“…when I lay my vengeance down upon thee.”
By Scott Wright
With all the talk about revenge this week, I can’t get that Samuel L. Jackson line from “Pulp Fiction” out of my head.
“I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger…”
I don’t know if there will be any great vengeance or furious anger in Stillwater Sunday, but it appears the Troy Trojans might think so.
Here’s a story from the Montgomery Adviser, and another from the Dothan Eagle with some interesting comments from Trojans anticipating the Cowboys’ motivation for revenge from last year’s 41-23 loss to Troy.
Of course, Mike Gundy said he hopes his players don’t use revenge as motivation. That theory will work well until the players in the stories above show up on the field of Boone Pickens Stadium and start talking trash.
As you saw in the story from the Dothan Eagle, Troy is awaiting MRI results today on starting defensive end Kenny Mainor, who is believed to have torn his ACL Saturday against Ohio State. It appears to be a fairly big loss. Mainor was fifth on the team in tackles with 14, second in tackles for lost yardage with three.
Friendlier foe?
So given today’s results — Troy hanging with Ohio State early and A&M being unable to stop Miami — which upcoming opponent seems like the easier win for the Cowboys?
-andrea cohen
uni thoughts?
Chit-chatting with some OSU people today, we got to talking about basketball uniforms. Specifically, what color to wear on the road. The Cowboys have only worn orange on the road a couple times in the two seasons I’ve covered them, almost always opting for the black. The orange seems to be more of a losing-streak-busting attempt than anything else — and as we know, it didn’t succeed. When OSU finally broke that road losing streak last year it was at Texas A&M in black unis.
I’m told the man in charge of the whole operation prefers orange uniforms — much like Tiger in red on Sundays his golfers always wore orange on the final day of a tournament. I wonder what the new basketball staff will go with. I’ll have to ask.
Do you fans have a strong opinion one way or the other?
-andrea cohen
walk-on ramblings
So I woke up veeeerrry early yesterday and went to walk-on tryouts at Gallagher-Iba. Wrote about it for yesterday’s paper, but here’s a little more of what went on.
Now, a quick disclaimer: I have a huge soft spot for walk-ons. I just think it means so much to those guys, it’s cool to see how much they care about it and how they work really hard more for the love of the game than anything else.
OK, so now we have that established. Moving on to Wednesday morning, well before sunrise. I walk into the big gym expecting to see tryouts going on, but what I happen upon is OSU’s regular basketball practice, with all the coaches in attendance. I’m a little baffled. So I stay and watch for a few minutes before heading to the auxiliary gym where the walk-ons are having at it. I have to say, I enjoy watching these practices. Travis Ford is strictly business and things move at a pace that borders on frantic. The guys seem to live a little bit in fear of messing up, and it keeps them on their toes.
So then I head over to tryouts. What’s going there is basically the Colvin Center transplanted, a bunch of pickup games without rhyme or reason. Just when someone starts to look decent, he makes a ridiculous error. There’s very little defense. The turnovers are ridiculous. Big guys only get the ball when they rebound; there is no such thing as feeding the post. To be fair, they don’t look all that different from some of the sloppier pickup games the Cowboys play over the summer. Director of operations Joey Biggs is making cuts and dividing up the teams, and after two hours he sends the best 14 or so over to the big gym, where the actual staff watches for no more than 10 minutes. Ford talks to the group, basically warning them that it’s hard work and they’re not going to play. He is not a sugar-coater, this Travis Ford. Four or five guys are asked to write down their info, and that’s that.
A few highlights from our chat with Ford afterward.
1. We ask if he watches reality TV/felt like he was running a show. He mentions that Bob Knight had a show like that (it was on ESPN two years ago). I tell him that Knight actually brought that kid to media day last year. His response: “Really? That’s great. I won’t be doing that.”
2. When asked how many guys he actually has at this point Ford laughed and said “I can’t keep track at this point.” Brad Garrett is injured so he’s not playing at the moment (although Garrett indicated that he hopes to be back before the season starts) and Akol’s eligibility is unclear. So Ford has had 11 players practicing this week. Thus the need for some walk-ons.
3. At the moment OSU has as many basketball recruits as football recruits for ‘09 at five apiece. That’s a pretty crazy number for basketball, but they have a lot of spots to fill in ‘09. What’s interesting is that assistant coaches indicated they’re not done yet. That would seem to mean the staff thinks at least two current guys won’t be around next fall.
-andrea cohen
waiting on Teeng
The school is waiting on results from a testing center, where Akol said he took an ACT in June. Akol’s presence is critical to the Cowboys, who are shorthanded in the post. Aside from Akol OSU has just one player – Ibrahima Thomas – taller than 6-foot-7.
“They will say if it is OK or if I have to take it again,” Akol said. “Everything will be OK.”
Akol, a native of
OSU coach Travis Ford said he’s hoping to get an answer on Akol’s eligibility this week but OSU’s compliance office indicated that a resolution may take longer than that.
By Andrea Cohen
another day, another hoops commit
This time it’s junior college shooting guard Brad Reese, a shooting guard who blew everyone away at the recent Tulsa juco camp. Still trying to get ahold of everyone, so look for more tomorrow.
-andrea cohen
Some first-time appearances
By Scott Wright
Oklahoma State safety Victor Johnson won’t be redshirting. The true freshman from Waco, Texas, has appeared on special teams today, making a tackle on a kickoff during the first quarter.
On the topic of other first-time appearances this season, backup quarterback Alex Cate just took his first snap and has proven to be adept at handing the ball off, which is a good quality today.
Redshirt freshman defensive end Richetti Jones played a few snaps in the first half. The third-string defensive end was hyped out of high school, but has yet to yield results in college.
And finally, an entire second-string offensive line was used in the first half. It consisted of left tackle Nick Martinez, left guard Jonathan Rush, center Andrew Lawrence, right guard Noah Franklin and right tackle Andrew Mitchell.
Kendall keeps on keeping on
Ok, here’s the thing. You look at Kendall Hunter’s numbers very early in the second half (132 yards and counting) and assume the Missouri State defense is a complete mess. But for the most part the Bears have handled Beau Johnson and Ketih Toston just fine. What is it that makes Hunter so ridiculously unstoppable? And who’s going to be able to slow him down?
-andrea cohen
Missouri State pregame thoughts
By Scott Wright
Here’s a sign of how exciting this game should be.
It’s 40 minutes until kickoff, and I can’t stop obsessing over the fact that there’s no black on the turf of Boone Pickens Stadium.
Seriously, the Pistol Pete logo between the 25 and 30 yard lines has a green mustache. I’d like to know one on-campus football field in NCAA Division I that has one official school color on its field and not the other.
Just a little outlining of the letters in the end zone. Anything. Honestly, it probably wouldn’t even be a problem if it wasn’t for that green mustache.
Anyway, about the football game. It’s raining. Not much else to say.
Artrell Woods seems to be moving around well in pregame warm-ups. We’ll see if that strained knee is able to go today.
Now a couple other things to watch for:
1. Health: More important than anything will be the Cowboys not getting hurt. With William Cole in the preseason and Lucien Antoine last week going down with injured ACLs, OSU can’t sustain much more. Cole and Antoine were both expected to make significant contributions.
2. Backup quarterbacks: Surely one of them will play today. Maybe both. Of course, with the rain and the potential for an early blowout, it’s doubtful either will be asked to throw much.
We’ll see what happens.
Hoops commit
Got a basketball call on this football morning. Roger Franklin committed to Oklahoma State last night. More to come later…
-andrea cohen
