It appears that I owe Joe Castiglione an apology. This year’s football schedule lays out much better than I would have thought. No Bedlam to start the season and a couple games that will allow the Sooners to become acclimated to conference play prior to Texas. All of this became an even bigger deal with the Kennedy Brooks’ departure.
As for the Big Ten and Pac 12 Conferences, we should have seen that coming. When push comes to shove, football will always take a back seat to academics in the midwest and on the west coast. The Covid 19 deal simply allowed their school presidents to flex their muscles and remind the athletic departments who was really in charge. School leaders in the southeastern and southwestern parts of the country operate under a different mindset. That fact was borne out by the decision to buck the tide and play football this fall.
Now that we are off and running, let’s see how far we can stretch this thing out and if we can turn this choas into a great Sooner season. If we can keep another coronavirus surge at bay and keep playing, the Sooners can use the split season on the national level to their advantage.
The NCAA has already decided that we won’t see a set of playoffs this year, so the Sooners will have to win this national championship the old fashioned way. It has worked for us in the past as six of OU’s seven national championhips were won without a playoff/BCS system. They were called mythical national championships and these champions was selected by a panel of sports writers and/or coaches.
Here’s my game plan. Let’s say that OU gets on a roll early, beats Texas in Dallas and OSU at home on the way to going 11-0. Then the other Power Conference teams, which are now playing much more competitive schedules, beat up on each other on their way to one loss seasons. If this happens regardless of the two seasons, OU can end up on top for our eighth National Championship.
I know this may sound pretty far-fetched, but in a year like this, anything is possible.
Boomer Sooner…