I'm here to beseech you all to see some reason on a point I've made many times in comments, but that seems particularly relevant right now, given how many wet dreams came true just a scant two weeks ago.

Every year, the Oklahoma sports media (i.e., Tramel at the Oklahoman,the guys at the Sports Animal, and many more) bang the drum really hard to make the so-called "Bedlam rivalry" a big, serious, stop-the-state-for-it kind of thing. They've done this much more since the beginning of the Big 12 effectively ended the annual Thanksgiving matchup between OU and Nebraska, clearly OU's most meaningful game alongside the Texas game.

My primary point is that it's time to fully acknowledge who are TRUE rivals are, and leave the rest of the pretenders behind. And that means, Bedlam needs to go.

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I got this from my little sis. One of her boyfriend's best friends is lead guitarist for the band, Hinder. (I'd never heard of them...but most newer music escapes me, unless it's electronica.) They've written a pretty cool OU tribute song that you guys might enjoy, and HolaKyle on Youtube tacked up a video to go with it.

Maybe this will help you all get the unpleasant taste of conference instability out of your minds, if only for a few minutes, while you bask in the awesomeness of Sooner football.

Sooners Never Back Down

Hope you like it.

This is TOTALLY real-world, and any of you fellow Sooners living south of the Red can probably easily back me up.

So I'm in Houston most of last week for training, and I noticed something that really struck me as...well, very odd, honestly. While driving around town, I heard several radio ads for the Longhorn Network.

In Houston. They're advertising for the LHN in Houston.

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Bumped from FanPosts, great job 919!

CC said it in his previous post, "execution".

No, as much as some of you might like it, I'm not talking about executing certain coaches.

I was up late last night, thinking about OU's season and its future, and why I should even watch any more games this year. I asked myself: "really, why are we doing so poorly?" The answer is obvious: the Sooners just aren't executing on the road. But again, why? As I thought about their dismal record, only one thing kept coming to mind. Two individuals on this team have completely lost my confidence. And one of them is NOT Brent Venables.

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Every week, the guys over at College Football News do their Who's Hot - Who's Not lists. At #2 in the Who's Not list this week were our friends south of the Red River.

And I would encourage you to take a moment to read this...especially the first two sentences.

2. Texas
How bad have things gotten for the Longhorns? Mack Brown has dropped more home games in the last five weeks than Bob Stoops has in over a decade at Oklahoma. Now 4-4 after back-to-back losses to Iowa State and Baylor, Texas could have a unique goal in the annual showdown with Texas A&M at the end of the month…bowl eligibility. The offense has been a particular flop, ranking 109th nationally in red zone touchdowns.

I am strongly considering printing this out and keeping it on a small scrap of paper in my wallet. Having a bad day at work? Just pull this out and read it. Dog pooped in your yard? Here you go...this might help.

So yeah, we're 4-0, and that's great. How many of us expected to have a better record than Texas at this point of the season? (I say this as a person who predicted on my personal blog prior to the season that OU would  beat Texas this year. I stand behind that prediction, by the way.) Landry Jones has had a few issues here and there, but for the most part he has shown real improvement. For example, he's always had problems with his pocket awareness, and it's continued into this year. However, last night especially, there were points where he showed excellent pocket awareness, in spite of a couple of sacks (heck, even Sam Bradford was sacked a few times behind one of OU's best offensive lines).  The freshmen are really stepping up, ande especially on defense, just like Bob predicted they would before the season. Ryan and Demarco are doing exactly what we all knew they would do. In fact, the Jones-Broyles-Murray trio could be our most powerful and consistent playmaking-skill triple threat since White-Clayton-Peterson in 2004. So why am I (and most of you) still so unhappy?

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My wife got this from a friend on Facebook, and I thought it was good advice.

"SOONER FANS PLEASE REPOST: Remember every one of those young men wearing the opposing uniform next week also wear a more important uniform..one that unites us..the one they wear when they protect and defend our country. Let's give Air Force a standing ovation when they come on the field. I realize booing is part of sports, but what these young men do off the field is more important than anything on it."

Truer words have never been said. I say, let's pass this along to all of our fellow Sooner fans, and maybe the ones who are going to the game will get into the spirit of this. These boys deserve it.

UPDATE (Ed. note) - Coach Stoops addressed this topic specifically in his presser today and just wanted to add his comments to 919's original post.

"I’m totally in agreement with our administration and most everybody,” Stoops said. “Hopefully the people that are singing ‘Home of the Brave’ can be louder and stronger than most anybody that’s signing ‘Home of the Sooners.’ I have great respect for these young men and all the academies, their service and their sacrifice. You have to respect it and appreciate ‘em.  Asked if he would consider addressing the crowd and reminding them before kickoff — over a  live microphone, not per his usual pre-recorded message on the videoboard — Stoops said he might."

“Well, whatever our administration thinks is necessary,” he said. “I have to be honest, once it comes time to play, my mind’s a little bit (focused) on the football field. So I probably wouldn’t be the best. But I’ll do whatever they want me to, and of course whatever opportunity I get this week, I’ll make sure I express my opinion.”

Bob Barry is retiring as the voice of the Sooners after this year. It's sad to see him go, but it was probably time...while he's great and a legend and all that, he's definitely made more mistakes during games the past few years (for example, I don't know how he could never seem to get it through his had that the player's name was "BRODNEY Pool", not "Brandon Pool" or "Broderick Pool" or "Rodney Pool", all of which he used regularly for this poor guy).

How do ya'll feel about this? Do you know of anyone locally who might get the job, now that he's retiring? Who would you like to see take over for him, if anyone? And more importantly, do you feel the way I do about it, hoping they will have open auditions so you can go try out for the job as the next voice of Oklahoma Sooner football? I have to be honest, my secret dream job for many years has been to do exactly what John Brooks and Bob Barry Sr. did. (Broadcasting background? On-air experience? PSHAW....I can do that job.)   :-)

(Bumped from FanPosts)

I read this article from Sittler today over at the Tulsa World:

College Athletics Landscape Changing?

And he talks about what might happen on the off-chance that the Big 10 sucks Missouri out of the Big 12. He talks about OSU moving to the North, and the possibility of OU and OSU meeting regularly in the Big 12 Championship Game or even meeting twice during the regular season. I don't know what to think about that, but he also brought up what happened between OU and Nebraska after the Big 12 originally formed. I remember how sad I thought that was, and how I didn't like the break-up of the two traditional rival powers (and still don't like the set-up). For one thing, I've never taken OSU as seriously as a rival as I do Texas and Nebraska. Sure, they're the other in-state school, but compare the records and the relative importance of the games, especially over the past 40 years or so, and tell me you seriously think that OSU is a big rival for OU? OSU fans always have taken this game much more seriously than OU fans, and they always will. (We all know the joke...OSU could go 1-10, and as long as that win was against OU, they're happy.)

Let's look at some numbers:

OU vs. Nebraska: OU leads the series 44-38-3. Both teams were ranked coming into the game 22 times in the past 35 games played (going back to the 1971 "Game of the Century"). Both teams were ranked in the Top 10 in 17 of those games. OU's longest win streak is 16 (1943-1958). OU's longest losing streak in the series is 7 (1991-1997). However, this is not a streaky series; going all the way back to 1959, neither team has managed a clear sustained streak at any point. Nebraska's 7-straight through the 90s is countered by OU's 6 straight from 1972-1977. Neither team has managed to win more than 4 straight otherwise (with OU doing it only twice in that span, and one of those 4 game streaks was in this past decade). This game has consistently had major implications in the National Championship race, stretching back to the early 70s.

OU vs OSU: OU leads the series 81-16-7. Both teams were ranked coming into the game only 9 times in the past 39 games played (again, going back to the 1971 season). Both teams were ranked in the Top 10 on once in that span; the 1984 game saw OU come in at #2 and OSU at #3. OU has win streaks in this series of 19 (1946-1964), and 15 (1977-1991). In fact, they only lost once between 1967 and 1994 (OSU won 31-24 in the 1976 matchup in Norman), and tied once during that time (1992, 15-15 in Stillwater). Currently, OU has won the last 7 straight and 9 of the last 11. On the other hand, OSU has never managed to win more than two in a row in the history of the series. The game has only rarely had serious implications for the National Championship, and then only for OU, with OSU trying to play the spoiler.

(All stats courtesy of Sooner Stats.)

Sure, I love to see OU beat the tar out of OSU, but I love to see the Sooners beat the tar out of anybody. But I still believe and will consistently maintain that Bedlam is much more overblown than its numbers really show it should be. However, I'm interested to hear what my fellow Sooners have to say. If the Big Shake-up does happen and OSU moves to the Big 12 North to replace Missouri, and we had to pick a team from the North to play every year, who would YOU rather pick? OSU or Nebraska? (And I'm interested to hear any reasons...even "I pick OSU because the lack of a decent record makes it a much greater chance of a win, which is always good for us".)

I'm a member over at Crimson and Cream Machine, but I came over to say two things to all you hardcore Husker fans.

First, Suh is one of the most incredible defensive players I've ever seen. OU has had some great defense guys over the years...the Selmons, Tommie Harris...but Suh easily ranks right up there with the all-time greats. He was flat-out robbed (and I would even say disrespected) in the Heisman vote. If that award really were about "the season's most outstanding college football player" as it claims to be, he would have won it in a walk, because no one was as consistently dominating at his position or as important for his team as Suh was this year for you guys. He never had a bad game, and he showed up all the more in the really big games.

Second, I was at the classic 2000 OU-Nebraska game and watched that incredible clash of titanic teams. When it was over, as we were all leaving the stadium, I mostly remember experiencing the classiest thing I've ever seen...Cornhusker fans enjoying our victory (in a bittersweet way). Why? Here was the common refrain: "We missed you guys, and we're just glad you're back." (To use the old cliche, I wish I'd had a nickel for every time I heard something like this as we left the stadium.) I feel the same way today, about your season. The OU-Nebraska rivalry is one of college football's greatest, and for one primary reason: RESPECT. You guys are routinely acknowledged as one of the classiest fan bases in all of sports, and I fully agree. However, for me, it always went beyond that: you guys actually showed respect to OU, something that seems impossible for so many others. It comes from years of healthy, sincere competition for CHAMPIONSHIPS, shared between two incredible programs, and that is so great to see. So I'm really here to say congratulations on an incredible 2009 season! When you beef up that offense (and you will), you guys will be cleaning house in the North and on your way to regular spots in the top 5 of the BCS (as it should be). I only wish we could've given you guys a better game this year.

So again, congrats on a great season...we look forward to seeing you regularly in the Big 12 title game.