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It lasted only a short while, but the cool vibes and wonderful feelings that emanated from its existence were not forgotten, even if it all was relegated to the dustbin of the past.
On the day after Thanksgiving, I watched HBO’s enjoyable documentary on yacht rock. (It was a … rockumentary?) Unsure of the musical genre? Well, if you’ve heard Michael McDonald — with or without the Doobie Brothers — Steely Dan, Dr. Hook or Toto, you’ve heard yacht rock.
The film cast a spotlight on such singers and bands from the 1970s and 1980s that nearly everyone my age remembers, especially if they spent time in a dentist’s office. A fusion of jazz and soft rock keyed for people uninterested in punk, hard rock or disco, the beloved, somewhat made-up genre of yacht rock had a short lifespan, however, dying off about the time MTV fully arrived on the musical scene.
I guess Christopher Cross’ chinstrap neckbeard was, understandably, not telegenic.
Like yacht rock, the emotional state of Sooner Nation in the days following last weekend’s momentous upset of Alabama was powerful but short-lived. Euphoria, floating on air, not a care in the world — all could be ascribed to anyone who really vibed to Cross’ 1979 hit Sailing, but also to any OU fan who approached Saturday’s tilt with LSU still soaring from the ‘Bama win.
Unfortunately, none of it was destined to last.
As I sat in my chair watching HBO’s documentary, I couldn’t help but think I was only 24 hours away from a similarly sad dénouement with OU football. For all the happiness from the prior weekend, it seemed unlikely good vibes could last.
I was right. Like the second albums from Cross and McDonald, OU football’s attempt to replicate prior success proved to be an abject disaster — not unexpected, yet still disappointing, especially with trick play tribulations blowin’ through the jasmine in my mind.
Who else fondly remembers the summer breeze of August and September, before the harsh realities of the actual football season set in? Let’s find out with this final regular-season edition of Hangover Highlights!
- OU had little in its favor headed to Baton Rouge. The Tigers rarely lose night games at LSU. Replicating the high emotions of last week’s senior day win over Alabama would be nigh-impossible. The surprise element of OU’s single-wing inspired offensive attack was gone. And the pass-first approach of LSU’s offense presented an entirely different animal than ‘Bama.
- All those detriments reared their heads, and more.
- Watching OU’s defense — incredibly dominant last week against a pass-impaired Alabama team — embarrass itself time and again on third-down-and-long against the LSU pass offense became the epitome of frustration. As I said last week, while I absolutely salute the performance by OU’s defense against Alabama, the Crimson Tide brought an offense custom-made for domination by these Sooners.
- LSU did not.
- OU’s offensive run game — outside of some scrambles by quarterback Jackson Arnold — looked neutered. The running backs were non-existent, and most of Arnold’s best runs came off busted pass plays.
- Despite it all — including an LSU kick return touchdown — the Sooners found themselves in a 17-17 tie late in the first half with LSU quarterback Garrett Nussmeier nursing a hurt shoulder. It didn’t matter a whit, however, as Nussmeier gamely completed long pass after long pass, third down after third down, to grind an overmatched OU defense into dust.
- Down 14 in the second half, things became so desperate that the OU offensive braintrust defaulted into a Microsoft Windows version of safe mode. For them, that meant running the offense through tight end Bauer Sharp — a confounding hallmark of the entire season. The misguided strategy resulted in (another) botched trick play where Sharp threw quite possibly the dumbest interception ever recorded by OU — easily the stupidest one thrown by a tight end — and ended any legitimate chance coach Brent Venables’ team had of winning the game. I mean, just look at the play unfolding in the photo above: OU had its offensive linemen trying to hide on the ground. Surprise! It didn’t work!
- All of which brings us to the offseason. Venables’ job, after the aforementioned good vibes from the Alabama win, is likely safe. An offensive coordinator will need to be hired. Who will be chosen as this would-be offensive savior? I’ll leave that to the professional prognosticators, yet I can’t help but smell history repeating itself.
- After a miserable 1992 season, then-OU head coach Gary Gibbs fired offensive coordinator Larry Coker and brought Watson Brown aboard as his new playcaller. Teamed with an experienced offense led by senior QB Cale Gundy, Brown’s ideas and play calling proved to be a success in 1993. Not an Earth-shattering triumph by any means, but a 9-3 record and a final ranking in the mid-teens.
- After Gundy’s graduation, however, 1994 was not quite the same. The offense and team sputtered again to a 6-5 regular season record, which led to Gibbs’ firing. The hiring of Brown just proved to postpone the inevitable.
- When Venables hires a new OC, it might rejuvenate the OU quarterback room (was it ever “juvenated” this year?), or it might become a short-lasting sugar high, not unlike Brown’s hire in 1993. That could simply prolong an inevitable regime change as OU football spins its wheels impotently into an abyss of mediocrity for another couple seasons.
- Remember, I came of age with 1990s OU football.
- Speaking of, I have seen a lawn chair fold. I have seen computer programs quit. But it has been a long while since I’ve closely witnessed a football team fold and quit as badly as the Oklahoma State Cowboys did Friday in a 52-0 loss at Colorado. As one wiseacre college football media member said on Twitter in the first half, “Hang on Oklahoma State. It’ll be over soon.”
- I’m extremely hesitant about using the term “quit” in sports. The word is thrown about too casually for my taste, as people mistake “quit” for momentum snowballing against players and/or a team. On Friday in Boulder, though, the Cowboys made their case to justify the word’s usage.
- There’s no world in which Colorado should have been 52 points better than Oklahoma State this season. Anyone who watched the Cowboys defeat Arkansas and play BYU to the absolute final gun knows it to be true. Yet, there we were with 10 minutes remaining in the game and Colorado holding a 475-65 edge in total yards.
- We were invited to the ongoing Kabuki theatre of OSU head coach Mike Gundy’s vacillating decision-making at quarterback, which had all the impact this game and season that I had changing the seating arrangement in my living room. Like the wonderful wizard of Oz, Gundy begged us to watch an attempted fix for the ‘Pokes quarterback situation, but not look behind the curtain at a team done with the 2024 season — and possibly him.
- I’ll say it until I’m blue in the face, but Alan Bowman — as middling as he is — always gave OSU its best chance to win this year. Watching freshman Maealiuaki Smith flail about impotently on Friday only lends credence to my theory. In the end, though, unless Gundy had Brandon Weeden or Mason Rudolph behind center this year, it just wasn’t going to make a ton of difference. The OSU defense was unimaginably bad all season, and the offensive line suddenly forgot how to run block for all-world running back Ollie Gordon II.
- Still, until the aforementioned BYU game on Oct. 18 where the Cowboys lost in the final seconds to a then-undefeated Cougars team, I never really thought of OSU as a “bad” team. Unlucky perhaps. Maybe also the product of a tough schedule, as three of four losses at that point had come against ranked teams.
- After the BYU loss, though, the season unraveled like a flimsy ball of yarn. The ‘Pokes lost all five remaining games, with four defeats coming by double-digit margins. The one outlier came against Texas Tech at home last week on senior day, a time when players even on losing teams usually enjoy one last bit of motivation. Once even that slight morsel of enthusiasm was gone, well, you have what happened in Colorado: The worst-ever loss in the worst-ever season for a Gundy-coached OSU team.
- Despite its 52-0 victory to end the regular season 7-2 in conference play, Colorado will not be in the Big 12 title game amid a four-team tie atop the conference standings. Instead, the Big 12 championship will come down to a clash of colors between Iowa State and Arizona State, who will meet for the first time in their histories. Somehow, BYU’s victory over Houston on Saturday eliminated Colorado from the title tilt.
- Meanwhile, in a contest that featured a pick-six as its only points of the second half, Texas survived Texas A&M, 17-7, to move into the SEC Championship game. Kudos to Texas, but my critical eye is cast upon A&M, which fell in love with a quarterback who gave them a spark earlier in the year but eventually was far too limited to be a full-time starter. If it sounds familiar to OU fans, it should, as Aggies quarterback Marcel Reed’s story echoed the Sooners’ Michael Hawkins. Reed came in last month and sparked his team over LSU thanks to his running and scrambling ability. But once teams were able to prepare for his run-first, run-second, run-third skillset, it resulted in A&M losing three of four games to end the season.
- Georgia continued to support my theory that the Bulldogs are the best team in the country … when they wants to be. Despite trailing Georgia Tech by 14 points at two different moments in the fourth quarter — it was 27-13 with 5:42 remaining in the game! — the Bulldogs pulled a rabbit out of their collective hats with a 44-42 victory in EIGHT overtime periods.
- Georgia just looked listless in the face of a typically strong Tech running attack. While the Yellow Jackets didn’t necessarily cash their offensive success into a ton of points, they controlled the ball for much of the game.
- The light finally came on for Georgia in the final 10 minutes of regulation. The Bulldogs scored 21 points to send the game to overtime. Thanks to the NCAA’s weird and silly — but undeniably fun — overtime rules, the game was elongated into eight more stanzas, out of which Georgia finally emerged victorious.
- Despite what the TV announcers weirdly proclaimed many times, the victory did NOT clinch any type of playoff berth for the Bulldogs. It PROBABLY did, but “probably” is a long way from “certainly.” If Georgia loses to Texas in the SEC title game next week, the Bulldogs will have three losses. As we’ve seen all season, the College Football Playoff Committee appears to quantify the loss column as the most important statistic when parsing out rankings, so it would be interesting to see if the group could see past another L on the Bulldogs’ dance card.
- In other championship-relevant contests, Syracuse spotted Miami a 21-0 lead and stormed back for a 42-38 win. The Syracuse offense, once it figured out the game started, proved unstoppable. Miami’s defense has proved to be leaky all season, and Saturday’s disaster cost the Hurricanes a berth in the ACC Championship Game and, likely, a shot at a playoff berth.
- Finally, Michigan won its fourth-straight game against Ohio State on Saturday, 13-10, despite entering as a 19 1/2-point underdog. After the game, a fracas ensued as Buckeye players were none-too receptive to Michigan players attempting to repeat Baker Mayfield’s triumphant flag-planting.
- Ohio State was eliminated from Big 10 Championship Game contention with the loss, yet has a great chance to make the college football playoff. Nevertheless, with all that ensued Saturday, the Buckeyes might be the saddest, grumpiest team ever in the history of college football still to have a tangible shot at the national championship.
- My suggestion to Ohio State players, coaches and fans: Go listen to some yacht rock and let Michael McDonald coax you to keep forgettin’.
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