Michael Kinney
NORMAN — When the Bowl Championship rankings came out Sunday afternoon, the happiest people in college football were the University of Oklahoma players. Six hours later, that changed to the Sooner coaches.
By the time the evening news rolled through Sunday, every critic of the BCS, the Big 12 and the Sooners had piled on with their commentary on how Texas was cheated and why OU should not be playing in Saturday’s Big 12 Championship game against Missouri. The skeptics ranged from a certain coach down in Austin to the majority of college football analysts on ESPN and other major networks.
“Going into the last couple of weeks, we knew that a good team was going to be left out of the Big 12 championship. Unfortunately, in this situation, it was us,” Texas coach Mack Brown said in a statement. “It is what it is. We don’t like it, we don’t agree with it or think it’s fair, but, like anything else, we’ll handle it and move forward.”
Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops has tried for two weeks to defend his team and tell anyone who asked why he felt his Sooners (11-1, 7-1 Big 12) deserved to ranked ahead of Texas (11-1, 7-1), even though they lost to the Longhorns 45-35. Yet, UT lost at Texas Tech 39-33 early in November. Then the second-ranked No. 2 Red Raiders (11-1, 7-1) lost at Oklahoma 65-21. That left it a three way tie and other factors had to be looked at.
“I think also the strength of schedule,” Stoops said. “Cincinnati, the Big East Champion, we played pretty well here, along with TCU. The schedule probably overall made a difference as well. As everyone knows, I have argued that for a long time that strength of schedule should make a difference. It seems to, to the media in the first two, three or four weeks of the year and then everyone forgets about it by the end of the year. But maybe it mattered in this case, and we feel glad that we did play those tough teams.”
But that explanation didn’t satisfy the detractors, who believe the Sooners have snaked their way into the a prime BCS position and one win away from playing for a national title.
“I can understand with the way Tech and Texas feel, can’t be good,” Stoops said. “But in the end it’s your whole body of work through the year and how you’ve played down the stretch. I feel the way we have played down the stretch has been pretty incredible. We had over 60 points for four straight games, and three of those games I don’t think Sam Bradford has played more than maybe a series during the fourth quarter. So we’ve played well and put ourselves in this position.”
The criticism, while stinging, in the long run is the best thing that could happen to the Sooners.
In the past, Oklahoma has shown that after completing a dominating regular season, they tend to lose focus. Whether it was being run over by Kansas State in the 2003 Big 12 title or loosing their last four BCS bowl games, the OU squad that took the field in those contests looked nothing like the ones that played in the regular season.
Because of their failures lately in the postseason, coach Bob Stoops lost his nickname Big Game Bob and the program picked up the moniker the Oklahoma Chokers.
Whether it was overlooking their opponents, too much time off or just players and coaches getting lazy, Oklahoma has become synonymous with BCS futility.
However, with the way they enter the postseason this year, the Sooners have no excuses. Besides their fans, almost nobody believes they should be in the conference title game, and if they win, the BCS championship. For maybe the first time since Stoops arrived at OU, not only will they be underdogs, but they will actually be the team the country is rooting against.
If Stoops doesn’t hammer into his team every day that it’s them against the world, I would be horribly surprised.
Oklahoma can begin the process of shutting critics up with a win against the Tigers, which would earn them an unprecedented third consecutive Big 12 title and six overall in Stoops’ 11 years. But none of that will matter if they advance and fall flat on their face in the BCS championship, again.
