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I’m an unabashed Trekkie, a long-time Star Trek fan who watched the original series in late-night reruns with my mom in the early 1980s.
As with most Trekkies, I grok Spock. In 1991, one of my favorite lines was delivered by the ever-philosophizing pointy-eared Vulcan first officer in the series’ sixth movie, The Undiscovered Country.
“History is replete with turning points, lieutenant,” Spock said to a subordinate officer. “You must have faith.”
Spock’s words ring presciently. Whether about his further adventures in that movie and beyond, the coming real-world elections or whether I’ll find my slippers after I get out of the shower, we must all have faith the universe will unfold as it should.
Those words can also be relevant in sports, and more specifically, college football. After nine games, the OU Sooners are 5-4 and the OSU Cowboys are 3-6. Neither team or fanbase is where it wants to be at this point in time, and both are staring down the barrel of difficult closing stretches.
They’ve each reached a turning point.
OU’s upcoming games are against the currently ranked No. 25, No. 14 and No. 16 teams. OSU will face teams with a combined record of 17-9. Neither schedule features a contest in which either state school is likely to be favored.
At the same time, it’s hard to envision an entirely UNWINNABLE contest ahead. Despite the heavyweight names, none of OU’s opponents is a top-10 team, and despite their solid records, only Colorado is ranked among the schools OSU has on the docket.
So, it’s possible for a fan of either state school to have Spock’s said faith going forward … or, you can focus on trying to avoid the hope that kills you. Either way, both teams have reached a turning point in the history to be written about this season, and, going forward, it will be — to borrow the catchphrase of my favorite green-blooded, son-of-a-bitch …
… “fascinating.”
- As we start this week’s Hangover Highlights, I would like to offer quick condolences to everyone who sustained tornado or wind damage overnight. This article and its efforts at irreverent humor were written before sirens and phone alerts rousted us all out of bed, but seeing Oklahoma communities damaged once again this year is tough to swallow, and perhaps it underscores one more reason why so many of us turn to sports as a reprieve from the tragedies of life.
- I honestly did not think Oklahoma State would lose Saturday to Arizona State. It just felt like the type of game a Mike Gundy squad would win, particularly at home. Although ASU came into the contest 6-2, they appeared to be a bit of a paper tiger without a single win over a team with a current winning season. In fact, those six wins were piled up against schools with a 14-28 record.
- Well, with OSU pistols misfiring further, the Cowboys’ current 3-6 mark will not help the Sun Devils’ strength of schedule. Still, the 42-21 final score tells the story perfectly well. It was a desultory performance for the ‘Pokes in front of a rather robust homecoming crowd. The Cowboys played footsies long enough to have a tied game with five minutes left in the first half, but they looked lost the remainder of the game.
- Maybe Gundy’s team didn’t get the memo that half a game was left to be played after a lightning delay caused an extra-long halftime. ASU scored three-straight unanswered touchdowns to coast to the blowout.
- Unsurprisingly, it was the OSU defense that let the homecoming crowd down. The Sun Devils had 225 rushing yards, 153 by battering ram Cam Skattebo. Until the Cowboys figure a way to corral an opposing ball carrier, all the quarterback changes, eye-popping plays by Brennan Presley and tough, workmanlike efforts by Ollie Gordon II are simply akin to deck chairs being swapped about on the Titanic.
- In January 1995, I attended my second event as a sports reporter: An out-of-conference Oral Roberts/OU men’s basketball game while working for the OU student newspaper. The first game I had ever covered actually happened four days earlier when the Sooners played Colorado in Big 8 Conference action. So, why did OU play an unusual non-conference game after in-league proceedings had already started? Wondering the same thing, visibly annoyed first-year OU head coach Kelvin Sampson asked, “Who scheduled this game?” during the post-game press conference after his Sooners blew out ORU in a yawner.
- I posed the same question to myself Saturday when OU football beat Maine, 59-14, although in this case I knew the answer. It was a last-minute fill-in that resulted from the SEC’s decision to play only eight conference games this season, which left schools scrambling to fill a fourth non-conference game. It doubly impacted the Sooners as they actually had to fill TWO games in their non-conference slate this season because they had originally scheduled an out-of-conference tilt with Tennessee back when the Sooners were in the Big 12. All the musical chairs resulted in the laughable sight of Maine players suited up on Owen Field on Saturday afternoon in November.
- So, while I GUESS I understand why it was played, personally, I would rather be dragged buck-naked over a cactus field just to hear Barry Switzer fart over a payphone rather than conjure up tangible takeaways from such a farce of athletic competition. Yet, I shall endeavor to share a couple of thoughts from a contest that unfolded in front of an embarrassingly small crowd (one that OU proudly presented as a “sellout” way back on Wednesday, which pegged my horseshit-o-meter at a solid 9.5 out of 10).
- The amount of angst in Sooner Nation was so palpable that when Maine took a short-lived 7-0 lead, it seemed the end of the world was nigh. Yet, predictably, OU ended up scoring on all but two of its first-half possessions en route to a 35-7 halftime lead.
- The OU offense, particularly the running game, looked competent. The Sooners’ defense was solid, and …
- … what the hell am I saying?! It was Maine. Nobody, since the Spanish-American War, remembers Maine! My main Maine takeaway: OU’s uniforms were ugly and illegible, which prompted a good tweet by Dean Blevins for maybe the first time ever.
- Penn State played Ohio State tough in a 20-13 loss to the Buckeyes in the premier game of the weekend, as both teams came in ranked within the top five. I give the Nittany Lions the backhanded compliment because, when you take into account they are now 1-13 against top-five teams, 3-28 against top-10 teams and 13-27 against ranked teams of any sort under head coach James Franklin, I’m not sure what else to say. When do moral victories start becoming hollow?
- Ohio State led 14-10 at halftime despite quarterback Will Howard throwing a pick-six and fumbling when trying to cross the goal line. Essentially, Howard cost his team 14 points, yet his Buckeyes STILL carried a lead into intermission on the road against PSU. In a big-game situation, is there any less trustworthy marquee-name school than Penn State?
- In the most predictable upset of the season, South Carolina clobbered Texas A&M 44-20. The 10th-ranked Aggies were coming off an emotional win over LSU where they benched their quarterback and rallied behind a redshirt freshman signal caller. South Carolina, meanwhile, rested last week after blitzing OU the week before. It was also a night game in Columbia, South Carolina. With all that in mind, the brewing upset seemed obvious. South Carolina is a dangerous team, particularly when playing with a lead because of the Gamecocks’ tough running game. When they took a quick 14-0 lead, nothing added up for A&M to leave the Palmetto State with a victory.
- In a much-less expected upset, Texas Tech handed Iowa State its first loss of the season, 23-22. Nobody seriously envisioned the Iowa State Cyclones were a legitimate national title contender despite their 7-0 record, but the idea of a Tech team handing them a loss in Ames, Iowa, seemed a bit far-fetched. The Red Raiders were leaking serious oil coming into the contest, with back-to-back losses to mediocre TCU and Baylor. It didn’t matter as Tech, behind returning starting quarterback and potential vampire namesake Behren Morton, answered Iowa State play-for-play in the second half.
- With Morton, who exited the loss last week against TCU with an injury, the Raiders of Red are a tough out. He’s no superstar, but Tech is a good enough all-around team that simply competent quarterback play can keep them in any Big 12 contest.
- Of course, Big 12 games are just a study in mediocrity. Houston, expected to be among the dregs of the conference, stunned one of the preseason favorites, Kansas State, 24-19 on Saturday. Other than the game being in Houston, there was really no rhyme nor reason the Cougars should have pulled the upset. They had just 10 first downs compared to 21 for Kansas State, and the Cougars were out-gained 327-232 in yards. I guess Houston head coach Willie Fritz is simply good at winning football games.
- After being pummeled in the season opener against Georgia, Clemson had toiled for the past two months as the quietest team in the country with a six-game win streak. The Tigers reached a No. 11 rank going into a home game against Louisville on Saturday … and promptly crawled right back under the rock from which they had sprung. The Cards crushed Clemson, 33-21, and never really strained to grab the win. Considering Clemson’s victories during its six-game streak were against Appalachian State, North Carolina State, Stanford, Florida State, Wake Forest and Virginia, maybe there was a reason nobody in the college football world really noticed what was going on in eastern South Carolina.
- Of all the mid-major teams that have moved to the power-conference level in the past two decades, nobody has had a more successful initial season than SMU. The Mustangs mashed 18th-ranked Pittsburgh 48-25, handing the Panthers their first loss of the season. SMU is now 8-1 in its first campaign in the ACC after wandering through the wilderness for years following the breakup of the Southwest Conference in 1994. Fellow former mid-majors TCU, BYU, Cincinnati, UCF and Louisville all struggled for at least a year or two after being called up to the major-conference level. But not SMU, which is looking for even more victories going forward: On deck are winnable games against Boston College, Virginia and Cal, and likely an ACC championship game berth with a chance to make the College Football Playoffs.
(Correction: This article was updated at 11:11 a.m. Monday, Nov. 4, to correct reference to the number of games teams have played.)
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