Bumped From FanPosts

It is with fear and trepidation that I dare to write in this forum.  You see I graduated from Boise State University and attended the Fiesta Bowl.  That alone should draw your ire.  Yet, here I am with something to say to the Sooners. 

As a fan of an emerging team, I can recognize and admire success in others.  To win year in and year out is not the product of money, facilities, or even talent -- though I will freely admit such things help.  Winning programs have that something extra often referred to as "strength of character".  Easily seen in the long string of victories, but in truth forged in the battles that are lost. 

I lay no claim to being a fan of the Sooners.  While my great grandfather, a cowboy out of Texas, did race to some land after the boom, the Great Depression and a plague of chinch bugs pushed our family further west, ultimately to Idaho.

It is no miracle that I was aware of the Sooners football program.  What football fan in America is not?  However, I learned to admire them in the weeks leading up to the Fiesta Bowl.  It takes integrity to build up from a seemingly lost season with a jury-rigged quarterback and a lost running back.  Yet, there you were with a winning season and a freshly returned Adrian Peterson.  As we settled into our seats, we met many a wonderful Sooner fan.  A class act all the way.  We all knew Adrian wasn't back to full strength, but when he switched gears to zip into the endzone for the last Oklahoma touchdown, we knew we had just seen greatness.  Indeed, we still talk of that play in tones of awe as we watch him play on Sundays.

So why am I writing?  Well it is no secret that the Sooners have had better years.  It can't be if I know about it in rural Idaho.  What  I find absolutely facinating is that by one of the strangest twists in fate, the Sooners will be the ones to decide who gets the last BCS slot this year.  This Saturday, playing the rival Cowboys, they get to decide who goes to the big dance!  Which hated enemy goes?  Is blood thicker than water?  Will they favor the home state team over the upstart Idahoans?  Or will they stick it to the Cowboys so they can say their loss to the Broncos was no fluke?  The field of available teams has slowly dwindled and now most discussions revolve around OSU and BSU.

To make matters even more complex is the home field record.  Oklahoma, I believe currently has the record for the longest string of home field victories.  Am I right, that their last home loss was to the Cowboys?  To preserve the integrity of this record, they must win this Saturday.  If they lose, the title goes to the next in line.  By a cruel twist of fate, that team appears to be the Boise State Broncos. 

Yet, here is the thing.  Strength of Character.  As fans, we look at all these things, but there is something about the joy of playing and watching great football that transcends such arguments, whether it is a pick-up game in the back yard with the kids after dinner or  in front of a packed house at Memorial Stadium this Saturday.  I am not a betting man, but if I were, I would wager that the Sooner coaches and players are busy studying game tapes, they are practicing hard, and will play as hard as they can, as long as they can with whatever weapons they can field. They are the Sooners, the best is all they have. 

Who will win?  Who knows?  I certainly don't normally have any predictive powers. 

But I will predict one thing.  This game will be watched with great interest throughout America, but especially in Idaho.