CFB51 College Football Fan Community
The Power Five => Big XII => Topic started by: CWSooner on January 30, 2022, 12:43:12 PM
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I'm feeling pretty optimistic about OU sports for 2022.
I believe that Brent Venables as HFC is an upgrade from Lincoln Riley. The Sooners should play tougher and more disciplined football. I think that Venables has assembled a good staff that can recruit as well as it can coach. It's a good mix of young and old, black and white, OU alums and new blood. I think Venables is the right guy to get the program prepared for SEC-style football. If I had to pick a favorite for the 2022 Big 12 championship, it would be OU. That's not to say that I'd take OU vs. the field, but the Sooners are my totally objective favorite. ;)
In men's hoops, Porter Moser has a relatively small and not greatly talented team. But he's got them playing well, competing hard, and I see sunlit uplands lying ahead for the program.
In women's hoops, I think that Jennie Baranczyk is a great hire. She has a team mostly of Sherri Coale's recruits, and she has them leading the conference race after yesterdays ugly-game win over Texas in Norman.
Men's and women's gymnastics should be right up there competing for NCs again.
Ryan Hybl has the golf program going well.
Then there is Patty Gasso's softball program. It's been the best in the country over the past 10 years and is the consensus #1 going into this season. And she's getting a bright, shiny new stadium. In college softball, she is the equivalent of Nick Saban, but with a pleasant personality.
Disappointments: Baseball and Wrestling. OU has been very good in these two sports in the past, and there's no compelling reason that they can't be good again. But they aren't. Money, facilities, coaches, results--failure on all fronts.
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ou sucks
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Heh!
You horns have a one-track mind on that subject.
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Venables is inheriting a program not in the dumps, which is a bit unusual.
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I may be hijacking my own thread here, but I saw this posted on an OU board. If the poster is legit, it's something.
It's addressed to our former head coach, now known affectionately as Muleshoe.
Longhorn Republic
@LonghornPod
1h
You left OU 17 days before Early Signing Day, flipped a large number of committed players, and took the star transfer QB with you — after he waited damn near a month to announce — just a day before NSD.
Could you be any more of a disingenuous hack?
:86:
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Venables is inheriting a program not in the dumps, which is a bit unusual.
How so? He's never inherited a program--in the dumps or not--before.
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Most new coaches come into a dumpster fire, that is a bit different this past year, but usually a coach is fired because his program is bad.
LSU, Florida, OU, and USC are not really of that ilk, but Tennessee was for example.
I wonder what will happen once OU and UT get into the SEC. The landscape could be different then, maybe, but the shot at winning the conference inherently goes down.
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Most new coaches come into a dumpster fire, that is a bit different this past year, but usually a coach is fired because his program is bad.
LSU, Florida, OU, and USC are not really of that ilk, but Tennessee was for example.
I wonder what will happen once OU and UT get into the SEC. The landscape could be different then, maybe, but the shot at winning the conference inherently goes down.
Re your last point, I'm sure that's right. Worse for Texas than for OU, if recent history (past 22 years) is a guide.
A lot of OU fans have been clamoring for a move to the SEC ever since the original Big 12 started losing members after the 2010 season. I never have. I didn't think that the Big 12-4+2 was nearly as good as the original version, but it worked in retaining the OU-Texas rivalry and as a vehicle to getting a good shot at the BCS/CFP.
If there was going to be a move--and the money situation seemed to dictate that there would be--I hoped that it would be to the B1G.
I still wish that that was the direction we were going. I take Charles Barkley at his word: In the SEC, if you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin'.
My school has demonstrated several times that it can cheat and get caught. I don't want any more of that, and I fear we will see it in the SEC.
The B1G strikes me as less of a shark tank than the SEC. But that might just be because I'm closer to SEC country.
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This may be naive of me to say and think, but NIL makes cheating the old fashioned way obsolete and stupid. Plenty of legal ways to get money into the hands of your players. And everybody is doing it, and those that aren’t will not be involved in the upcoming super league.
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Yeah, NIL sort of makes my past worries a moot point. But the impact of NIL hadn't been appreciated when I was worrying.
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I wonder if NIL will cause players to stick around and not go to the NFL early
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I wonder if NIL will cause players to stick around and not go to the NFL early
It would be one factor in such a decision, a first rounder probably still goes.
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I know the Texas Legislature actually wrote NIL legislation. It's extremely permissive. Anyone still using their old "under the table" networks is behind the times. It's far easier and more lucrative, at least in Texas, to do it the legal way. I believe the coaches making unprompted statements on the subject "doth protest too much", but I got no proof.
OU's big advantage in the Big 12 was always continuity. Ever since the mid 90's, when Stoops and Leach pieced together the pass-first dynamic, there's always been surety with the Sooners. Coaches and players would move, but the program was always assured that the man in charge would keep the talent going.
That's not true right now. The head coach is gone, and both starting QBs are gone. A new staff is running the show (one hurriedly pieced together after all the other programs had their pick). Other starters left the program in their wake.
Maybe this will work out. No reason to assume it won't. However, it represents a gross departure at a critical time for an OU program that never had doubts for 25 years.
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I know the Texas Legislature actually wrote NIL legislation. It's extremely permissive. Anyone still using their old "under the table" networks is behind the times. It's far easier and more lucrative, at least in Texas, to do it the legal way. I believe the coaches making unprompted statements on the subject "doth protest too much", but I got no proof.
OU's big advantage in the Big 12 was always continuity. Ever since the mid 90's, when Stoops and Leach pieced together the pass-first dynamic, there's always been surety with the Sooners. Coaches and players would move, but the program was always assured that the man in charge would keep the talent going.
That's not true right now. The head coach is gone, and both starting QBs are gone. A new staff is running the show (one hurriedly pieced together after all the other programs had their pick). Other starters left the program in their wake.
Maybe this will work out. No reason to assume it won't. However, it represents a gross departure at a critical time for an OU program that never had doubts for 25 years.
Not sure about you Longhorns but nothing better I would like to see than OU suffer through a period of mediocrity and losing seasons. Say, oh, for about 12 years to infinity would be fine with me.
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This Longhorn only wishes to beat OU after that they are free to beat aggie as much as possible
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We Dawgs often have that ONE TEAM driving us crazy, losing to them even when our team is much better, it has been South Carolina at times.
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I know the Texas Legislature actually wrote NIL legislation. It's extremely permissive. Anyone still using their old "under the table" networks is behind the times. It's far easier and more lucrative, at least in Texas, to do it the legal way. I believe the coaches making unprompted statements on the subject "doth protest too much", but I got no proof.
OU's big advantage in the Big 12 was always continuity. Ever since the mid 90's, when Stoops and Leach pieced together the pass-first dynamic, there's always been surety with the Sooners. Coaches and players would move, but the program was always assured that the man in charge would keep the talent going.
That's not true right now. The head coach is gone, and both starting QBs are gone. A new staff is running the show (one hurriedly pieced together after all the other programs had their pick). Other starters left the program in their wake.
Maybe this will work out. No reason to assume it won't. However, it represents a gross departure at a critical time for an OU program that never had doubts for 25 years.
I think it may be less of a change than you are thinking.
There's a lot of staff continuity on the offensive side of the ball. For example, Cale Gundy and Demarco Murray--both former OU players--are still on the staff. And other former Sooners have been brought in as support staffers.
It seems to me (and I think to many other Sooner fans) that what is changing is for the better.
There were worries about the Lincoln Riley regime even before his departure to USC.
His first team at OU was his best, with a 6-point loss in 2OT in the CFP semifinal, and each subsequent team was a bit less good.
He never did get the defense fixed. It reached acceptability in the Covid-year of 2020 but regressed in 2021.
There was a lack of accountability within the program. That went for players, certainly, but for coaches too.
He was very secretive, refusing to officially release innocuous information that everyone already assumed was the case. He made the Bob Stoops era look like an open book.
So, the Brent Venables regime seems to many of us to be more of a return to what was best about the Stoops era than a brand-new start or a lurch in a different direction.
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Not sure about you Longhorns but nothing better I would like to see than OU suffer through a period of mediocrity and losing seasons. Say, oh, for about 12 years to infinity would be fine with me.
Don't hold your breath.
If that were to happen, it would be the first time ever.
The Sooners had 3 losing seasons in a row (1996-98) under John Blake. The only other time that happened was 1922-24.
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This Longhorn only wishes to beat OU after that they are free to beat aggie as much as possible
It will be interesting to see how that plays out.
UT may continue to win the RRS at the same 1-in-3 rate it has enjoyed over the last 20+ years. Or it might do better. Or it might do worse.
Thanks for your good wishes regarding OU vs. ATM.
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As fun as it is to see a rival fall apart, in college football, you're known by your opponents. If a team from the Big 12 could make a name for itself by beating OU and Texas, then the league would be healthy. If Texas and OU could win OOC games and establish the Big 12 as a competitive structure, then the victories against them would mean something.
As it is, Texas certainly hasn't upheld its end. Winning against Texas sort of lost its cachet. OU did its best to keep the spark going, but in the end, they just weren't enough of a formidable force to lift another team's fortunes. The Big 12 still plays talented football, but it's hard to care.
While a strong OU makes the RRS more stress inducing, it's that grit that makes the sport so passionate. Texas seemingly went all in to rebuild the brand. Having a "well yeah, but the Sooners are mediocre" future would make it that much harder to fix the machine. I'm not suggesting they will be. I'm trying to emphasize that, while I can't actually wish good things for OU, having them lose credibility wouldn't be good for the game.
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Don't hold your breath.
If that were to happen, it would be the first time ever.
The Sooners had 3 losing seasons in a row (1996-98) under John Blake. The only other time that happened was 1922-24.
So you're saying it's overdue? :)
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I think it may be less of a change than you are thinking.
There's a lot of staff continuity on the offensive side of the ball. For example, Cale Gundy and Demarco Murray--both former OU players--are still on the staff. And other former Sooners have been brought in as support staffers.
It seems to me (and I think to many other Sooner fans) that what is changing is for the better.
There were worries about the Lincoln Riley regime even before his departure to USC.
His first team at OU was his best, with a 6-point loss in 2OT in the CFP semifinal, and each subsequent team was a bit less good.
He never did get the defense fixed. It reached acceptability in the Covid-year of 2020 but regressed in 2021.
There was a lack of accountability within the program. That went for players, certainly, but for coaches too.
He was very secretive, refusing to officially release innocuous information that everyone already assumed was the case. He made the Bob Stoops era look like an open book.
So, the Brent Venables regime seems to many of us to be more of a return to what was best about the Stoops era than a brand-new start or a lurch in a different direction.
My own personal belief is that it really is small things that make a big difference. You could argue that Bob Stoops best year was his 2nd year (2000 MNC) by that logic.
BV may be a great coach, but he has never done it at the D1 level, and certainly not within a high octane program like OU. John Blake, for all his failures, was considered a very good coordinator and recruiter. Certainly Bob won his first (and only MNC) with Blake's players mostly.
Hardly anybody had anything bad to say about LR until after he left. Even right up until the oSu loss nobody said anything too bad about LR, until reports started surfacing that he was leaving. Why he's leaving still remains a mystery, but I'm firmly in the camp that maybe daddy Bob stayed a little close to the program, and maybe was pulling strings behind the scene that LR didn't take kindly too.
I sometimes think that Bob chose LR just because he thought maybe LR was somebody he could manipulate because he was pretty young then. And maybe LR didn't react to that meddling the way it was intended.
Wasn't it strange that Bob stepped in to coach the bowl game when there were a number of assistants who could have done that when they were with the team every day? Certainly was very strange to me. How many times has a coach from outside the program came in just to coach one game? It indicates that maybe Bob really was either still very close to the OU program or wasn't quite done. I kind of expected him to be named the permanent HC and was surprised when he wasn't. Barry Alvaraz is about the only one I can think of, and I think he was the AD at Wisconsin so it's not like he was an outsider.
It will certainly be interesting. I look forward to OU and UT joining the SEC even if it's not what I wanted at this time. What I really wanted was for A&M to grow a little bit more in our new conference before this change. But I think we're on much better footing as a program in 2022 than we were in 1999, which was about the start of our Big 12 downfall. What I mean by that is that this university understands what kind of commitment it takes to win in this world, and is willing to play that game.
Besides, if we end up trading OU and UT for Alabama and Auburn it's not all bad.
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My own personal belief is that it really is small things that make a big difference. You could argue that Bob Stoops best year was his 2nd year (2000 MNC) by that logic.
BV may be a great coach, but he has never done it at the D1 level, and certainly not within a high octane program like OU. John Blake, for all his failures, was considered a very good coordinator and recruiter. Certainly Bob won his first (and only MNC) with Blake's players mostly.
Hardly anybody had anything bad to say about LR until after he left. Even right up until the oSu loss nobody said anything too bad about LR, until reports started surfacing that he was leaving. Why he's leaving still remains a mystery, but I'm firmly in the camp that maybe daddy Bob stayed a little close to the program, and maybe was pulling strings behind the scene that LR didn't take kindly too.
I sometimes think that Bob chose LR just because he thought maybe LR was somebody he could manipulate because he was pretty young then. And maybe LR didn't react to that meddling the way it was intended.
Wasn't it strange that Bob stepped in to coach the bowl game when there were a number of assistants who could have done that when they were with the team every day? Certainly was very strange to me. How many times has a coach from outside the program came in just to coach one game? It indicates that maybe Bob really was either still very close to the OU program or wasn't quite done. I kind of expected him to be named the permanent HC and was surprised when he wasn't. Barry Alvaraz is about the only one I can think of, and I think he was the AD at Wisconsin so it's not like he was an outsider.
It will certainly be interesting. I look forward to OU and UT joining the SEC even if it's not what I wanted at this time. What I really wanted was for A&M to grow a little bit more in our new conference before this change. But I think we're on much better footing as a program in 2022 than we were in 1999, which was about the start of our Big 12 downfall. What I mean by that is that this university understands what kind of commitment it takes to win in this world, and is willing to play that game.
Besides, if we end up trading OU and UT for Alabama and Auburn it's not all bad.
BV is a great coach. He was the highest-paid DC in CFB last year, I believe. What he has never been is a head coach. We'll have to see if he can handle the additional responsibilities. Early returns on the administrative, program-management, culture-building part of that job are positive. We'll just have to see how the on-field part plays out.
John Blake had never been a coordinator at any level before OU hired him to be HFC after Howard Schnellenberger's dismal 1995 season. He had been a position coach at Tulsa, OU, and the Dallas Cowboys. And he was never a coordinator since getting fired at OU. He was known to be an effective recruiter. I will add to that my personal opinion that he was a dirty recruiter--not in the breaking-NCAA-rules sense, but in the telling-lies-about-other-programs sense. And he was a jaw-droppingly ignorant fool. And he was insecure, so he had to try to micromanage everything, about which he knew nothing, rather than letting his assistant coaches coach. He was probably the worst coaching hire in OU football history.
About the strangeness of Bob stepping in to coach the bowl game, I don't see it. The DC--Alex Grinch--left with Lincoln. Lincoln had been the OC. Shane Beamer had left a year earlier to take the HFC job at USC-E. So Bob--over a position coach--was an obvious choice. It's not without precedent. As you mentioned, Barry Alvarez did the same thing at Wisconsin. Bob obviously was not the A.D., but he has a permanent place in the Athletics Department as some sort of special assistant to the A.D. So he's not an "outsider." But nobody that I know of expected that he would come back as the full-time coach.
What I thought would have been cool was to see Brent Venables coach the team in the Alamo Bowl and have Bob as his D.C.
It's possible that you are correct that Bob meddled with Lincoln's program. I've heard nothing of the sort, but it's possible. I do think that Lincoln may have felt that he wasn't free to fire Mike Stoops, who definitely needed to go. He ended up firing him a half-season later than he should, and there was never a peep out of Bob that Lincoln had erred.
I'll be happy to see OU play A&M again. I've never taken many road trips, but I will always remember seeing the OU @ A&M game in 2006. It was a white-knuckle game, as you probably remember. I enjoyed the interaction with the folks in CS the night before the game and with the Aggie fans at yell practice and at the game. I sat next to a very nice Aggie mom and told her how great I thought the fans were. She laughed and said that I'd think differently if I were wearing burnt orange. ;)
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Banks- the highly controversial coach at UT with the stripper monkey GF-was a position coach at A&M (WR I think) coached our bowl game after Sumlin was fired.
He was highly regarded here, and also at Alabama.
Of course we lost that bowl game, so maybe it was the wrong choice.
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dont never cross a Longhorn stripper monkey cause he'll get ya
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Banks- the highly controversial coach at UT with the stripper monkey GF-was a position coach at A&M (WR I think) coached our bowl game after Sumlin was fired.
Did you have someone like Bob--left on a high note, still respected and admired, still connected to the school, and available to coach if needed--at A&M?
He was highly regarded here, and also at Alabama.
Of course we lost that bowl game, so maybe it was the wrong choice.
Or maybe not.
In any event, it worked for OU and Bob. And it gave Brent more time to set up his staff rather than prepare for a bowl game.
I'll add that Brent publicly credits Bob with saving the team from disintegration in the aftermath of Muleshoe's stunning departure, and helping to stabilize the 2022 recruiting class, which has (I think) ended up being a top-10 class despite some very visible decommits to join Muleshoe in Los Angeles.
Typing "Brent" reminds me. OU has four coaches in the CFB HoF. Each won 100+ games, and each had/has a first name beginning with "B." Benny Owen, Bud Wilkinson, Barry Switzer, and Bob Stoops. . . .
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Winning the SEC is going to get a LOT tougher whenever the Anschluss happens.
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Did you have someone like Bob--left on a high note, still respected and admired, still connected to the school, and available to coach if needed--at A&M?
Or maybe not.
In any event, it worked for OU and Bob. And it gave Brent more time to set up his staff rather than prepare for a bowl game.
I'll add that Brent publicly credits Bob with saving the 2022 recruiting class, which has (I think) ended up being a top-10 class despite some very visible decommits to join Muleshoe in Los Angeles.
Typing "Brent" reminds me. OU has four coaches in the CFB HoF. Each won 100+ games, and each had/has a first name beginning with "B." Benny Owen, Bud Wilkinson, Barry Switzer, and Bob Stoops. . . .
I guess RC Slocum could have coached a bowl game for us when Fran got the can or Sherman. He was still working for the university at the time.
Maybe it wasn’t weird or strange to OU folks, and I really didn’t know how Stoops still has a large presence in the AD. Like I said, it was kinda weird to me, and lots of other outsiders as well.
in the end I guess it worked out as long as Brent does his part.
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So, back to Lincoln Riley, a.k.a. Muleshoe. I thought that he was a good coach and at the same time thought that he would never win a national championship at OU. His "safe" call to kick a FG in the 1st OT against Georgia in the Rose Bowl playoff game, and his continued defense of it afterward, told me that he did not have the cojones to win it all. A lot of OU fans (probably most) disagreed with me. And, even if I were correct (and I was), I couldn't hope that he would get fired. On his watch, OU produced 2 Heisman winners and another finalist, won 4 straight conference championships, went to 3 CFPs, went 5-1 against Texas. Even I realized that you don't fire a guy with that record. But I did hope that he would get better.
Anyway, Muleshoe announcing he was going to USC, after his agent had spent half the season dropping teasers about LSU, angered me, because of his dishonest actions leading up to it, but it didn't leave me devastated. And Bob Stoops coming on board to do whatever was necessary to provide continuity until a new coach was named and got up and running--including, as it turned out, coaching the bowl game--was a bigger positive than perhaps folks who are not OU fans understand.
Emotionally, the choice of Brent Venables was the best possible outcome. The fan-base reaction has been that we will no longer have a defense that gets pushed around and at times looks clueless. The team will be stronger and tougher. Players will be developed better. Standards of behavior on and off the field will be higher. So far, it's all positive.*
Obviously, how the team performs on the field will be the bottom line.
* My one reservation, amidst the warm, fuzzy feelings, is about OC Jeff Lebby. He didn't play much--if at all--but he was on the OU roster in the early '00s. He got injured and became a student assistant. After coaching a year at Victoria (Texas) Memorial HS, he became an assistant at Baylor. Somewhere along the way, he married Art Briles' daughter. He was at Baylor when all the ugly gang-bang activities on the football team were going down. He was named by one of the rape victims as one of the coaches who was told about the actions and did nothing. IMO, he's never come clean about this. And, last I read, he still owns a "Support Coach Art Briles" website.
So, I have that reservation. It's the same one I have about Tulsa's HFC, Philip Montgomery. He came to TU from Baylor before the scandal broke, talking about how Art Briles was a "second father" to him. Now he won't discuss the subject.
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If I somewhat put myself in that situation, imagine I'm a somewhat junior young coach, and I hear bad rumors, what do I do?
Whatever it is is likely guarded, and careful, and with the intent of not burning bridges. Later, looking back with a more complete picture, I might decide it's best if I don't try and explain because it could sound self serving if I did, and maybe I now think I didn't respond correctly, but did nothing really wrong.
Dunno.
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I get what you're saying, but with that maturity should come the ability to acknowledge the mistakes you made that allowed that rape culture to go on. I haven't heard that acknowledgement.
OTOH, the consensus of opinion about him from the players and coaches he's dealt with since he left Baylor has been very positive. I'd just like to see (from him and from Philip Montgomery) a glimmer of admission than he didn't handle the situation as well as he wished he had.
Sort of like I would have liked to see Muleshoe acknowledge that he erred in kicking the FG against Georgia in the Rose Bowl.
But coaches are loath to admit any sort of mistake. They're like John Wayne's character Nathan Brittles in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon: "Never apologize, mister, it's a sign of weakness.”
EDIT: Here's a short commentary on refusing to apologize (https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnbaldoni/2019/04/03/what-john-wayne-got-wrong-about-apologizing/?sh=5de74702455d).
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Once you say "I didn't handle that as well as I wished I had" you're subject to follow up questions obviously.
Or you can try and bury it.
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OU had 7 guys drafted over the past 2 days. None in the 1st round, and 2 or 3 of whom should have stayed another year to improve their stock, so it was by no means an outstanding draft class.
But Texas had none. Not even Dicker the kicker.
That astounds me.
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you'd think the Sooners would have performed better with all that NFL talent
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you'd think the Sooners would have performed better with all that NFL talent
Heh!
All that talent was wasted when the HFC (Muleshoe) knew that he was on the way out the door. And that making it into the Big 12 CCG (and potentially the CFP) would complicate things for his transition.
I don't know that Muleshoe threw those last two games, but I think that I could have called a better game than he did in the season-ending oSu game.
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Texas and Auburn had no player drafted, it's less of a shock for Auburn but still ....
UGA had 15, 5 in the first. One could argue they should have performed better.
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OU had 7 guys drafted over the past 2 days. None in the 1st round, and 2 or 3 of whom should have stayed another year to improve their stock, so it was by no means an outstanding draft class.
But Texas had none. Not even Dicker the kicker.
That astounds me.
I remember in the fran years, things got lean. We maybe had 1-2 guys drafted at the most. Maybe we even had one year where we had none drafted. The funny thing is that fran recruited Von Miller and Ryan Tannehill.
I think we had 4-5 guys drafted this year, and one first rounder.
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Texas had very few Senior players headed to the draft. They were both the cause and the symptom of the 5-7 record last season. Previously full recruiting classes never made it to their Senior seasons. Most left the program. The 22-23 class won't be a lot larger. Most of them have left as well.
Players have to be excited about football. They have to love the game and their teammates. While the Longhorn logo and stadium held the interest of high schoolers when it came time to sign, it's clear that the atmosphere Herman and Co presented was toxic.
It'll take several seasons to get the roster fully stocked. The portal helped a bit, but talent will still need to be recruited and developed.
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Three weeks ago, OU was sitting in the high 20s/low 30s in 2023 recruiting rankings. Now the Sooners are #11 in Rivals, #10 in 24/7, with some big targets still out there. (UT is #3 and #5 by those two metrics, FWIW.)
Brent Venables has been killing it in recruiting since the big BBQ recruiting event in late June.
From all accounts, the coaching is better, the culture is better, and the S&C program is better.
If Brent can coach a lick on game day, the Sooners should be OK.
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he can coach defense
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Yep. But can he coach the whole team on game day?
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https://twitter.com/PeteThamel/status/1578828368820129792
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I posted this full well knowing that A&M is probably going to take an arse whipping tonight.
It's just stunning to see how bad OU has been this year after so many years being near the top of CFB.
CWS do you still hole BV in such high regards? And do you still think Lincoln was not getting the job done?
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Gigem:
I think Brent Venables is a good man, but I'm wondering if he is going to be one of those guys who is a fantastic coordinator but fails as a head coach. Both of Jimmy Johnson's coordinators at Dallas fit that bill. Dave Wannstedt was the DC, and he failed wherever he went to be the HFC. Norv Turner was the OC, and he also failed. We'll just have to see how the rest of the season plays out.
But, regardless, Lincoln was on a downhill coast at OU. Every season a little worse than the one before, culminating with last year's team that could just as easily gone 8-5 as 11-2. Also, he was dissatisfied with how slowly some staff/facility upgrades he had requested were being met, and he did not want to go to the SEC. Apparently, he did not come clean with the A.D., did not make it clear that he was not happy, but he did start looking for places to jump, and he let his agent circulate his name and interest. Ultimately, he chose USC over LSU.
I read a piece a week ago--after the debacle at TCU--by Pete Thamel, IIRC. He said that OU hasn't taken the necessary steps to do more than just make it to the CFP because OU has been good-or-better for over 20 years now. So there has been no great cry to fix what's wrong. OU has thought it just needed to tweak things a bit and the Sooners could win in the playoffs. All the other current top teams (except for Ohio State, which hasn't been "bad" in 100 years) have gone through some painful, even losing, seasons. Bama under Mike Shula, for example. So, if all that is legitimate analysis, then maybe OU has to experience some real pain (as opposed to the disappointment of 1st-round losses in the CFP) before it can really get to the level of Bama, TOSU, and (currently) Georgia.
There's an old admonition to not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. But maybe OU has let the good-or-better be an excuse for not pursuing the very, very good.
We'll see. There's no guarantee that BV will succeed. My personal belief is that he needs two new coordinators. I have viewed them as potential weak links from the start, and I think that events are proving that worry to be justified.
Your Aggies just played Bama to a scoreless tie after one quarter, so maybe there is no whipping coming tonight.
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I think you're opinion of Riley is clouded by him spurning OU. He did great in Norman, by any measure. By your measuring stick Bob Stoops was on the way down in 2014 after a 8-4 season.
http://mcubed.net/ncaaf/charts/ok.shtml
(https://i.imgur.com/wnBraTM.png)
Not sure how USC is looking this year because I rarely watch Pac 12 but they seem to be doing much better after many down years.
You may be right about needing to be bad to get great. If that is the case A&M should be all world by now.
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Ultimately, he chose USC over LSU.
Smart choice
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I think you're opinion of Riley is clouded by him spurning OU. He did great in Norman, by any measure. By your measuring stick Bob Stoops was on the way down in 2014 after a 8-4 season.
http://mcubed.net/ncaaf/charts/ok.shtml
[img width=500 height=310.966]https://i.imgur.com/wnBraTM.png[/img]
Not sure how USC is looking this year because I rarely watch Pac 12 but they seem to be doing much better after many down years.
You may be right about needing to be bad to get great. If that is the case A&M should be all world by now.
Nice chart.
2014 was definitely a bad year for Bob Stoops. It tied with 2009 for his worst record (8-5) after his 7-5 first season. By other measurables, it was worse than the 2009 season. In 2009, we lost Sam Bradford to injuries and didn't have a reliable place-kicker. (How Bob managed to not have a worthwhile kicker on the team, I don't know.) So we lost 13-14 to BYU, 20-21 to Miami, 13-16 to Texas, 3-10 to Nebraska, and (in the one b-a-a-a-a-d loss, 13-41 to Texas Tech. In 2014, we lost 33-37 to TCU, 30-31 to Kansas State, 14-48 to Baylor, 35-38 to oSu (in a game Bob badly mismanaged at the end), and then a bad blowout 6-40 to Clemson in the Russell Athletic Bowl.
I think Bob decided at that point that he was ready to retire soon (and a lot of OU fans were probably ready for him to do so), so he fired Josh Heupel (the hardest thing he had to do as OU's coach, by his own account) and hired Lincoln Riley as OC, and put renewed energy into recruiting. He righted the ship. In 2015-16 he went 11-2, 11-2, then handed the reins to Lincoln, who went 12-2 (2OT CFP loss), 12-2 (11-pt CFP loss), 12-2 (blowout CFP loss), 9-2 (Sugar Bowl win), 10-2. (The Sooners finished at 11-2 in 2021, but Bob coached the Alamo Bowl victory.)
Lincoln is doing well at USC this year. I figured he would. USC has the talent to dominate the Pac-12, especially with QB Caleb Williams following Lincoln to Los Angeles. Unless he's learned from his experience at OU, he won't have a good defense and he won't have a culture of accountability in his program, and his first year may be his best, as was the case at OU.
I imagine that OU would have done better on offense yesterday with Caleb Williams at QB. Not even close to "Sooners win!" better, but better than what they did with Davis Beville as QB.
Your Aggies lost a tough one to Bama yesterday. Seems that Jimbo gets the team up more for Bama than for any other opponent.
EDIT: I should add that Riley's defenses at USC probably will work better than his defenses did against Big 12 and SEC/CFP opponents. His DC is Alex Grinch, and he had good defenses at Washington State, obviously playing against mostly Pac-12 opposition.
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Right now I'd have to rate Muleshoe as better than Salina, but things can change.
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OU finishes 6-6, Riley is 11-1 with a possible Heisman winner and CFP berth.
Venebals won’t last long in Norman at this pace. May just be 1st year hiccups.
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I suspect a repeat of this year would have a large chunk of the fan-base howling for Brent Venables' head.
Brent inherited a program in some turmoil due to Muleshoe's sudden departure, 3 key players following to USC, including Caleb Williams, and some other key recruits who decommitted and likewise went to USC or to other destinations. But there was some good talent left, and a serviceable QB--Dillon Gabriel--transferred in via the portal. And it's hard to see much improvement in the team from the UTEP opener to the TTU finale. From the first loss to the last one, this was a team that found ways to lose when victory was possible or even probable.
By contrast, Bob Stoops--who had never been a head coach, inherited an outright broken program in which the outgoing coach (John Blake of "I thank Jesus Christ for this victory over Texas" fame) had told the black players that he was being fired for his color and had destroyed the recruiting files so that the new regime had to start from scratch. Bob went 7-4 in the regular season before losing to Ole Miss on a last-second FG in the Independence Bowl. And he played a tougher schedule than what Brent faced this year, I think.
Despite being over a decade younger when he took over the OU program than Brent was, Bob was more ready to be a head coach, IMO. I hope that Brent has learned a lot of lessons over the course of this season and can successfully apply them. Another 6-6 showing won't cut it. I don't think he would get fired after 2 seasons, but he probably would have to make major changes to his staff. My nominee for first to see the door would be OC Jeff Lebby. His hurry-up offense (the only thing he seems to know how to run) does not complement a defense trying to learn different, and much more complex, defensive schemes. And he does not seem to have a play in the book to get 2 yards when you absolutely have to have 2 yards.
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Bob Stoops was a helluva coach, no doubt one of the best ever. Amazing that despite all his success and the talent he had at OU he only managed to win one MNC, in the second season. He definitely owned the Big 12.
I still believe that the original Big 12 was a helluva conference, equal or better than any other conference from 1996 to about 2009. It had 3 blue chip programs, two or three top 20 programs, and some really good football played over the years.
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Bob Stoops was a helluva coach, no doubt one of the best ever. Amazing that despite all his success and the talent he had at OU he only managed to win one MNC, in the second season. He definitely owned the Big 12.
I still believe that the original Big 12 was a helluva conference, equal or better than any other conference from 1996 to about 2009. It had 3 blue chip programs, two or three top 20 programs, and some really good football played over the years.
Yes, Stoops was a great coach. The big flaw in his record is the 1-3 record in NCGs.
It should have been 2-2 or 3-1.
I can't explain the Sooners' collapse against USC in the 2004 (season) NCG, but I do believe that that Sooner teams was not going to beat that Trojan team on that day no matter how the ball bounced.
But opportunities were blown vs. LSU (2003) and Florida (2008). Both of those games could have been wins. At least one of them should have been.
I agree with your assessment of the original Big 12. In hindsight, it seems like there was unhappiness and instability from the start, but the on-field product was as good as it got in CFB for that period. National championships won by Nebraska, OU, and Texas, and NC-caliber teams from A&M and K-State. Also some really good teams from Colorado, Missouri, Oklahoma State, and Texas Tech. Even Kansas won an Orange Bowl game.
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OU's 2008 NC game vs. Florida was bizarro-world. Both teams showed up kind of the opposite of their regular season m.o. Their opponent's had something to do with that, of course, but it was still strange to watch.
What do OU fans consider winnable about those games? Or to put it another way, what opportunities were missed that would've lead to different outcomes?
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hah, just dredgin up painful memories
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Yes, Stoops was a great coach. The big flaw in his record is the 1-3 record in NCGs.
It should have been 2-2 or 3-1.
I can't explain the Sooners' collapse against USC in the 2004 (season) NCG, but I do believe that that Sooner teams was not going to beat that Trojan team on that day no matter how the ball bounced.
But opportunities were blown vs. LSU (2003) and Florida (2008). Both of those games could have been wins. At least one of them should have been.
I agree with your assessment of the original Big 12. In hindsight, it seems like there was unhappiness and instability from the start, but the on-field product was as good as it got in CFB for that period. National championships won by Nebraska, OU, and Texas, and NC-caliber teams from A&M and K-State. Also some really good teams from Colorado, Missouri, Oklahoma State, and Texas Tech. Even Kansas won an Orange Bowl game.
Auburn's 2004 team is the prime reason why I'm all in favor of expanding the playoff in general. 4 teams are OK, 8 would be best. But to win everything you can, on an SEC schedule, and get left out of the MNC is bull shit. That would have never happened if it had been Alabama, ND, or OU. Heck, they even gave USC the split title in '03 with LSU. Such a stupid system.
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While I have some sympathy for Auburn (by which I mean, I have zero sympathy for them, ever) in 2004, it's worth pointing out that in their entire division, only LSU had a winning record. The SECwest was hot garbage in 2004 and AU did not have an amazing schedule.
I'm confident if Auburn had gotten to play USC, they have gotten shellacked similar to OU. They did have a few schematic things in their favor that could've made for a better game....maybe. Those old Pete Carroll defenses were susceptible to more pro-style attacks, offenses that utilized the backs and tight ends more, which Campbell did during his final year. Still, SC that night unveiled what would become their 2005 offense, and their defense was one of the best of the Carroll era. I get AU not getting a chance to "prove it" but I think the BCS got that one right. Just as I think it got it right in 2003. 2003 SC was not 2004 SC, and would've lost to either OU or LSU.
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OU's 2008 NC game vs. Florida was bizarro-world. Both teams showed up kind of the opposite of their regular season m.o. Their opponent's had something to do with that, of course, but it was still strange to watch.
What do OU fans consider winnable about those games? Or to put it another way, what opportunities were missed that would've lead to different outcomes?
For the LSU game, at the end, OU was moving the ball effectively ON THE GROUND toward what would have been the tying TD. LSU's defense seemed gassed, and even the TV guys noted it. So, we got down inside the 20 and decided that we had to pass the ball. Our last 10 plays of the game were 10 incomplete passes. There was a DPI penalty in there, so we got four more chances. And the last two were in the waning seconds after we held LSU and got the ball back. And, of course, there was the infamous pregame "spying" controversy involving Saban.
Against Florida, in the first half we got stoned twice on possessions that got near or inside the Gator 10-yard line. Unimaginative play-calling from OC Kevin "Hack" Wilson. He was going to score his way or not at all. Not at all, both times, as it turned out. No points.
I'm not asserting that OU was the better team and/or deserved to win those games. But they were games that could have gone either way, and obviously some choices that the offensive cases didn't work out well either time.
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Auburn's 2004 team is the prime reason why I'm all in favor of expanding the playoff in general. 4 teams are OK, 8 would be best. . . .
Most CFB fans seem to agree with you, but I've never understood the logic.
If 4 teams are better than 2, and 8 teams are better than 4, why would 16 teams not be better than 8?
What is the limiting factor that says that more than 8 would be too many?
I opposed going to 4 because I knew it would lead to 8. Or more. And that was the intent all along. The advocates of 4 for lying through their teeth when they said that they had no intent to go beyond that. Just like medical marijuana advocates always say that they are not in favor of legalizing recreational marijuana.
And what will make us stop at 12? Some year, some favorite team is going to be left out at #13, and there will be another outcry against the wrongness of it all.
We're paving paradise to put up a parking lot.
Personally, I'd go back to bowls-and-polls if I were King of CFB.
I actually liked the early BCS system a lot, but crying about RUTS meant that the computers had to be dumbed down, and USC being left out in 2003 and Auburn feeling shafted in 2004 ultimately led to expanding to 4 teams.
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I get it. Lots of nostalgia. But the fact is that certain teams benefitted from the old system, and OU is one of them.
Literally nobody else that plays a team sport decides their champion this way.
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I get it. Lots of nostalgia. But the fact is that certain teams benefitted from the old system, and OU is one of them.
Literally nobody else that plays a team sport decides their champion this way.
Sure but really who cares? Not all team sports decide their champion with a large playoff, either.
For example, many European soccer leagues like the EPL decide their champions with a set regular season and no playoffs whatsoever. There are plenty of ways to skin a cat.
A large part of the uniqueness of D1-A/FBS college football was that its postseason was different. As college football trends more and more toward just being an NFL clone, I find myself becoming less and less interested in it. And it's not like I'm the only one, college football attendance is falling all over the country. People are checking out because one of the things they LIKED about college football, is that it WASN'T exactly like the NFL.
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if everyone else jumps off the bridge, is it a good idea?
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Most CFB fans seem to agree with you, but I've never understood the logic.
If 4 teams are better than 2, and 8 teams are better than 4, why would 16 teams not be better than 8?
What is the limiting factor that says that more than 8 would be too many?
I opposed going to 4 because I knew it would lead to 8. Or more. And that was the intent all along. The advocates of 4 for lying through their teeth when they said that they had no intent to go beyond that. Just like medical marijuana advocates always say that they are not in favor of legalizing recreational marijuana.
And what will make us stop at 12? Some year, some favorite team is going to be left out at #13, and there will be another outcry against the wrongness of it all.
We're paving paradise to put up a parking lot.
Personally, I'd go back to bowls-and-polls if I were King of CFB.
I actually liked the early BCS system a lot, but crying about RUTS meant that the computers had to be dumbed down, and USC being left out in 2003 and Auburn feeling shafted in 2004 ultimately led to expanding to 4 teams.
I guess it’s all just opinions. But I think it’s reasonable to say that “ x teams have made the cut to get into the post season”. Let’s call it the top 10%. So since there are about 130 D1 teams, that puts you at 13 teams. So you cut it down to 12, for an even number.
12 teams out of ~130 seems reasonable. Most will have 1-2 losses, a couple will have 3. Why should LSU, with 2 losses, be national champions one year while plenty of other teams with one loss or no losses be excluded?
It’s because the NCAA does not award a national champion. Sports writers do. At least, they did up until the CFP came about. I’m not even sure if they do award one now.
As much as I despise teams like UCF or TCU who haven’t played anybody they deserve a real chance to play for a real title. Texas in 2008 deserved to play for a title. The Penn State team that went undefeated.
I can’t make this anymore clear, I just want it decided on the field, not by sportswriters and public opinion.
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deserves has got nuttin to do with it
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I get it. Lots of nostalgia. But the fact is that certain teams benefitted from the old system, and OU is one of them.
Literally nobody else that plays a team sport decides their champion this way.
But the general idea is that a playoff provides a "true" champion. It provides a playoff winner, nothing more, and that's for every sport that decides a champion that way. The idea that a playoff gives us a "true greatest team of the season" is a flawed one.
Ergo, give me the chaos over the ignorant masses being deluded into thinking we have crowned a worthy be-all, end-all for the year.
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I guess it’s all just opinions. But I think it’s reasonable to say that “ x teams have made the cut to get into the post season”. Let’s call it the top 10%. So since there are about 130 D1 teams, that puts you at 13 teams. So you cut it down to 12, for an even number.
12 teams out of ~130 seems reasonable. Most will have 1-2 losses, a couple will have 3. Why should LSU, with 2 losses, be national champions one year while plenty of other teams with one loss or no losses be excluded?
It’s because the NCAA does not award a national champion. Sports writers do. At least, they did up until the CFP came about. I’m not even sure if they do award one now.
As much as I despise teams like UCF or TCU who haven’t played anybody they deserve a real chance to play for a real title. Texas in 2008 deserved to play for a title. The Penn State team that went undefeated.
I can’t make this anymore clear, I just want it decided on the field, not by sportswriters and public opinion.
No you're correct-- the NCAA does not award a national championship in FBS football. The CFP is not associated with the NCAA in any way, other than the teams participating in the CFP, are also NCAA members. And they have agreed to use the NCAA rulebook for their contests.
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As much as I despise teams like UCF or TCU who haven’t played anybody they deserve a real chance to play for a real title. Texas in 2008 deserved to play for a title. The Penn State team that went undefeated.
I can’t make this anymore clear, I just want it decided on the field, not by sportswriters and public opinion.
Which Penn State team would that be? Was it 1969?
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I confess that I didn’t start watching CFB until 1996, my freshman year at A&M. But I thought there was a highly controversial season, maybe 1994 or some such, that PSU went undefeated but got left out.
I’m sure one of you old bastages will chime in.
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But the general idea is that a playoff provides a "true" champion. It provides a playoff winner, nothing more, and that's for every sport that decides a champion that way. The idea that a playoff gives us a "true greatest team of the season" is a flawed one.
Ergo, give me the chaos over the ignorant masses being deluded into thinking we have crowned a worthy be-all, end-all for the year.
Me personally I always thought the team that won was the better one. But under the old system it’s just whatever team you THINK is better. Not the team that actually wins.
I’m just not ok with CFB mostly being a popularity contest. But that’s just me. Seems like a lot of folks like it that way.
It’s looking like more people agree with me, thus the 12 team playoff. And we’ll all still watch, and maybe over time some interesting and exciting matchups will happen. Both in the regular season and the post season.
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I don't think you can say we'll "all" watch. I haven't watched a single CFP championship game, and I only caught one or two of the semifinal games, when they were on a sensible day like New Year's or something. I have little interest in the new format, and I'll find a 12-team playoff to be even less compelling.
Obviously I'd watch if Texas were ever in it, but that doesn't seem to be a likely scenario anytime soon.
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I confess that I didn’t start watching CFB until 1996, my freshman year at A&M. But I thought there was a highly controversial season, maybe 1994 or some such, that PSU went undefeated but got left out.
I’m sure one of you old bastages will chime in.
In 1969 Texas finished the season ranked number 1 and Penn St which was undefeated number 2
An invitation was extended to JoPa and his Penn St team to come to the Cotton Bowl and play for the National Championship
As was his custom Paterno allowed his Penn St team to vote on it and they elected to go to the Orange Bowl instead of playing UT for the National Championship.
It was then that a second invite went to Ara Parseghian and his Notre Dame team and they accepted
When UT beat Notre Dame and won the NC Paterno stated UT couldnt have driven 70 yards on the ground twice against them as it had ND which created a very humorous situation
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I don't think you can say we'll "all" watch. I haven't watched a single CFP championship game, and I only caught one or two of the semifinal games, when they were on a sensible day like New Year's or something. I have little interest in the new format, and I'll find a 12-team playoff to be even less compelling.
Obviously I'd watch if Texas were ever in it, but that doesn't seem to be a likely scenario anytime soon.
You just never know utee
If we win our bowl game we will be 9 and 4 with a green freshman QB and a very green OL
Next year we will be even better
Maybe not next year but in two years we might just be ready
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In 1969 Texas finished the season ranked number 1 and Penn St which was undefeated number 2
An invitation was extended to JoPa and his Penn St team to come to the Cotton Bowl and play for the National Championship
As was his custom Paterno allowed his Penn St team to vote on it and they elected to go to the Orange Bowl instead of playing UT for the National Championship.
It was then that a second invite went to Ara Parseghian and his Notre Dame team and they accepted
When UT beat Notre Dame and won the NC Paterno stated UT couldnt have driven 70 yards on the ground twice against them as it had ND which created a very humorous situation
PSU has finished undefeated and without being awarded the MNC on several occasions. I'm pretty sure the one Gigem is talking about, is the 1994 season, where they finished 12-0. Unfortunately for them, the mid 90s Nebraska juggernaut finished 13-0 and was awarded both the AP and Coaches' poll MNCs that year.
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You just never know utee
If we win our bowl game we will be 9 and 4 with a green freshman QB and a very green OL
Next year we will be even better
Maybe not next year but in two years we might just be ready
hope springs eternal this time of year
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Eh, I've been right for the past decade and a half or so. Anyway, lamenting the Longhorns' poor performances isn't what this thread is for. As I recall, this thread is intended to celebrate the Sooners' success and impending B12 domination in sports such as football and basketball.
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PSU has finished undefeated and without being awarded the MNC on several occasions. I'm pretty sure the one Gigem is talking about, is the 1994 season, where they finished 12-0. Unfortunately for them, the mid 90s Nebraska juggernaut finished 13-0 and was awarded both the AP and Coaches' poll MNCs that year.
yup, PSU ducked Texas in 69. Perhaps not really JoePa's fault in 94 cause they were new members of the Big Ten and ducked Nebraska by going to the Rose Bowl.
Huskers and especially Doc Tom Osborne didn't like it cause that set up playing the Miami Canes on their homefield
There was some discussion about getting PSU out of the Rose to play Nebraska.
There was also talk of having another game after the Rose and Orange bowl to settle the disagreement
JoePa didn't seem to want to play the Huskers.
I would have been just fine with a split title like in 97, but the voters didn't see it that way.
I just REALLY wish the 94 Huskers would have played Penn St. and the 97 Huskers would have beaten the hell outta Michigan!
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Eh, I've been right for the past decade and a half or so. Anyway, lamenting the Longhorns' poor performances isn't what this thread is for. As I recall, this thread is intended to celebrate the Sooners' success and impending B12 domination in sports such as football and basketball.
nobody pays attention to what the subject of a thread is around here
anyway I didnt expect you to feel anything positive concerning the Horns as we all know its not your job to blow smoke
Incidentally the Horns are projected to play Utah in the Alamo Bowl. Utah is favored by 7 which should be interesting
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if the Utes can handle those two bruising backs from Texas, they have a chance
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if the Utes can handle those two bruising backs from Texas, they have a chance
Not sure whether or not either one will play. Hoping they both will.
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I'm feeling pretty optimistic about OU sports for 2022.
I believe that Brent Venables as HFC is an upgrade from Lincoln Riley. The Sooners should play tougher and more disciplined football. I think that Venables has assembled a good staff that can recruit as well as it can coach. It's a good mix of young and old, black and white, OU alums and new blood. I think Venables is the right guy to get the program prepared for SEC-style football. If I had to pick a favorite for the 2022 Big 12 championship, it would be OU. That's not to say that I'd take OU vs. the field, but the Sooners are my totally objective favorite.
This didn't age well, thus far, though going forward it could work out ...
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This didn't age well, thus far, though going forward it could work out ...
No, it sure didn't.
I think that Sooner fans are generally stunned at both the process and the results this year.
Pat Jones, the winningest-ever Oklahoma State football coach prior to Mike Gundy, has a mid-day radio show. He opined that Brent Venables has a year and a half to fix his mess. If things aren't looking much better by the mid-point of the 2024 season, Venables won't have a 2025 season in Norman.
In 2021, the Sooners went 6-1 in games decided by one score. This year, they went 0-4 in such games.
One of Oklahoma's premier sports writers is a guy named Berry Tramel, who writes for The Oklahoman. He wrote a few days ago that this year's 6-6 team essentially the same as last year's 11-2 team. It's just that the close games went the other way.
I disagree with that. Being able to win close games means something. Being in better condition than the other team. Having more poise than the other team. Making better coaching decisions in crunch-time than the other team's coaches. Losing close games to teams that are not physically superior to your team means that your team found ways to lose instead of finding ways to win.
The 2022 Sooners were not going to be a great team. But they certainly had the talent to finish better than 6-6. Or, after the likely Cheez-It (the Cops) Bowl loss to FSU, 6-7.
Bad coaching.
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agreed
Frost seemed to have losing close games down to a science
Pelini could turn them into a win
it's more than just luck and the bounce of the ball.
gotta make yer own breaks
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I think A&M lost 5 or 6 games by less than one TD. Like 4.5 pts per loss. I lost track, but there were a lot of games that were tight. Some of that is BS though because they scored very late and had no chance to score again.
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I think A&M lost 5 or 6 games by less than one TD. Like 4.5 pts per loss. I lost track, but there were a lot of games that were tight. Some of that is BS though because they scored very late and had no chance to score again.
The four games the Horns lost was by a combined 18 points so I feel your pain
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Don't worry, I expect both UT and OU to get themselves back in top form almost like magic just in time to give us problems.
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UGA had a pretty close win once ...
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Certainly wasn't in the last game.
I'm anxious to play them again soon as BK gets the house in order, assuming he does.
Seems Jalen Carter picking up and holding our QB and Kirby going for 2 up by a bazillion didn't sit well with the locker room. Kinda don't blame them.
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Certainly wasn't in the last game.
I'm anxious to play them again soon as BK gets the house in order, assuming he does.
Seems Jalen Carter picking up and holding our QB and Kirby going for 2 up by a bazillion didn't sit well with the locker room. Kinda don't blame them.
I didn't think Brian Kelly would do well at LSU. Seemed like a bad fit. Boston Yankee in bayou country. His attempt at a Cajun accent was not so good.
He surprised me.
I think he'll probably do even better next year.
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Jury is still out on him, I suppose. There were both encouraging signs and warning signs this year.
Miles would've seemed like a bad fit as far as where he's from. I recall you referring to him as Leslie and saying he would tank LSU. If you can jinx Kelly the same way you jinxed Miles I'd be plenty happy.
The roster is so bad off it's going to take a while no matter what, I think. We're stuck in a perpetual loop of depending on transfer portal kids for bodies in the secondary, who have a year of eligibility then they move on, and the next year you need more transfer portal kids. Gonna take a bit to recruit the high school kids we need, and get them to stick around so they can get experience. Defensive line, too, and to a lesser extent some other positions. There were only 71 scholly kids this past season, a handful of which were one-time walk-ons. Every team we played had the full 88, and it showed, never more so than against Georgia. I guess it beats the 39 scholly players we brought to the bowl game last year against K-State.
O really steered the ship right into the sun like few people ever have. I'm hard pressed to find a guy who was given so much, stumbled ass-backwards into even more, and then still managed to tank the whole thing in record time.
Back on topic, hopefully this is not the case with Venables. He's been part of great OU teams and been integral during Clemson's great run...I was surprised this season went like it did.
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Well, Miles' first name was indeed Leslie. His name is Leslie Edwin Miles.
Other than that, yeah, what you said.
But I think we may be in that loop of depending on the transfer portal too.
Portal transfers have in many ways taken the place of Juco transfers. In either case, over-dependence on them leads to bigger/more problems down the road.
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THIS DAY IN HISTORY:
The Oklahoma Land Rush (1889)
On April 22, 1889, some 50,000 people lined up to grab a piece of the 2 million acres (8,000 sq km) being made available by the US government in the first land run into the Unassigned Lands, later known as the state of Oklahoma. Each settler could claim a lot of up to 160 acres (0.65 sq km). A number of participants illegally entered and hid in the area before the run officially began at noon in order to quickly claim the choicest homesteads.
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We don't call it the "Sooner State" for nuthin!
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Oklahoma four-star freshman defensive lineman Derrick LeBlanc has entered the NCAA transfer portal, On3 has learned.
LeBlanc, a Florida native, ranked as the 31st-best defensive lineman and 244th-best overall prospect in the 2023 recruiting class according to the On3 Industry Rankings.
LeBlanc had signed with the Sooners in December and enrolled at Oklahoma in January.
Prior to choosing the Sooners, LeBlanc took official visits to Florida and Penn State.
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I don't know how bad a loss that is, but it's not good.
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just makes ya wonder why?
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Really, everything can be going perfectly, and a kid just gets homesick. There's nothing you can do about it. Nowadays, he's got the option to head back if it gets overwhelming.
Not saying that's 100% the case here, but this is about the right time for a freshman to decide he misses home.
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yup, it apparently happened to a softball pitcher
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Really, everything can be going perfectly, and a kid just gets homesick. There's nothing you can do about it. Nowadays, he's got the option to head back if it gets overwhelming.
Not saying that's 100% the case here, but this is about the right time for a freshman to decide he misses home.
He's from Florida. Norman's a nice college town/city, but it doesn't have beaches.
There's talk that he didn't really fit into what OU was trying to do with him, position-wise. Maybe that played a part too.
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The Cornhuskers haven’t been able to find anything close to their Big 12 and Big 8 success in the Big Ten.
Fox Sports radio host Colin Cowherd said the Sooners would suffer the same fate.
His reasonings? Like Nebraska, Oklahoma isn’t a great recruiting state. He believes Nebraska chose the wrong conference for what made them successful in recruiting and felt Oklahoma would suffer the same fate. He also believes Oklahoma hasn’t found the right head coach.
Now, there are several things wrong with the points he made. The biggest one, he didn’t do his research.
Nebraska geographically isn’t near where they had so much success recruiting. Oklahoma is a little more than two hours from Dallas, one of the best recruiting areas in the nation.
Former head coach Bob Stoops echoed that statement in a recent interview with KREF.
https://soonerswire.usatoday.com/2023/06/30/oklahoma-sooners-nebraska-kref-bob-stoops/ (https://soonerswire.usatoday.com/2023/06/30/oklahoma-sooners-nebraska-kref-bob-stoops/)
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It's entirely possible that Oklahoma has made a mistake with its head coach. They did so before with Schnelly and Blake and arguably Gibbs. These things happen.
But whether any of us like it or not, OU is a de facto Texas state university when it comes to football. They enjoy all of the same benefits with respect to recruiting in Texas, as any university actually located within the state, and they will continue to do so. Indeed they're more of a power in recruiting in Texas than anyone other than UT and perhaps Texas A&M.
To think they'll suffer any more or less than the University of Texas itself, is naive and silly.
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Cowherd
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You couldn't even fill a thimble with that blowhard's "knowledge" of college football.
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the only positive is that he's needling the Boomers ;)
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the only positive is that he's needling the Boomers ;)
Heh, good point.
He may proceed. ;)
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The situations have critical differences.
Nebraska's drawing card in the Big 12 was its unique style of play. As college football morphed to high speed throwing and exotic offenses, UNL was still a place for the power lifters. The NFL was never going to draft the Nebraska QB to play QB because he was going to be a strong runner who could occasionally throw the ball to an open TE or busted out WR. The play was almost always made by the massive corn fed dudes crushing the man in front of them.
When they abandoned that style, they were just another pro style set trying to bid for the services of pro style players. No real selling point.
Oklahoma had continuity. Stoops connected with a whole ton of brilliant coordinators and managed his staff accordingly. Full marks to him. I have my own opinion about Lincoln Riley's talent (I think Stoops left him "good enough" against a depleted Big 12, and now he's competing against air in the Pac), but he was supposed to keep the train on the tracks. Instead, he picked up the entire train and ran away - at the worst possible time, since players suddenly enjoyed practically unfettered mobility.
We'll have to see how Venables works out. I dunno why sportswriters want to make such preposterous excuses for last season. Going in, there was a high probability of disaster, and disaster occurred. Cramming together a bunch of transfer players didn't result in a team. Now, for 23-24, there's another influx of transfers, which surely will make it work this time? Maybe, but why?
Keep in mind, that's not Venables's fault. He's still trying to piece together an explosion that he didn't cause. He may yet turn out to be a great coach. He just wasn't able to pull off a miracle that no one had a right to expect.
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Well stated as always, droog.
I think it's too soon to make any definitive statements about Venables' coaching ability at a bigtime program like OU.
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This year should tell us a lot. Game-management needs to be significantly better, IMO. A subset of that is playing complementary football. The Sooners were thin on defense last year. They collapsed in the 4th quarter of games that were close. (The Sooners lost after leading in four 4th quarters and after being tied going into another 4th quarter.) The hurry-up offense exposed the defense's lack of depth. But nobody told the OC, Lebby, to slow it down and eat some clock. "Somebody" needs to tell his OC when to go slow and when to speed up.
Bob Stoops made a big jump from Season 1 to Season 2--from a 7-5 record to 13-0. Maybe we'll see a similar improvement in Venables' Season 2.
"Maybe we'll do better this year" isn't really a strategy, though.
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Well I'm certainly not hoping for a 13-0 Sooner season, but 11-2 with two losses to Texas would be fine by me. :)
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I've seen a homer prediction of OU losing to Texas in Dallas and then beating a team not named Texas in the CCG. That combination seems a little unlikely to me.
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Billy Sims
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How do I like my eggs? In chocolate form. Happy Easter everyone!
(https://i.imgur.com/ZyEKfmC.jpeg)