun it will be.
There will be so much on the line. A Big 12 championship. A trip to the BCS national championship game. Bragging rights like never before. It would be Bedlam, a pseudo-Big 12 title game and a pseudo-national semifinal all wrapped up into one.
All of that is why this momentous game needs a special name.
We’ve come up with a couple possibilities here at headquarters — Bedlam Bonanza and Bedlammageddon among them — but we want to hear from you.
What should this year’s edition of Bedlam be called?
You can post your suggestions in the comments section below or email them to me at jcarlson@opubco.com. We are going to take submissions, narrow down the choices, then let you, our readers and fans, vote on which name you want.
Our “Name the Game” Contest starts now!
Tragedy in Sports: Is Danger Just Part of It?
I’ve only seen the replay of the crash that killed Dan Wheldon once.
I don’t care to see it again.
The 15-car pile-up that took the IndyCar driver’s life Sunday at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway was painful to watch. Cars flipped and spun. Metal crunched. Fire plumed. The 33-year-old father of two suffered blunt force trauma to his head that ultimately killed him.
The incident spurred a conversation Monday between myself and Gina Mizell, one of our Oklahoma State writers.
Which would you be more likely to approve of your child being involved in: auto racing or football?
Football has its dangers, including short-term and long-term injuries. Psychological issues involving former pro and college athletes have become a hot topic in the sports world, as well they should be, but there is still so much we don’t know about those types of problems. Beyond that, there are hundreds of kids playing football in youth leagues that lack adequate medical oversight. Yes, there are ambulances and athletic trainers at most every high school game. But what about elementary-school tackle-football leagues? The costs of having such medical personnel there are prohibitive, but the dangers still exist.
Would I want my child (or brother or nephew or friend) playing football with such risks?
As we tragically saw last week with the death of Edmond North High football player Ryan Smith, football can cost players their lives.
The same, unfortunately, goes for auto racing.
A story like Wheldon’s resonates because he was an IndyCar champ, but death and injury happens in the sport at all levels. Even at the smallest of tracks, medical personnel are present, but sometimes the crashes are so severe that there’s nothing that can be done.
Would I want my child (or brother or nephew or friend) racing cars with such risks?
Perhaps the biggest difference between football and auto racing is that injuries in football are more frequent but injuries in auto racing are oftentimes deadly.
Frankly, both sports are scary. There are risks that everyone who plays football or races cars accepts as part of their sport, but as Gina pointed out when we were talking, there are risks in every day life that we have to accept. Any of us could step outside today and get hit by a bus.
Risk is part of living.
So, my answer to our original question of which sport I’d be more likely to allow my child to participate in is both. You can never eliminate the risks in anything that you do. You can only manage them. And as long as that was done as well as humanly possible with proper safety equipment and medical personnel on hand, I would approve of either sport.
Big 12 Reform: Commitment of Rights Is Big
The conference realignment news has been fast and furious in recent days.
Giving every angle it’s due is nearly impossible.
Which brings me to commitment of rights.
Yes, it sounds like something lawyer-ey, and frankly, it is a bit of legal mumbo jumbo. But it might actually be the thing that binds the Big 12 together like nothing else can.
I talked a bit about it during a radio interview Wednesday night with Jeff Culhane, who hosts Husker Sports Nightly in Lincoln, Neb. — you can listen to the whole interview below — but that got me thinking that this is one area that really hasn’t been given its due.
A commitment of rights from each of the schools is something that the Big 12 doesn’t have right now. If agreed upon by the schools, what it would do is require each one to give all their game revenues to the Big 12 during the agreed upon time. A high-ranking source from Oklahoma told me that they want to push for a commitment of rights for more than five years, an issue that will be discussed during the Big 12 board of directors teleconference this afternoon.
Committing their rights would make Big 12 schools moving to other conference nearly impossible during the agreed upon time.
Why?
Because if, say, a school that had agreed to a commitment of rights decided to move to the SEC, it would still have to give every last penny of its game revenues back to the Big 12 until the agreed upon time was up. Do you think the SEC, or any other conference for that matter, would want a school that couldn’t give anything to the conference? That would be reaping the benefits of being in the SEC but not contributing anything to the league?
Doubtful.
Enacting a commitment of rights in the Big 12 would be like having a massive buyout clause that no one would want to fool with. It would bind the Big 12 together in a way that it has never been tied.
Now, is it a little bit of forced togetherness?
Sure. It’s a little bit like saying, “We’re going to get along. We’re going to be so happy together. And just to make sure of that, we’re going to chain ourselves to one another and throw away the key.”
It’s not a perfect method, but I think it could be a legal way of keeping the conference together the schools work out their trust issues. This is a conference that has a lot of broken relationships right now. Repairing those will take time.
Commitment of rights just might buy the Big 12 time to heal.
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Revisionist History by OU, OSU? We’ll See
A high-ranking source at Oklahoma told me earlier today that the school has been working with Oklahoma State behind the scenes on reforming the Big 12 and that OU and OSU used their seeming interest in the Pac-12 as leverage in those discussions.
Sounds like spin, huh?
What else would they say after the Pac-12 shut the door on expansion Tuesday night, only a day after it sounded like the Sooners and Cowboys were as good as gone?
Listen, I’m a reporter who hears all sorts of stuff, so believe me, my spin detector was high as I listened to the story of what happened. I know it could be revisionist history. I understand that it could be a source trying to make OU and OSU look as good as possible.
But here’s the thing — there’s a truth serum for all of this.
The Big 12′s board of directors is meeting Thursday afternoon. The board, which consists of the schools’ presidents and chancellors, will consider half a dozen issues, including the ouster of Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe and the adopting of common rules for any individual network such as the Longhorn Network. If OU and OSU have really been working behind the scenes, if what that high-ranking source said is true, there will be some major decisions at the board meeting and some major reforms in the conference.
After all, there’d been no talk in the Big 12 until recent days about major reform. It had all been about expansion. Add a team or three. Keep doing business as usual. That sums up the “fixes” that had been discussed.
But now, we’re hearing talk about real and meaningful change, reform that might actually fix this broken conference.
And sources are saying that OU and OSU have been the ones working to make it happen, that they have favored such reform in the Big 12 instead of moving to the Pac-12.
Either way, we’ll know it tomorrow afternoon.
That board of directors meeting will be all-telling. If it brings about a bunch of the changes that OU and OSU seem to be behind, then we’ll have a pretty good idea that all of this has been more than talk. But if not, if that meeting is a dud, if nothing major is adopted, then we can chalk all this up as revisionist history.
I’m not ready to say that OU and OSU saying that they preferred the Big 12 all along is spin doctoring.
I’m not ready to say it isn’t either.
That board of directors meeting will be our litmus test.
OSU Football: Mrs. Weeden, is that you?
A week ago tonight, I had the good fortune of watching the Oklahoma State-Arizona game with Melanie Weeden.
The wife of Cowboy quarterback Brandon Weeden has a perspective like no other, and I wanted to share her unique story with our readers. She was nice enough to oblige my request.
As we hashed out details of the evening ahead of time, she told me that her seat in the family section had been selected in advance. Usually, as players’ families pick up their tickets at the will-call window, they just receive the next seats in the section. The athletic department might start handing out the tickets in front first or they might start in the back or they might start somewhere in the middle. It just depends. That means that where she sits usually isn’t known.
The difference in the Arizona game?
ESPN was considering sending its sideline reporter into the stands to interview Melanie, so the network wanted to know where she was sitting.
She was given an aisle seat — seat 50, row 8 in section 209.
I found her there, and because the row was pretty packed and because everyone stood up most of the time anyway, I was mostly in the aisle. But when Ty Weeden, Brandon’s brother, decided to go find some friends, it opened some space on the row. I hung with Melanie for about three quarters, and most of the time, I had a place to sit during timeouts and a place to stand where I was out of the aisle.
The seat?
You guessed it — seat 50, row 8 in section 209.
Now, if you’ve seen Melanie, you know that she has long brown hair and is about 5-foot-6 or so. And if you’ve seen me, you know that I have long brown hair and am about 5-foot-5.
Earlier today, I got a message via Twitter from Melanie.
“Ha!” she wrote. “A guy interviewing Brandon from ESPNU asked him a question about his wife taking notes at the games! He must have seen you in my seat!”
Me: “Please don’t tell me the guy asked that on live TV!”
Her: “Ha! No, I think they’re shooting stuff to play during the TU game. I’m sure B looked at him like he had 10 heads. He knows me better than that!”
At least they didn’t show “Mrs. Weeden” taking notes during the live broadcast last Thursday.
Whew!
EJ Manuel: Running quarterback? Maybe not
Florida State University's EJ Manuel out runs Florida's Ahmad Black for a first down in the fourth quarter of an NCAA college football game which Florida State won 31-7 on Saturday, Nov. 27, 2010, in Tallahassee, Fla.(AP Photo/Steve Cannon)
Frank Alexander has seen as much of Florida State quarterback EJ Manuel in the past week as any player.
The Oklahoma defensive end’s take after watching hours and hours of film in preparation for Saturday’s showdown in Tallahassee?
“He’s an athletic guy,” Alexander said, “but I think he prides himself on pocket passing.”
Passing?
Wait. Isn’t Manuel supposed to be this great dual-threat quarterback? A completely different player and wholly different challenge than Seminole quarterback Christian Ponder was a year ago?
Alexander admits that Manuel is different than Ponder.
“He’s more stable back there,” Alexander said of Manuel. “He doesn’t get rattled as fast. If he sees a blitz, he’ll step up in the pocket and still try to make a throw.
“With Ponder last year, he’d get rattled … he’d take it and run. He’d pull the ball down and run. I think EJ Manuel wants to be a great pocket passer.”
Sooner defensive coordinator Brent Venables backs that up.
“Christian would pull it down a lot more than Manuel,” he said. “They have design QB runs. They have the option and everything else.”
But just taking off?
“He doesn’t get antsy like Ponder would get antsy,” Venables said.
Those assessments of Manuel may fly in the face of just about everything you’ve been lead to believe about the Seminole quarterback, but the numbers back them up. In Florida State’s first two games, Manuel has completed 66.7 percent of his passes for 581 yards and six touchdowns.
His rushing numbers?
He’s only carried the ball 10 times for 30 yards.
Not exactly Michael Vick stuff.
“From the film I’ve watched on him, whenever he had the opportunity to run, he didn’t run,” Alexander said of Manuel. “He’d scramble a little bit and look for an open man to throw the ball.
“I feel like he can run all day. He’s a big guy, a real athletic guy. I feel like he can get out there and run. But I think he wants to let the world know that he can be a passer, too.”
Advantage, Sooners.
Against offenses that have a true dual-threat quarterback, OU has had its struggles over the years. Just look at last year’s games. Against option-running quarterbacks from Utah State and Air Force, OU had two of its closest calls of the season, winning those games by a combined 10 points. Nebraska quarterback Taylor Martinez also gave OU fits in the Big 12 championship game, when the Sooners squeaked by the Huskers by only three points.
Now, I’m not saying that the fact that Manuel is more pocket passer than dual-threat guy means the Sooners are going to roll to an easy victory in Tallahassee. But Manuel being more of a passer gives the OU defense an advantage.
Sure, Manuel may burn the Sooners on a run or two, but every quarterback does that from time to time.
OU is preparing for him much like it’s prepare for Brandon Weeden at Oklahoma State or Ryan Tannehill at Texas A&M.
“With not having a threat of him running, you can be a lot heavier on your rushes,” Alexander said. “When you have a running quarterback, you’re always taught as a defensive lineman not to run behind the quarterback. With him staying in the pocket, that’ll make our rushes a lot more efficient.
“I feel like we don’t have the big threat of him running.”
I’ll say it again — advantage, Sooners.
