Pathetic…

Admitting a mistake and learning from that mistake has become a lost art in today’s world. I was wrong about OU baseball, and I need to admit that mistake and learn from it.  That mess that the Sooner baseballers threw out there over the weekend in Manhattan was about as ugly as it gets, and yes, Skip Johnson should man up and own it.   

Making matters worse is that Skip Johnson, the current Sooner head coach was schooled by his former boss and current K-State head coach Pete Hughes.  Ironically, Pete Hughes was fired to make room for Clint Johnson.  Maybe, we need an apology for that move.  In any case, losing three in a row in Manhattan is bad enough, but to blow a four-run lead in the final two innings in the series finale is even worse. 

Can you imagine taking this bunch to the SEC in future years.  As Forest Gump once said, “stupid is as stupid does”. Here’s a thought…let’s allow certain sports (football, softball, and gymnastics) that can be competitive in any league move to the SEC.  Then in a few years, we can take the “not ready for prime-time” teams (men’s basketball and baseball) to make the move over as well…this will allow these coaches and teams to hone their skills.    

Otherwise, we will see even more embarrassing moments like we endured during the most recent men’s basketball season and over this past weekend in Manhattan…

Seriously, I am getting too old for this stuff…

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Diamond excellence…

What a great weekend for our Sooners on the diamond.  First the baseballers took two of three from the #11 ranked TCU Horn frogs and then our softballers smoked the competition by going five for five at the Hall of Fame Classic in OKC.  In baseball the Big 12 can be tough league with numerous teams being Omaha material so getting ahead of the game with a series win in conference play is a huge deal.

Our softballers dominated and then some on their side of the bracket taking five in a row in OKC.  To say the Sooners were overwhelming would be an understatement. In five games the Sooners went 38-3 against their opponents.  More importantly, Patty Gasso threw all four pitchers during the weekend.  Those pitchers struck out 51 batters and combined for a team earned average of .072 era in five games.   Unbelievable…

Of course, on the softball side, the Sooners can be expected to host both a regional and super regional prior to the World Series.  In baseball, hosting a regional and/or super regional will be much tougher due to the level of competition in college baseball and the size of L. Dale Mitchell Park.  We can go ahead and book our tickets for OKC, but I would hold off a bit longer for that trip to Omaha. 

In any case, what a great weekend for the Sooners on the diamond…

Boomer Sooner…

Now what…

About the time we think that OU basketball can’t get any worse, it does…the Sooners lost their third game this season to little brother. When was the last time that happened.  How about never…this simply cannot happen again, ever…

Here’s the deal…we are stuck with Porter Moser as our coach for the foreseeable future as pulling the plug on the guy would cost between six and eight million dollars.  We have no choice, but to sit tight and hope that Moser has a Plan B. 

In Porter Moser’s defense, it took him some time to put together a winner at Loyola Chicago, so we must give him time to replicate that move in Norman.  Porter is now aggressively campaigning for a fan-friendly arena for his product.  This guy is pretty sharp as he is using a losing season and the competition to make his case.  He says look around and see what other arenas look like on game day.

As a result, expect the OU Regents to announce plans for a new arena Sooner rather than later.  Someone had to believe in this guy, and they want him to succeed.  Of course, winning in the short term will help his case as well.  Porter must hit the transfer portal circuit hard to bring in a boat load of talent, particularly ready-made big men that can play big boy basketball.  Basketball is not that much different than football…you have to have big guys in the middle to compete. 

Don’t give up the ship just yet…let’s give Porter Moser one more year to get ‘er done.

Boomer Sooner…

Here we go again…

This time last year, I was thinking that I had gotten sucked in once again by believing in the Sooner baseball program.  For some reason, I allowed myself to believe and that belief became a reality with a trip to Omaha.

College baseball is not for everyone as the games can click along at a painfully slow speed with its nine-inning game and various strategies.  In the end, it can be worth the wait. I have always enjoyed watching coaches try to outmaneuver the other guy…after all it’s the thinking man’s game. 

I also enjoy the fact that the competition level of college baseball allows a team to lose games early in the season only to rebound later in the year. The Sooners lost to a California Baptist college and a team (Rider) that sounded more like a moving company than a university, but the Sooners have bounced back. This past weekend the Sooners won 3 of 4 in the Frisco tournament against stout competition. 

Here’s the deal…this team lost a record eleven players to the Major League baseball draft last summer after finishing runner-up in Omaha.  Skip Johnson has used the Omaha trip to reload.  I believe that this guy is the real deal and this team has a chance to be pretty good again this year…another trip to Omaha may be a stretch, but then again so was last year’s trip. 

We’ll check back in June to see how it went…

Boomer Sooner…

That sucked…

This was the comment made by the UCLA coach after the 14-0 meltdown by her Bruins on Sunday.  I love her honesty on the subject and I also realize that she will make sure that her team files this embarrassing episode away for future reference. 

At the same time, as we survey the “killing field”, we must wonder just how good both teams are.   Is OU that good or is UCLA not as good as advertised.  I suspect that the answer to this question is somewhere in the middle and we will find out more to the answer to this question at the end of May.   

In order to keep Sooner fan grounded, I would suggest that UCLA with its 18 game winning streak may have been over rated.  Consider this…the Bruins had played a schedule similar to the Sooners, but had eked out eight wins during that stretch, winning eight games by three runs or less.  Three of those wins by one run.

UCLA is pretty good and they have an ace in the circle that can dominate most teams.  Offensively and defensively, they are young.  Facing a pitcher like OU’s Alex Storako would be a challenge.  The Bruins were also missing something the Sooners had in their tool kit, that of a wake up call with a previous loss. 

The Sooners on the other hand are a veteran squad with 3 pitchers that can be thrown out against a good team at any time.  The Sooners also are very solid defensively and when on offense know how to measure a pitcher for just that right pitch. 

In the end UCLA will be part of the final eight teams in OKC, but this Sooner bunch is some kind of special that will now be playing for that top seed…

This is going to be a fun ride…

Boomer Sooner…

Trap game…

Sooner fans know all too well that trap games happen.  We experience a trap game at least once per football season. Last year we got off to a hot start only to be ambushed by K-State in Norman…no one and I mean no one saw that one coming.  Same goes for our softballers this past weekend. 

As expected the Sooners were off to a hot start blistering the competition along the way.  Everyone was talking three-peat for the softball team.  Then it happened…on the way to the podium, we stubbed our toe against Baylor.  Baylor used solid pitching, timely hitting and a short seven inning game to pull off the stunner.

Trap games occur in the middle of a schedule at just the right point where a team gets lulled into a false sense of security and before they know it, the game is over.  That was the case last Sunday. The Sooners had won their previous three games by a combined 32-0 score. What many fans had forgotten was that the opponents during thas stretch were essentially high school teams.  Then we played a good Baylor team, and the wheels came off. 

That’s the bad news…the good news is that softball has an even longer season than football so recovering from such a loss is very doable. And like football, we only have to wait one week to make amends…we play top ranked UCLA next Sunday and beating the Bruins will go a long way in erasing last weekend from our memory bank. 

Boomer Sooner…

Tidbits…

• Aggie grass at the Super Bowl was a flop…as for the game itself I rooted for the Eagles because of Jalin, but having six former Sooners on the winning side was nice as well.  The downside for the game was the horrible field conditions.  Some have suggested that that the lousy turf may have led to the critical defensive holding call at the end of the game.
  • Makes sense to me…when players can’t find their footing due to a slippery turf, they must resort to holding an elusive receiver. Aggie turf…give me a break…if it were that good, OSU would use it on their own field. That’s why they call them Aggies…

• Softballers came out a blazing…the Sooners won five games over the weekend as the Sooners took down three teams ranked in the top 20.  Pitching was awesome, particularly from Nicole May who saved the day as the closer against Washington…she one hit the Huskies for 3.1 innings while striking out 8 batters.  Thank goodness, she didn’t transfer…

• The women’s basketball team is currently a 6^th seed and rising in the tournament as they won their 20^th game of the season over the weekend.  It will be nice to have a basketball team to follow in March…

• Speaking of basketball…it appears that Porter Moser has solved the issue of losing close games. These days keeping an opponent within 20 is a good night’s work…in case you are wondering, Porter Moser’s buyout clause drops to a measly $6 million dollars in April.  I wonder who negotiated that deal.

• Finally, the women’s gymnastics team is still ranked #1 and the men’s gymnastics team is ranked #2…not bad for a football school…

Embarrassing…

What do Brent Venables and Porter Moser have in common…both were hired by Joe Castiglione to coach a major sport at the University of Oklahoma, and both seem like really nice guys. From where I sit that’s about it…the jury is still out on Moser’s coaching. BV came into a bad situation by following winning coach and the nightmare Lincoln left behind…the bottom line is that BV has the program on the upswing after one year.  Not so much for Porter. Things appear to be going south in a hurry.

Granted OU is known as a football and not a basketball school, but then again Moser should have known this fact going in.  It appears that Porter is hoping on using the same ten-year plan he used at Loyola-Chicago.  Ten years of mediocre basketball before he delivers a breakout season.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t believe I can live through ten more years of this mess.

Give Joe C. credit as he did his part by giving away free tickets to the Bedlam basketball game last Wednesday.   Unfortunately, the game was still played at the LNC where OU fans were sitting miles from courtside as the Sooners fail behind by 22 points in the second half.  By the end of the game the OU bench was being serenaded by hundreds of drunken OSU fans (who got in free) chanting “orange power” and “SEC…SEC…SEC…

Embarrassing…

Never too early rankings…

Porter Moser’s bunch appears to be finding their footing and as such may make the tournament after all.  On the women’s side, making the tournament appears to be a given…Coach B. was really a good hire. 

In softball Patty Gasso will welcome a team that may go down as the best college softball team of all time and baseball has recruited well and may be headed to Omaha again. Women’s gymnastics and men’s golf will be outstanding as well.  Brent Venables appears to be finding his footing as he recruits his type players. 

The Sooners currently rank #6 in the country in the combined high school and transfer portal rankings. We lacked talent and most importantly depth last year so these reinforcements will go a long way in returning the Sooners to the top of the football world. 

As you know, it is never too early to start thinking ahead for 2023.  Football magazines are already putting out their “way too early” rankings for next year.  Athlon Magazine has the Sooners ranked #21 in their rankings.  While the Sooners are ranked below other Big 12 teams in most preseason rankings, this fact can only be attributable to the 2022 end of season rankings.  I expect OU to be at the top of the Big 12 heap next year when everything is said and done.  

Below I have listed Athlon’s“way too early” Big 12 ranked teams for 2023…first by conference and then nationally. 

Boomer Sooner…

2023 12 preseason rankings…

1. Texas (14)

2. TCU (15)

3. Kansas State (20)

4. OU (21)

5. Texas Tech (31)

Kansas (top 50)

Baylor (top 50)

BYU (top 50)

Cincinnati (top 50)

UCF (top 50)

Houston (unranked)

OSU (unranked)

Iowa State (unranked)

West Virginia (unranked)

Athlon’s “way too early” national rankings…

1. Georgia

2. Michigan

3. Ohio State

4. USC

5. Alabama

6. Florida State

7. LSU

8. Penn State

9. Tennessee

10. Washington

11. Oregon

12.Notre Dame

13. Clemson

14. Texas

15. TCU

16. Utah

17. Oregon State

18. Tulane

19. North Carolina

20. Kansas State

21. Oklahoma

22. Ole Miss

23. Arkansas

24. Wisconsin

25. South Carolina

26. Boise State

27. UTSA

28. UCLA

29. Troy

30. Texas Tech

31. Louisville

32. Mississippi State

Best of the rest alphabetically…

Air Force

Baylor

BYU

Cincinnati

Coastal Carolina

Duke

Fresno State

Illinois

Iowa

Kansas

Kentucky

Marshall

Maryland

Miami

Minnesota

NC State

Pitt

South Carolina

Texas A&M

UCF

Embarrassing

Let’s call it like it is…that game on Monday night was downright embarrassing for the Big 12 Conference.  Seriously, how can a team lose a National Championship game by fifty-eight points. The good news is that the Sooners had already made exit plans to get out from under this mess.  

The TCU debacle puts into perspective how far the once proud Big 12 has fallen.  Back in 1971, the conference had Nebraska, Oklahoma and Colorado finish the season 1, 2, and 3 in the final AP rankings.  Starting that year, the Big 12 hoisted ten (10) National Championship trophies, five by Nebraska, four by the Sooners and one by Texas.  In 2012 the conference imploded with four heavy weights leaving the conference for higher ground and things have never been the same since.

This year, the Big 12 played 29 non-conference games with only one win coming against a solid opponent (Michigan) in the CFP semi-final game.  The conference was 2-9 during bowl season.  The Sooners will have to put up with this stink of a league for one, possibly two more years and then we can throw this rag of a conference to the side of the street. 

In the end, OU and Texas will come out of this smelling like a rose.  It will be tough sledding at times in the SEC, but in the long run it will be worth it.  The Sooners and Horns decided to get out while the gettin’ was good.  Left in the ashes of a once proud conference will be the Little 12. 

Boomer Sooner…