12/17/2008
by Rick
Please shut up. No really . . .shut . . .up.
Seriously. Pat Forde? Mark May? Get your tongues off of Mack Brown's naughty parts. It's hard to understand what you're saying with your mouths full.
Look here's the thing: We Oklahoma fans don't like it any better than you do. Yes, we're playing in the national championship game against Florida. Yes, we lost to Texas. Yes, we have the same record as Texas. (okay, maybe we do like it a little better than you do) We can do math. OU offers a PhD in the subject.
Don't think, however, that we don't also play football. Texas lost to Texas Tech. In their entire brilliant season, instead of taking their one loss to the Red Raiders the Longhorns could have lost to Missouri. They could have lost to Oklahoma State. That would have left a two way tie between OU and Texas giving Texas the head-to-head tie-breaker and Texas would have been in the conference championship instead of the Sooners and we Oklahoma fans would have been fine with it. Oh, but wait. They lost to Texas Tech. I don't care that it was in the last minute, they lost. They had sixty minutes to score points and they scored fewer.
Incidentally, I also don't care that they beat us on a neutral field and TTech beat them in Lubbock. They lost. We won big. It has become the fashion to say that we "ran up the score." Oh, us bad Oklahoma sportsmen. Was Texas choosing to not score more points against TTech because it would be unsportsmanlike? Was it more sportsmanlike to lose?
Hey, Pat and Mark, tell a 20 year old kid who gets a ball in his hands not to try to get to the end zone. Tell him it's his job to not score, not the opposing defense's job to keep him from scoring. Tell a running back looking into a hole not to go through it. Tell a wide receiver not to catch it. Tell a quarterback not to throw it.
Why was Sam in it in the fourth quarter against Missouri? Why was he throwing to try to get to 60? To pad stats and win the Heisman and get to the national championship. This is what every team wants. You want Bob Stoops to say, "No, Sam, you're sitting down. I don't want you, my quarterback, to win the Heisman and I'd really rather play in the Fiesta Bowl and let Texas play in the national championship. It's a sportsmanship thing."
If so, you're full of it. Bob Stoops gets paid more if he goes to the championship game, yes. He's also there because he wants his kids to be there. He has no reason to apologize for wanting to be there, nor should he be asked to give one. The Big XII conference made the rules. He played by them and took advantage of them, which is what he gets paid to do. When Wilt Chamberlain was able to dunk the ball during free throws, the changed the rule, they didn't tell him not to do that. Don't hate the playa, hate the game.
Look, our 2008 Sooners? They're damned good. The defense isn't what it may have been in prior years, but they still shut down the previously unstoppable Texas Tech Red Raiders, who beat Texas. It made stops against the Big East conference champions. Our defense is the question mark, yes. And excepting the Texas game, it has answered that question every time. We know that depth and inexperience in the secondary is an issue on defense. It is. But we're not about to apologize about it when it did better than Texas against TTech and Okie State.
Ryan Reynolds mattered. Don't think for a second he didn't.
No apologies.
Texas' loss mattered.
We are going into the national championship game. We earned our way there. We will do it with a questionable defense and a spectacularly questionable special teams unit.
We're also going into it with a bunch of guys who beat teams to an 11-1 record. We know what the "1" means. We also know what the other two do, and that there is zero -- by which I mean zero -- question that we belong there.
Like Fast Eddie Felton said to Minnesota Fats, "I'm the best there is, Fats, I'm the best there is. Even if you beat me, I'm still the best there is."
Boomer Sooner.
And Texas, one last thing: 38-33. Maybe you shouldn't have been so "sportsmanlike."
