In 2023 and 2024, the American Dialect Society and the Macquarie Dictionary selected “enshittification” as their respective “word of the year.”
The more-than-vaguely-vulgar-sounding word — and make no mistake, it IS an actual word as outlined by Merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com — has a strong definition: when products and services decline in quality over time, or when vendors create high-quality offerings to attract customers but eventually degrade these products and services to maximize profits.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present the opening weekend of the 2025 college football season in Oklahoma!
Sure, fans like me had anticipated this weekend for nine months — a new baby arriving to gathered masses with cigars, raised glasses and routine revelry. When the final whistles blew late Saturday night on the West Coast, it all literally left me with a hangover.
In Stillwater, the Cowboys welcomed something called the “Skyhawks” to town, a mascot named for the “sky pilot” traveling preachers that roamed the American frontier in early 20th century. In Tulsa, Abilene Christian visited, while Norman welcomed FCS stalwart Illinois State.
Enshittification, indeed.
College football lured us all in at an impressionable age and now has a stranglehold on our attention despite regularly providing an inferior product to days past, at least in the early weeks of the season.Â
In 1994, my third year of studies at the University of Oklahoma, the Sooners played a non-conference slate of Syracuse, Texas A&M, Texas Tech and Texas. Somehow, over the past 31 years, the Sooners’ non-conference schedule has devolved into Illinois State, Michigan, Temple and Kent State. Having Michigan come to town next week will be nice, but please don’t try to pass this off as a WONDERFUL non-conference schedule when the other three games are barely worth turning on the stadium lights. Temple, arguably, was the worst team in the whole FBS level in 2023, while Kent State took that mantle in 2024. To work both onto the same schedule this season is an accomplishment by the OU Athletics Department that should make the bakers at Pinkitzel Cupcakes green with envy.
The same goes for Oklahoma State. While playing at Oregon next weekend will be an interesting game, it doesn’t make up for Tennessee-Martin this week and Tulsa later in September.
So, like a streaming service first subscribed to for $10 a month that now charges more than $20 for less content, OU, OSU and their cohorts across the country rake in more money for a product that is, quite frankly, less interesting, less memorable and less impactful than just a generation or two before.
Last year, for instance, OU played FCS-level Maine in a midseason contest. OU won 59-14 in a game that ended up being less than a footnote to a desultory 6-7 season. If one looks at the season stats from last year, however, the game against the Black Bears should have been a celebratory afternoon that lived long in Sooner lore. No less than NINE offensive game highs for the season were set that day: rushes, rushing yards, yards per rush, touchdown rushes, passing yards, yards per pass, total offense, yards per play and points.
Instead of that being a glorious outing for OU fans, however, it was one many have already forgotten … if even watched in the first place. The same OU Athletics Department that scheduled the Maine game will say there was a crowd of 82,831 that day, but anyone in the stands knew it was easily 30,000 people fewer. Nobody, rightfully, cared about a win against a literally undermanned team that has nearly two dozen fewer scholarships available than the Sooners.
In a move best described as cynical toward its customers, the OU administration simply moved this year’s game against an FCS cupcake to Week 1, knowing football-starved fans would still flock to their seats and couches following a long offseason. The same can be said for leaders at OSU and Tulsa.
Thus, the enshittification continues unabated … and my headache grows worse, especially now that it’s time to recap those games in this week’s Hangover Highlights!
- One of the many issues with playing an FCS-level foe is you can never really look good enough against them. Score a touchdown and hear the caveats: “Oh, it’s against THEM.” Give up a touchdown and hear the panic: “Holy crap, it’s against THEM.” The Oklahoma Sooners ran into those unavoidable reactions Saturday evening against Illinois State in a 35-3 win.
- Did the Sooners look dominant? Nope. Did they look incompetent? Nope. Is there truly anything to discern from beating down one of the foremost lepers in the leper colony that is the FCS? Eh, not much. OU’s defensive line seemed dominant. The offensive line seemed a bit leaky. The skill position players looked, well … skilled. I was reminded of Neil Lomax dropping back to pass every time I saw an Illinois State player in their uniforms, and for an old school Tecmo Bowl fan, that was pretty cool.
- I don’t mean to be flippant with the above comments, but the Sooners did what they were supposed to do: no more, no less. There’s little else to be taken from Saturday’s season opener. People want their pound of flesh from incredibly overmatched teams, and it sometimes comes in lump sums, and sometimes it comes in smaller parcels. Saturday night, it was the latter.
- While the Sooners didn’t necessarily look great against Illinois State, Oklahoma State ran away from their game against FCS’ Tennessee-Martin like the Phantom of the Opera hiding his grotesque face. The Cowboys led just 17-7 at halftime and 20-7 after three quarters.
- One caveat, however, and something OSU fans can hang their hats on is how effective the team did look with signal caller Hauss Hejny at the controls. The freshman completed five of 10 passes for 96 yards and a touchdown, while also rushing for 27 yards and another score in the opening quarter. But Hejny left the game with a broken foot after that opening quarter, and he is out for a while.
- Backup quarterback Zane Flores proved much more workmanlike, and the OSU offense simply didn’t click as well behind him. Erstwhile Oklahoma Sooners Kalib Hicks and Gavin Freeman provided what offense the Cowboys could muster the rest of the game, with the pair leading the team in rushing yards and receptions, respectively.
- With Hejny, the ‘Pokes were doing exactly what they needed to do against an FCS team. Without him, things devolved into a bit of a mess. I feel comfortable in saying OSU’s season prognosis rests on Hejny’s health. I felt the same way when Sam Bradford was injured for OU back in 2009, and I’m grateful for Sundaze cartoonist Mike Allen connecting those painful dots in the rendering above.
- Everyone is going to want to take their shots at Texas’ Arch Manning after his performance in a 14-7 loss at Ohio State. Sure, he probably deserves some of the criticism: He was truly mediocre — at best — on Saturday. But truthfully, the hype that landed on his shoulders going into the game was the real problem. I remember when Texas legend Colt McCoy faced the same Ohio State program as a redshirt freshman back in 2006, albeit without the Buckeyes’ head coach rocking a nipple barbell. McCoy and the Longhorns lost, and none other than Lee Corso proclaimed that Texas couldn’t contend for a national championship with McCoy at the helm … THAT YEAR.
- As Corso predicted, McCoy didn’t really contend for a title in 2006, but he certainly contended the following years. With that in mind, maybe everyone should just relax on Manning madness a bit and realize he looked just like a quarterback who was making his third career start. It just happened to be on the road in Columbus, Ohio, against the defending national champions. Not many players would excel in that situation, including some who had incredible careers (i.e. McCoy). The book is yet to be written on this particular Manning scion.
- Meanwhile, at sad camp: Alabama losing to a Florida State team that went 2-10 last year, helmed by a quarterback who was benched by freaking Boston College last season, is not exactly going to sit well with Crimson Tide fans.
- The first upset of the college football season wasn’t just an upset: It was what we called, growing up in Southeast Oklahoma, “a witch hazel can full of old-fashioned whoop ass.” South Florida pummeled 25th-ranked Boise State 34-7 on Thursday. It looked like no single player in the country is going to be missed by their team more than Ashton Jeanty, who led the country in rushing for the Broncos last year. Without him, BSU running backs gained just 93 yards on 20 carries, and quarterback Maddux Madsen was inefficient with 225 passing yards on a whopping 46 attempts. It’s hard to imagine any scenario where this Boise State squad turns things around to go undefeated the rest of the way and contend for the playoff spot they achieved last year.
- The Big 12 sure had a weekend to forget. Losses by Baylor, Cincinnati and Colorado — with all three teams expected to be in the conference title hunt — doesn’t bode well for a league desperately needing national love.
- Redemption stories are always fun, and the beauty of college football is you can sometimes see the entire story arc unfold in the span of a few minutes. Nebraska was desperately trying to hold onto a fourth-quarter lead in its 20-17 win over Cincinnati on Thursday when defensive back Malcolm Hartzog Jr. found himself thrust under an unforgiving spotlight. On Cincinnati’s final drive of the game, Bearcast receivers continually picked on Hartzog, running past him for catches and moving Cornhusker fans toward another inevitable gut-wrenching loss. When he wasn’t allowing receptions, Hartzog was getting called for penalties … and when he wasn’t getting called for penalties, he SHOULD have been called for penalties, as I counted at least two times on the drive he blatantly grabbed a receiver but avoided a flag.
- It looked like the Bearcats were going to have a good chance to at least tie things up, if not take the lead, as they drove to the ’Huskers 43-yard line with 39 seconds left. It was then, though, that Cincy quarterback Brendan Sorsby lofted a pass toward the end zone and Hartzog made an athletic play to come down with the ball for a game-sealing interception and a fun reminder to keep trying in the face of adversity.
- Finally, the best thing I saw this weekend involved the unveiling of Bowling Green’s rally cat! Evidently, a few weeks ago, a Falcons player was injured during practice and a teammate brought a cat to the locker room to boost his morale. The team pretty much adopted the kitty right there and then, named him “Pudge” and gave him his own locker and jersey.
- Pudge roamed the sidelines of BGSU’s 26-7 win against Lafayette on Thursday, intimidating opponents with one of the best cases of feline resting bitch face I’ve ever seen.
- Bowling Green is now America’s Team, and I’m ready for a cat nap.
