oSuJeff97

I think the part in question was what John Denver's connection to West Virginia was as the song writer, not why WVU would use that song, which is pretty obvious.

Yeah last year Bean was 17/23 for 246 yards, 1 TD; plus 59 rushing yards against the soft pussy weak oddly capable in hindsight Alex Grinch defense. I imagine he'll be just fine against the fearsome amazing awesome shit fest Brent Venables defense.

Yes, it's weird. I understand your line of thinking there, but really the question is do you think Kansas will be the most likely team standing in your way of making the title game? I'd say probably not; odds are your more direct competition are OSU, TCU, Baylor and K-State; so KU winning and OU losing their 4th straight and continuing to spiral is the best outcome. If it were Tech playing them, I'd say yeah you should probably root for OU since you already beat OU and lost to Tech. But KU? Nah... you gotta root for OU to continue their death spiral.

It was a multi-year process to make the stadium more comfortable. I don't know if you've ever been to a game at BPS, but the seating in the "original" north/south stands was extremely cramped... like they jammed way too many "seats" into the available space and it was a pretty uncomfortable situation if the stadium was anywhere near to being full. There was a noticeable difference in comfort in the west end zone since it was more recently constructed. So they had a two-year process of removing about 4,000 "seats" from the north and south sides and reconfiguring how the seat assignments worked on each side, if that makes sense. (IIRC they did the south side after then 2016 season and the north side after the 2017 season... so I thought it was settled in 2018, so I don't know what that difference of ~150 or so is above in "2019-present"... I guess maybe they did some tweaks or something at the end. It took some time to work out because in many cases, season ticket holders' seats were impacted and so that's why the process had to be completed over a couple of seasons. (They were trying to minimize the disruption to total number of season ticket holders in a given season)

KU damn near beat them in Lawrence last year with Bean starting at QB and Caleb Williams starting for OU. There's no reason they can't beat them in Norman with Bean.

In a tiny way, I almost feel responsible.... I'm the one who sent him to Thailand in search of low-cost whistles, filled his head with pseudo-erotic tales of my own Opium excursions... plus, I gave him some phone numbers of places he could score near the hotel.

Oh yeah my bad. 2021.

While the rivalry is one-sided for sure, and I will *NEVER* "feel good" about any Bedlam game EVER, I do disagree with this somewhat. The problem is that OU *has* been the better team, like for probably 98% of the program's history, even including the Gundy era. In fact, I would argue there have only been three years in 15 seasons under Gundy that OSU had the clear cut "better" team in the game: 2011 2013 2022 OSU went 2-1 in those games, with the only loss being the debacle in the snow in 2013. That one was pretty brutal because we win the Big 12 for the second time in three years if we win that game and handed Rape U their first Big 12 title a week after we curbstomped them. There have been a few other years that I would consider more "coin toss" game... 2010, but (of course) Justin Blackmon was injured in that game and then 2012, in which we lost in OT in Norman. So it sucks to lose those, but then Gundy also got one back with the win in Norman in 2014 as a massive underdog. So TL;DR: OSU has a shitty record against OUsux because they are prohibitively better like 98% of the time. Gundy has won 2 of the 3 times when he had the clearly better team.

The LBs are what concerns me. Cobb will probably be as star at some point, but he's still pretty green right now. He'll make a dazzling play (like the 4th down stop against Baylor) but then be out of position and give up a big gain on the next play. They will need to be sound against Duggan and I worry about him busting lots of long runs.

Well I hope you're right. I'm concerned.

Spoon kicked ass last night as always. it was cool to hear some of the songs from Lucifer on the Sofa live. They played “The Hardest Cut”, “Wild”, “Held”, “My Babe”, and “The Devil and Mr Jones.”

Yeah I wonder about TCU - they certainly aren't as good as OU made them look, but they are still capable and I worry about this week's game, mostly because it's in Ft. Worth. I don't think there's a chance we'll "crush them." I just want to get out of town with a W. Duggan may not be an elite NFL prospect, but I'm not sure I'd describe him as "very shitty." He's leading the league in passing efficiency by a fairly large margin and is also averaging ~50 ypg rushing. He's basically like when one of Kansas State's battering ram QBs was really good at passing also...a huge PITA to deal with...

Counterpoint: Behern Morton is significantly better than Donovan Smith. I'm not sure how the hell he wasn't starting already. I've watched Donovon Smith play for two years and he's pretty meh. This Morton kid is really, really good. When I watched him throw a laser beam across the field from the right hash to the left boundary for a 12 yard gain on like his second throw, I figured we were in for a long day. We would beat them in Lubbock with our backup (Gunnar Gundy!) with Smith starting for them... with Morton starting, probably not. It really felt like deja vu watching him... we seem to have a history of coaches finally figuring out the young backup is the best QB and giving him his first start against us.... happened with Brock Purdy, Alan Bowman... and almost Mahomes (his first action was against us in a blowout and then he started the next week).

Going to see Spoon at Cain's tonight. Haven't seen them in a few years. Very pumped.

A George Bonanza is here...

Yes. This. Plus, I like the fact that they bring up the various “factions” that are fighting the government, and even throws in Separatists. I thought that was a brilliant way to show that, to the “little people on the ground” like Andor there’s no difference between Separatists, Rebels, guerrilla groups like Saw Gurerra, etc…. To them it’s all just groups of people fighting the government… doesn’t make a difference if it’s the Galactic Republic or the Empire. Because if it causes massive disruption to your life, and/or opportunities to make a little money what’s the difference? But I think what Andor is going to learn in this series (starting with manifesto kid) is that there IS a difference, and the Empire is worth fighting.

Can confirm these narratives coming from the OU/Oklahoma Sports media industrial complex. If you want the full timeline, it went something like this: November 2021: Riley is a bitch who was scared to compete in the SEC, and now that I think about it, he’s not a very good coach and was probably tanking this season (a season in which they went 11-2 and were one play from being in the Big 12 title game) February 2022: Brent Venables is a home run hire. He’s going to bring back the toughness that we lost because Riley is such a soft pussy. The defense is going to be amazing and the offense isn’t going to miss a beat with Jeff Rape Enabler Lebby and Dillon Gabriel. September 2022 (following Nebraska game): WE’RE BACK, BABY! I told you Venables was a home-run hire! It’s so nice to have a great, physical defense that flies to the ball again, and I’m telling you Dillon Gabriel is a dark horse Heisman candidate. October 2022: I mean, it’s just going to take time. Riley left the cupboard totally bare; we basically have the talent of a G5 school. Just wait until Venables gets six new 5-star defensive linemen and they are in the system for 3-4 years. Then you’re going to see a dominant defense again. And Dillon Gabriel is nothing special. But just wait until Jackson Arnold gets here. He’s the real deal.

I’m not sure what Riley taking Caleb Williams has to do with their defense being completely fucking terrible. And I don’t understand the whole “needs more time to install his defense.” What does that even mean? Practically every player OU has on defense was recruited by everyone. They have talent. As I said earlier, if what makes Venables’ defensive system work is having 5-star guys at every position and/or guys who have been in the system for 4 years then his system fucking sucks. It’s not like they are having a few busts here and there… the defense has been completely mauled in 3 conference games. He was supposed to be the guy who fixed *the defense* and it’s the worst part of the team by far. Gabriel isn’t an elite QB by any means, but the offense was at least functional with him running it. Most teams are going to have a bit of a drop off to their backup QB, so I’ll cut them a little slack there.

The Fightin' Joey McGuire's may want a word with you. Game isn't over yet and this may age poorly, but.. Got the win and covered. We’re good.

They definitely won’t fall off the cliff like Corn, but I’m not sure I agree with the part about the end of OU being a blue blood. They still have all of the resources of being an elite blue blood program; have good access to a fertile recruiting area and will be in the Prestige Worldwide conference, so they’ll have plenty of money to invest in the program. They are one good coaching hire away from being right back where they were. I think the thing that NIL and transfer portal does is actually make it more difficult to find the right coach because you need a guy who knows how to really work that system to their advantage. But with the right coach, they’ll be fine. If BV truly flames out this year and next, they will back up the Brinks truck to get Heupel from Tennessee, and he would likely jump at the offer.

It’s not just the screaming. It’s understanding the talent you have and putting them in a position to be competitive. I keep hearing about how complicated his defense is and how it takes time to learn it. That’s fucking horseshit. OU has lots of guys on defense who were recruited by everyone and this isn’t rocket surgery. The last three weeks have shown that he hasn’t the first clue how to organize existing talent and put them in a position to succeed. I know it’s not fair to compare him to Stoops but that’s exactly what happened when he took over. The exact same team that looked completely lost under John Blake all of a sudden looked like they knew what they were doing and were instantly competitive after not being competitive for like 6 years. Venables just sucks. There’s a reason he was passed over for head coaching jobs (including by OU) for like a decade straight.

The common denominator is that it’s really hard to find a great head coach, even for blue bloods. OU lucked into hiring an all-time great in Stoops in 1998. Then they find their hand-picked successor in Riley who was an outstanding OC and (turns out) a really good head coach as well. Venables may end up being OK, but the early returns don’t look promising. Teams that have good head coaches don’t typically look completely lost on the field, even if they have inferior talent. Great coaches find ways to make their teams look competitive in year 1 and you can see it on the field. OU looks the opposite of that right now and that’s a direct reflection on coaching.

Ha that’s cool. The Oklahoma Air National Guard flies F-16s and flies out of the Tulsa Airport. One time I was flying out and a pair of the F-16s were on the taxi way ahead of us. I was sitting on a window seat directly facing the runway where they were about to take off. They went full burner and you could feel the rumble inside our plane and then they shot down the runway and went straight up. It was fucking cool as hell seeing that relatively up close like that.

Or maybe he just would rather do his thing in SoCal instead of Norman, Oklahoma? Sometimes these things aren’t that complicated. The “cupboard is bare” talk is amusing to me. Yes, Riley took Caleb Williams, which is a big deal, but what do you think the average recruiting ranking is of the guys who are left? OU’s roster is still loaded with a bunch of 4- and 5-star guys, and BV can’t get them to look like anything except completely and utterly fucking helpless out there? It took TCU four full quarters to score 38 points on Kansas… it took them barely over one quarter to do that against OU. I know that Kansas is improved, but their defense is full of 2- and 3-star guys. My thought is that if your defense can’t function without 5-star recruits at every position and/or guys who have been in the system for 4 years then maybe your defensive philosophy fucking sucks and you’re not actually a good coach.

I fucking love The Baron. Bringing him back (and pairing him with The Sire and the Hellhound) was my favorite thing about this past season.