Hangover Highlights: OU, OSU lose games, gain quarterback controversies

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For one Friday in the 2024 college football season, Norman, Oklahoma, became the center of the college football universe.

Over the years, I have bemoaned the miserable weekend experience in Norman during the autumn. No, I’m not talking about in the stadium during the game itself, or even outside beforehand. I have critiqued Fridays before a game, before fans are sequestered onto their tailgate areas and blocks upon blocks of cityscape become un-negotiable as 80,000-plus swarm onto and around campus.

The day and night before a big game are perfect opportunities for fans of the home team to mingle with a gaggle of visitors. Friendly banter and good-natured taunts should be the theme of the day and evening, a chance to welcome fellow football fans to campus and town before they’re declared mortal enemies as kickoff nears the next day.

Beers should be bought and toasted, stories should be swapped, and great places to eat and drink should be shared.

For years, however, it seemed the only opposing fans to be found on Norman’s Campus Corner each Friday before a game might be wayward West Virginia natives who accidentally took an exit driving home from California on Interstate 40. The problem was with the teams that visited Norman: Outside of a select few, most never posed a threat to the Sooners on their home field.

ESPN’s College Gameday seemed to agree. Prior to Friday, the venerable college football program had only set up shop in Norman EIGHT times. Meanwhile, OU had traveled to other campuses hosting Gameday 33 times.

With OU atop the restructured Big 12 Conference for the past 13 seasons, the only games that threatened to be competitive were mostly road contests. ESPN clearly agreed, making only TWO of Gameday appearances in Norman since the 2011 realignment robbed the Big 12 of Nebraska, Texas A&M, Missouri and Colorado. Only one of the two, mind you, occurred for a conference team. While I won’t take anything away from a 143-13 home record and 14 conference championships in the last 25 years, it’s fair to say the Sooners often had an unthreatening home schedule in the modern era.

Just look at the size of Big 12 fan bases that came to Norman over the years. OU’s football stadium holds 83,489. The next biggest in the Big 12 was BYU, with a relatively paltry 63,470. Hell, BYU just joined the conference a year ago, so the closest legacy conference member in stadium size was Iowa State with 61,500. Even with the modest sizes, some of these schools had a hard time filling their OWN stadiums on game days, much less putting any type of presence together for a road outing.

Of course, the Sooners’ two biggest rivals and threats within the Big 12 were Texas — whom they always played at a neutral site — and Oklahoma State. With Stillwater located just 80 miles from Norman, the matchup allowed many Cowboy fans to avoid making it a weekend-long trip to Norman.

This past Friday, though, OU’s SEC conference opener just hit different in town. Tennessee fans were plentiful, as were OU fans happy to welcome them. I bought rounds of beers for several Tang-colored guests — a precursor to this week’s literal and existential hangovers.

The OU pep band played at several bars and Campus Corner rocked in a way it hadn’t since the 2012 Notre Dame game. (Well, except the supposedly legendary O’Connells, which didn’t get the memo thousands of fans were in town early Friday ready to eat and failed to open until 4 p.m.)

While Saturday’s final score didn’t turn out the way the crimson-cladded home crowd wanted, there sure were plenty of opposing fans on hand who enjoyed it. I, for one, heartily welcomed them.

Now, about that game? With the aforementioned college football universe setting its gaze on the plains of central Oklahoma, there’s plenty to discuss:

• In a way, OU fans should be used to the game that unfolded on Owen Field in a 25-15 loss Saturday night. One part of the team was good, and the other was bad. Seems familiar, right?
• The Sooner defense proved nothing less than championship level. Sure, Tennessee got conservative in the second half, no doubt unworried about the stalled Sooner offense. Still, maybe the Vols were concerned about more turnovers and untimely negative plays, both of which they suffered at the hands of a stout Sooner defensive unit.
• As for that stalled offense, it was brutal. I haven’t seen something like that since the 2005 OU/TCU game … which, funny enough, marked the last time OU was held to three points or fewer at home in the first half of a game. While offensive line issues continue to confound, Saturday night’s biggest problem was lined up under center in the shotgun. Quarterback Jackson Arnold simply didn’t execute, and he repeatedly handed the ball to the other team. In the two biggest starts of his career — last year’s bowl game against Arizona and Saturday night’s matchup against No. 6 Tennessee — Arnold has turned the ball over SEVEN times. When the OU defense twice handed the offense prime field position from Tennessee turnovers, Arnold personally gave the ball right back both times. At one point, I’m pretty sure his performance made Davis Beville blush. If Arnold had simply NOT turned the ball over, regardless of his other less-than-mediocre play, OU had a wonderful chance of winning Saturday night.
• Final thought: The season is far from over for OU. With such a quality defense — which seamlessly played Saturday in an alignment it had not showed all season — anything can be possible. Is Michael Hawkins the savior at quarterback? Color me unconvinced despite his reckless rushing heroics, but he certainly didn’t do anything to dissuade me during his two-plus quarters at the helm on Saturday. The whole situation reminds me of 1992 when Steve Collins more-than-ably replaced an ineffective, and eventually injured, Cale Gundy. When Gundy was healthy again, though, he was thrown back out as a starter. It didn’t sit well with the Sooner players, which led to the infamous player walkout/mutiny late in the season. Not sure if there’s an exact parallel there — although Gundy did lead the conference in interceptions — but it just made me reminisce about those not-so-heady days of quarterback controversies.
• Earlier Saturday, Oklahoma State had an opportunity to take control of the Big 12 fall right out of its hands. It had preseason favorite Utah in Stillwater sans its starting quarterback. Meanwhile, other Big 12 contenders floundered about on Saturday, leaving the entire conference in upheaval.
• With all that, the Cowboys’ offense didn’t look much better than the Sooners’ in a 22-19 loss to Utah. But with Ollie Gordon, Brennan Presley and Alan Bowman on offense, however, OSU’s offensive woes might be a bit harder to swallow.

  

• At one point, it looked like OSU head coach Mike Gundy had returned to his quarterback roulette of last year, but I guess it turned out he was only giving Bowman a chance to collect his thoughts. It nearly paid dividends, as Bowman rebounded from (another) interception to lead the ‘Pokes on a couple scoring drives late to make things interesting. But with Gordon failing to top 50 yards rushing for the third consecutive game and Bowman often incapable of setting his feet to make throws, OSU ultimately fell short. I’ve always felt like Bowman is pretty mid, but with Garrett Rangel going three for 11 passing in his opportunity Saturday, the quarterback controversies in Stillwater may be more about the coach and the starter than between the starter and his backup.
• About those other Big 12 teams floundering around … what a delightful mess of a conference this is! Colorado won thanks to a Hail Mary AND an opposing running back’s fumble while leaping into the end zone. Kansas State was absolutely smacked around by what had seemed to be a pedestrian BYU team, and Texas Tech swatted away undefeated Arizona State with relative ease. Outside of Utah — which is no juggernaut, especially without 19-year starting quarterback Cameron Rising — it appears the race for the conference title game and a chance at an automatic playoff berth is WIDE open.
• I’m not sure what happened to Nebraska in a top-25 matchup against Illinois on Friday night, and I was sitting there watching it unfold. The ‘Huskers would, at times, move the ball as easily as they wanted, but then they would go through long stretches of three-and-outs. Maybe these are the simple growing pains of starting a true freshman quarterback. Regardless, the problems culminated in a 31-24 loss, which elongated two really amazing streaks: Nebraska has now failed to score in EIGHT consecutive overtime games, and they have lost 27 straight games against ranked opponents.
• At one point early Saturday afternoon, James Madison already had 39 points on the board against North Carolina, and there was still more than HALF the second quarter remaining. At the time, I was unsure what seemed more impressive: how much the 10-point underdog Dukes had scored to that point, or how they had reached the unlikely total of “39 points.” In a wild game, JMU went on to stun the hometown Tar Heels 70-50.
• That game marked just half of the Tobacco Road debacle on Saturday. North Carolina State found itself down 28-0 in the first quarter in a blowout loss to Clemson. With only a 14-point win against Western Carolina and a 10-point edging of Louisiana Tech sandwiched between annihilations at the hands of Tennessee and now Clemson, the Wolfpack seem stuck in neutral.
• Finally, in the only other matchup between ranked teams, Michigan SOMEHOW managed a 27-24 win against USC. I say SOMEHOW, because when the Wolverines took possession of the ball down four points on their own 11-yard line with 4 minutes left, they had exactly ZERO first downs in the second half.
• But Michigan suddenly perked up and manufactured a drive farther than the amount of yards they’d gained in the previous two quarters. Running back Kalel Mullings spun off defenders on what looked to be an innocuous third-and-short dive play, and he sprinted for 63 yards. It set up a touchdown on fourth-and-one, as Mullings shoved it in to win for the school with a helmet that looks like an Australian’s nightmare. and a spelling problem on the big screen.
• The Meatchickens toppled USC with just 32 total passing yards from quarterback Alex Orji. Maybe there’s a blueprint to be found there for Oklahoma’s local teams.

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