John Shinn
• Stretch run will determine postseason fate
Three straight wins has done more than improve Oklahoma’s psyche. The Sooners’ bowl prospects have grown significantly better, too.
OU (5-3, 4-1 Big 12) will have much at stake over the final three weeks of the regular season.
Their postseason prospects can go in a number of directions based on what happens the next three Saturdays.
OU begins the rest of the season with Texas A&M; at Owen Field, travels to Lubbock to face Texas Tech Nov. 19 and wraps up the regular season Nov. 26 against Oklahoma State at Owen Field.
After spending the early part of the season trying to survive the struggles of injuries and youth, the Sooners feel like the next three games will define their season.
“Expectations have changed a lot,” offensive tackle Davin Joseph said. “We’re in the zone right now. We have three games left against three good opponents. They’re good opponents, but they’re opponents we know we can beat if we play well.
“Now we have a chance to make it to a good bowl game and possibly play in January. Things are looking up for us right now.”
The Big 12 Conference has ties to eight bowl games. The winner of the Big 12 Championship Game receives an automatic bid to a Bowl Championship Series game. The Fiesta Bowl is obligated to take the conference champion unless that team is ranked No. 1 or No. 2 in the BCS standings. Texas is No. 2 and will go to the Rose Bowl to play for the national championship if it retains the spot.
Should the Longhorns win out, they will likely be the only Big 12 team in a BCS bowl.
The rest fall into the pecking order of the conference’s other seven bowl agreements.
Those are the Cotton Bowl (Dallas), Holiday Bowl (San Diego), Alamo Bowl (San Antonio), Independence Bowl (Shreveport, La.), Houston Bowl, Champ Sports Bowl (Orlando, Fla.) and Fort Worth Bowl.
Each game selects teams, starting with the Cotton and ending with the Fort Worth. Where a team finishes in the conference standings has no direct relationship to where it will play its bowl game.
Winning out could make OU the top pick among those seven games. The Sooners would be 8-3 and second in the Big 12 South at 7-1 and, with all the program’s history, a very attractive bowl team.
If OU wins two of its last three games, the Sooners are a solid pick for no worse than the Alamo Bowl with an outside chance at the Holiday Bowl. Texas Tech’s and Colorado’s fortunes will also help to determine who goes where.
That’s something OU hasn’t spent much time thinking about in recent weeks. Just three weeks ago, sitting at 2-3, the Sooners were struggling to get back to even.
“I would like to see if we can get to the Cotton or whatever is the best available,” defensive end Calvin Thibodeaux said. “I don’t know what all our options are, but the only thing we can control is winning out.”
Of course, there’s a little matter of becoming eligible first.
The Sooners must win at least one of their final three for that to happen. Until that happens, OU coach Bob Stoops isn’t entertaining any bowl discussions.
“I’m not going there,” he said. “I know everyone else wants to. To us, it’s all about this week, that we don’t waste the week. That we make the most of it by improving and getting some things done, getting extra work for our stretch run here with A&M;, Tech and Oklahoma State.”
