Sooner Magic…

Let’s cut to the chase…we love winners and loathe losers. When we lost to Baylor, it was depression city. No one and I mean no one saw that coming. We knew they were good, but not that good and we never dreamed we would play that poorly. We had anticipated that the off week would allow us to get our players back and that we would unload a can of you know what on the Bears.

We saw that game as the first of three games that would impress the CFP selection committee, but of course that did not happen. Caleb Williams looked like the true freshman that he is and not a Heisman Trophy winner and when Spencer Rattler got his chance to shine, he did not. All of this has created a bad case of angst regarding this year’s Bedlam game.

Now we can expect the OSU coaches to use the same template that the Baylor coaches used to dismantle our offense. If that happens, we could be in real trouble on Saturday. This OSU defense is undeniably good, and their offense is decent enough to give us fits.

At 10-1, the Ags appear to be pretty good this year, but it is important to point out that a lot of luck has gone into creating their gaudy record. They played no less than four trap games this season. In most cases the Cowboy opponent had played their best game of the year the week prior to OSU and were ill prepared for their game against the Cowboys. OSU also played two teams that were going through coaching changes in mid-season.

In spite of this momentum and a roster full of experienced fifth- and sixth-year seniors, I still believe the Sooners have a legitimate chance of derailing the OSU train. Here is my formula for success on Saturday.

We need to score first which will hopefully take the liquored-up Aggie fans out of the game.
We must find a way to turn that lead into 10 point spread at some point during the course of the game.
Unleash Alex Grinch’s “Speed Defense” on Spencer Sanders in the same manner that Baylor terrorized Caleb Williams in Waco. Spencer Sanders is a different quarterback with some one’s hand in his face.
Create a semblance of a run game that will take the pressure off Caleb Williams…
Utilize Caleb Williams’ run/throw options that will open up the Aggie defense. If Lincoln insists on playing a drop back/pocket quarterback style of offense, he should insert Spencer Rattler into the game who can find his receivers.
Keep the game close going into the second half and fourth quarter.
Make sure we have the west wind at our backs in the fourth quarter. Weather forecasts indicate west wind on Saturday.
Pray for Sooner Magic to happen…

Boomer Sooner…

Sooner Magic…

We need to score first which will hopefully take the liquored-up Aggie fans out of the game.
We must find a way to turn that lead into 10 point spread at some point during the course of the game.
Unleash Alex Grinch’s “Speed Defense” on Spencer Sanders in the same manner that Baylor terrorized Caleb Williams in Waco. Spencer Sanders is a different quarterback with some one’s hand in his face.
Create a semblance of a run game that will take the pressure off Caleb Williams…
Utilize Caleb Williams’ run/throw options that will open up the Aggie defense. If Lincoln insists on playing a drop back/pocket style offense, he should insert Spencer Rattler into the game.
Keep the game close going into the second half and fourth quarter.
Make sure we have the west wind at our backs in the second half.
Pray for Sooner Magic to happen…

Boomer Sooner…

Moving on…

We knew it was coming, but like that wreck along the highway, we just had to look. Speaking of wrecks, that would be a perfect term for what happened on Saturday. We kept believing that Sooner Magic was going to happen, but it never did.

I know Sooner fans are blaming the coaching staff, the officials and the whacko Waco environment, but in reality, we have only ourselves to blame. We had played one complete game all year and that game was against a weak Texas Tech team; we had no reason to believe that the lights were going to come on overnight. We simply believed because we wanted to believe.

Granted the defense gave up too many yards and too many big plays but given the fact that they were on the field most the day, they played pretty well. They were on the field way too much because we have no running game. Running games are boring, but running games are essential for a decent passing game. Proficient offenses just don’t happen without a running game. We have one running back while the rest of the world has a stable full of those guys.

Both quarterbacks were off, but in reality, Spencer Rattler did throw one pass that could have been a game changer if our receiver had not gotten mugged trying to make the catch. As for Caleb Williams, asking a true freshman to be successful in that kind of hostile environment was ludicrous. Of course, asking anyone to play quarterback when nine out of ten passes were being dropped by the receivers would have been a stretch for even John Elway. In any case, it’s time to move on.

This team is still pretty good, just not as good as we had hoped. The bad news is that our worst nightmare is about to be realized. At this point I don’t want to think about the rest of the season with this team, but we have no choice. That choice includes what apparently will be two Bedlams this year. We’re in a bind and T. Boone is eating this stuff up…

Oh, well now that a National Championship is out of the 2021 picture, we can settle back and dream about what may happen in the future with SEC-type recruits. I understand fully the demands of playing in the SEC, but at least we will have players that can go into battle for us. If we can keep Joe Castiglione from negotiating future Bedlams games for the Sooners everything will be just fine.

Boomer Sooner….

Confidence factor…

This may the craziest football season ever. We started out the season believing that 2021 would be the year that we broke through the National Championship barrier. Even after the Tulane and Nebraska games we still believed…

We also saw an OSU team that was simply not very good…Sam Mayes, a former OSU player and sports talk show guy said as much after the Tulsa game. We also assumed that at the end of the day, it would be us and Texas in the Big 12 Championship game. Then it happened, OSU beats Texas, which I said then was a bad thing, and OSU has not looked back sense.

Now, we have a mess on our hands. OU is 9-0 and getting no respect due in part to the Kansas debacle. OSU is 8-1 and likely to be 10-1 going into Bedlam. We entered the season hoping we would hear the last of this Bedlam crap sooner rather than later and now it appears that we will have two Bedlams in one year.

I have even heard some people go as far as to say that at least OSU will have to beat us twice this year. I don’t know about you, but that does not make me feel any better. From a national perspective, we will have nothing to play for in Arlington if they beat us in Stillwater.

Okay, here’s the deal…I agree that we simply must get wins against Baylor and Iowa State the next two weeks, but I think we need more. I believe we need to make a statement against those two teams in order to build our confidence level going into the first Bedlam game.

A dose of Sooner Magic here at the end might come in handy.

Boomer Sooner…

Ramblings…

Oklahoma has now won 17 games in a row which is the longest winning streak in the country. It is also longer than more than 95% of America’s football teams will ever have during their football histories…Pretty impressive, but not nearly as impressive as this next tidbit of information…

The OU seventeen-game win streak is only the seventh longest winning streak in OU football history. This would be a good piece of information to drop on your Aggie water cooler crowd.

Forget the Kansas game, no one in Norman gave a rip and we righted the ship against Texas Tech. The bad news is that the selection committee will likely hold the Kansas game against us on Tuesday night. That’s okay, hammer our last three opponents and we can make up for lost time.

Baylor in Waco will be a tough game, particularly at night, but then again, we own Baylor, so I feel pretty good about that game. Getting our walking wounded players back on defense should help.

Here comes the hard part…we will have to root for OSU this next week against West Virginia. I can’t make myself do that, but I assume that the Gags will grease out another win that will help our cause anyway. Look for Game Day or the Fox Sports team to be in Stillwater on November 27.

This brings me to the main course…the Big 12 in its infinite wisdom, or lack thereof has set up a two-game set of games between OU and OSU at the end of this year. The first will be played in Stillwater and the second, the following week will be played in Arlington. That’s right…two Bedlam weeks in a row…What a bunch of idiots…no wonder we’re leaving for the SEC.

I do have a suggestion; I think we should take a page from baseball and turn those games into a day-night doubleheader. We’ll play both games at Jerry World with one game at 11:00 and a night cap at 7:30. That would give us a couple Bedlam beat downs in one day. I can live with that.

One last thing…the OU softball team was the highlight of Saturday’s game as the team was honored during one of the fifteen-minute t.v. timeouts. It looks like Patty Gasso’s Stadium will finally happen…I know, we will have to name the stadium after the Love family, but we can still name it Patty Gasso Field when the time is right.

Boomer Sooner…

Ugly…

The good news for the Big 12 Conference is that Kansas, the bottom feeder in the league, has risen to #117 in the latest college football rankings following Saturday’s game. Prior the OU game, the Jayhawks were ranked seventh from the bottom. I know you did not want to see that, but then again, it is what it is.

I know that the Kansas game was inexcusable, but seriously how can a bunch get up for a team ranked in the bottom ten nationally. These guys aren’t stupid…they can read the sports page. They can also see a stadium built at the turn of the century full of folding chair seats (seriously, you can’t make this stuff up). They also saw a team going through pregame drills with cartoon characters (Jayhawks) on the side of their helmets.

Give Kansas credit…they have finally hired a coach who knows how to rally a crowd. He had the Kansas officials put the word out at half time that his team had OU on the ropes. They also put out the word that Happy Meals would accompany free admission to the game. Those Kansas students must really love those Happy Meals to give up a library outing for football. The stadium filled up almost immediately.

Okay, enough about Kansas…with the exception of the Jeremy Brooks/Caleb Williams hand off for a first down, (another first), we sucked on Saturday. At the same time, as ugly as it was, it will still go into the record book as a win.

Putting that mess in our rear-view mirror won’t be easy. It’s like the Sooners have been treading water this entire season waiting for November to happen. Thankfully, following the Tech game the Sooners will get a much-needed bye week and then we will have November football. The coaches have been using injuries on the defensive side of the ball as an excuse. Come November, that excuse won’t fly any more.

We have also been left with the world’s worst predicament…rooting for OSU. Personally, I would rather root for the former Soviet Army team that OSU, but again that is the life we have been forced to deal with. It will take a convincing win against Texas Tech and three solid wins in November that will include a tough game in Stillwater to get us back in the thick of things…

Like I said…this is getting ugly…

Boomer Sooner…

Caleb vs. Spencer…

Okay, let’s talk Caleb Williams. This guy’s the real deal and his presence on this football team makes us a lot better. Caleb opens up the offense and makes both the offensive line and running game better by stretching the field, a move that Spencer could not get done this year. It will also help our injury beleaguered defense as his offense gives them much needed breaks during games.

For those who are saying “I told you so”, it’s important to remember that all OU fans that follow recruiting knew that this would be the case. We simply assumed that Spencer would give us one more year before handing the reins off to Caleb.

Spencer for whatever reason simply has not delivered as expected this year. Maybe, it is the NIL thing, but as for me, I have a hard time blaming Spencer for this. The politicians and the Kavanaugh Court have been hell-bent on paying college football players. The NIL slant appears to me to be an olive branch that may help us avoid an even worse animal down the road, that of paying players outright. Did Spencer get his head turned by NIL, probably so…after all most of us have shoes older that this guy.

In any case, Spencer and that whole issue is behind us now. Caleb Williams will be the full-time starting quarterback for the rest of 2021, at which time Spencer Rattler will enter the transfer portal. For sure Caleb Williams is a special cat as he does things we only envisioned in a player.

All Sooner fans will ask in return will be another National Championship. Anything less and Sooner fans will be chanting… “we want Malachi”. That my friend is the nature of OU football.

Boomer Sooner…

Sooner Magic…

It’s like Ground Hog Day all over again…Texas knew what was coming but couldn’t stop it. The ESPN game predictor had Sooner chances of winning the game at less than 8% at the beginning of the fourth quarter…then it happened. Sooner Magic hit the Cotton Bowl…

We scored 35 points in the second half and in doing so won an OU-Texas game for the ages. It was an unbelievable football game that turned on a dime by a coaching move made by Lincoln Riley as he did what had to be done. He replaced Spencer Rattler with Caleb Williams. And as they say the rest was history, not only for that game, but for the rest of the season.

I would like to say that I was surprised by the comeback, but not really. The Sooners tested my mettle at 38-20, but I still felt that we would find a way to win. This OU team is a team of destiny. We were the better team going into the game and it simply took a little longer than we had envisioned for this to be born out. Give Casey Thompson and Texas credit, they are much better than I thought they were. They gave us all we wanted, but in the end, Sooner Magic won out…

I would like to say that this “winning against Texas” stuff is getting boring, but after all those lean years growing up, I believe that I can handle a few more years of this feeling. I vividly remember the 60’s when Texas would taunt us every year with a possible win only to turn the tables late and send us home with thoughts of what might have been. That era of twelve losses in thirteen years will always be burned into my psyche.

As for the present, this OU team grew up on Saturday on both sides of the ball. Of course, watching a true freshman quarterback become a man before our very eyes was pretty nice as well. What happens next will be Lincoln’s problem, but for Sooner fans, we’ve got our answer at quarterback. For Caleb Williams to do what he did in front of the most frenetic environment on the planet was mind boggling.

Of course, keeping the heads of Sooner players on straight this week, particularly with a full-blown quarterback controversy and a Texas hangover to deal with will be a challenge…but that is why Lincoln gets paid the big bucks.

In the meantime, we need to savor “a win for the ages”. Wrap your head around these stats…we just beat Texas for the 6^th time out of seven and tenth time out of thirteen games. It doesn’t get any better than this…

Boomer Sooner…

OU-Texas…

First off, let’s get the issue of idiot OU fans out of the way. I learned years ago that you can’t fix stupid, so rehashing this stuff may be a waste of time, but it is still embarrassing. Lincoln Riley recruits the top quarterback in the country, and this is not good enough for some OU fans.

For the record however, this is nothing new at Oklahoma. OU is like most elite programs; we will always have our share of boo birds no matter what we do. I’m sure, Clemson is getting their share of flyovers this year as well. It goes with the territory…it’s just unfortunate that this stuff is spewed out of the mouths of over-the-hill losers who can barely spell football and that the boos are directed at 20-year-old kids. I don’t care about this NIL crap, they’re still kids.

For the record, section 108 in the upper deck is not immune from this behavior. A few years ago, a liquored-up fan and I almost came to fist city when he cheered for a Landry Jones injury. Just like today, he wanted to force the coach’s hand to play the back-up quarterback. Fortunately for me, he was too inebriated to negotiate the steps to get at me as I called him out on the matter. Of course, to hear my daughter tell the story, we took care of that guy that day…of course she may be just a bit prejudiced.

The bottom line is like I said going in…you can’t fix stupid so why try. It’s always better to spend positive energy on other things. Spencer Rattler is taking care of the boo birds as he dismantled the West Virginia defense on the final drive of the Mountaineers game and then did the same against Kansas State on the first drive of the second half.

Here’s a stat for you. In the last six quarters Spencer Rattler has competed 36 of his 40 passes and in doing so has gotten us ready for Texas. I think this guy is pretty good. He is also our best chance at a great 2021 season. Will we win a National Championship this year, probably not, but we can still have a great season.

While I do expect the Cotton Bowl Brawl to be a nail biter this year, I also think that we are the better team. The offensive line is beginning to gel and the running game is coming around. Spencer is simply doing what Spencer does best, orchestrate touchdown drives.

Nothing has changed as the Sooners need to take care of business one game at a time. Win by four or by forty, who cares. We’re better than Texas and I look for a breakout game in the Cotton Bowl. Texas fans who have learned to hate us, will get another dose of hate serum on Saturday.

Boomer Sooner…

The grind…part IV…

It was another grind for the Sooners on Saturday night as we waited until the last four minutes of the game to get it together…the good news is that Spencer Rattler orchestrated that final drive and did so flawlessly. It is that drive that gives us hope moving forward.

Of course, OU fans were fuming mad that it took so long, but then again, I have to ask those fans…would you rather have lost and be 3-1. Here’s the scary thought. A lot of OU fans would answer that question in the affirmative. They want to force Lincoln’s hand at quarterback. For those fans, they can forget it…that ain’t going to happen.

In this case Lincoln is right…can you imagine inserting a true freshman quarterback into the lineup with this offensive line and this anemic running game? Those same fans would be jubilant at the sight of Caleb Williams trotting onto the field, but just as quick to condemn the move when it failed.

Okay, while I am not a football coach, I do play one on t.v. so these are my suggestions moving forward. The offensive line is still a big-time work in progress. We need to find one thing that these guys can do well and focus on that area. We simply must establish a run game which will in turn make the passing game more efficient. I believe that we still have the necessary parts to make this happen, so we just must stick with it.

The second thing is that Lincoln Riley must spend a lot more time in the film room this week. His play calling on Saturday was abysmal. A reoccurrence of this fact in Manhattan next Saturday will be a killer.

Each week, we think this is the week where we break out, but next Saturday may be our last chance to make it happen. We are running out of time before the OU-Texas game so creating confidence before we roll into Dallas will be huge.

Boomer Sooner…