It was the epitome of Sooner domination. The other team never stood a chance as the mighty crimson and cream ran through, around and over the hapless visitors. For a team with championship aspirations, the massive victory continued a strong season.
College football fans reading this must be wondering:
- What kind of drug is Jeremy on?
- Where can we procure samples?
Here’s the harsh buzzkill: I was referring to the OU women’s basketball program.
Jennie Baranczyk’s team treated the visitors from Western Carolina in unspeakable ways earlier this week, en route to a program-record 122 points. It happened only five days after they ran a power-conference Virginia team into the ground for another blowout win.
The OU women look nothing less than a legitimate Final Four contender, at least at this early point of the season. Meanwhile, in Stillwater, Jacie Hoyt has her Cowgirl program competitive and in the legitimate hunt for an NCAA postseason berth.
Although the overall outlook for the OU and OSU men’s basketball programs isn’t nearly as rosy, the two teams do stand a combined 6-0. While competition has been lacking, results have not.
So during an idle week in OU and OSU’s sour football seasons, consider this your mouthwash. With one gridiron gang eliminated from bowl contention already and the other on the precipice, thank goodness for other sports in Oklahoma.
September through December is supposed to be the best third of the year for a collegiate football junkie like me. By this point in November, OU and OSU fans have grown to expect season-altering showdowns with conference and even national consequences.
But not this year.
As a true college football fan, sure, I can still find some joy in this weekend’s big games. Georgia toppled Tennessee, and South Carolina handled Missouri. I can even take in the lower-profile contests, like Baylor winning against West Virginia and Clemson holding off Pittsburgh.
Yet, I can’t help but feel something is missing. Like Admiral Kirk looking back at the Genesis planet where he left a deceased Spock, I feel the pangs of regret, of something left behind.
Back in August, a friend and I holed up at a Norman cigar bar with robust Arturo Fuentes clouding the air. We discussed the coming football season with the eagerness of first-time fathers. This weekend, in contrast, I found myself sequestered at the same bar, with the same friend, literally and figuratively ruminating over ashes. We spent nearly the entire life of some Perdomo coronas angrily discussing jet sweeps by tight ends and delay-of-game penalties caused by coaches celebrating instead of calling a play.
The only lighthearted moments of our conversation turned to discussion of the OU women’s basketball team, as well as the upcoming softball season in spring. It was the breath freshener we needed — not because of cigars, but because of football teams.
Mark Twain once joked that “golf is a a good walk spoiled.” John Feinstein even anointed one of his award-winning books with the title. Well, if golf is a good walk spoiled, then this college football season has been a good autumn wasted. Don’t be afraid, however, to look elsewhere for fulfillment in collegiate sports.
Who else had their walks spoiled this weekend? Let’s look at the Hangover Highlights!
- In last week’s column, I pronounced the rest of the season the “Georgia Invitational.” After Saturday, nothing has changed my mind. The Bulldogs downed Tennessee 31-17 despite snoozing through the first quarter of the game. The Volunteers led 10-0, but momentum starkly shifted and Georgia outscored them 31-7 the rest of the way.
- At halftime, with the game tied at 13, I looked at a friend and said Georgia would easily cover the halftime point spread. At that specific point in the contest, Vegas had listed Georgia as a 3½ point favorite. I told my buddy the in-game spread SHOULD be no fewer than nine points because I felt the Bulldogs would flip the switch from “middling good team” to “best team in the country.”
- Guess what? They did.
- Georgia IS the best team in the country … when the Bulldogs lock in and perform. Saturday’s win over Tennessee, coupled with a rather easy win at Texas last month prove it. Georgia doesn’t always play to its potential, but the rest of the year IS the “Georgia Invitational” when the Bulldogs’ oversized effect on the denouement of the 2024 season is considered.
- Currently, Oregon holds the unofficial title as “best team in the country” courtesy of its No.1 ranking in the polls and by the College Football Playoff committee. But color me unconvinced, especially after Saturday’s close call against a middling Wisconsin team. While Oregon is undoubtably “good” to “great,” are we sure a team whose three best wins all came at home is the no-doubt favorite for the national championship?
- At halftime of the Arizona State/Kansas State game in Manhattan, I got a “WTF KState” text from one of my best friends. I never responded because I didn’t have a cogent comeback. The Wildcats trailed 21-0 to ASU, and the score pretty much tilted the Big 12 title race on its entire axis. While Kansas State, a trendy preseason pick as conference champion, flailed about to make a game of it, the Wildcats succumbed 24-14. It immediately made Kansas State a long shot for any conference title-game berth, and it put the Sun Devils — they of a 6-23 record over the previous three years — a single game behind the leaders for the conference championship game.
- Speaking of those Big 12 conference leaders, we can move BYU from the ranks of the unbeaten. The Cougars were finally finished off by Kansas, 17-13, in Provo. BYU had been a less-than-inspiring top-10 team with so many close games and a lack of signature wins. While BYU will remain in the hunt for a Big 12 title, it further solidifies that the conference will send no more than one school to the initial 12-team College Football Playoff this year.
- Cade Klubnik’s 50-yard touchdown run with under two minutes remaining shocked Pittsburgh and kept his Clemson Tigers in the hunt for a conference title. The Tigers are long ways from the level of their national championship contending teams in 2015 through 2019, but they are solid and resilient. It will be interesting to see who makes the title game among the trifecta of teams atop the ACC. Like the Big 12, the ACC champion gets an automatic berth in the expanded playoff.
- Oh, did I call the ACC a troika? Let’s count: Miami, Clemson and SMU. Where’s Louisville, who defeated Clemson just a couple of weeks ago? Well, the Cardinals gave up 17 points in the last seven minutes to their more singular Cardinal brethren from Stanford during a 38-35 meltdown. Stanford came into the game as a 20½-point underdog, yet a pair of poor end-game penalties enabled a 52-yard field goal that wiped away Louisville’s best chance at a conference title game berth.
- Meanwhile this weekend, Texas put away a spunky Arkansas team on the road, 20-10. It was a tale of two sides of the ball: While I was impressed the Longhorns defense gave up only 10 points to an Arkansas offense proven to be a handful, the uninspiring 20 points scored against a weak Hogs defense left me scratching my head.
- LSU continued its descent to the great unwashed mass in the middle of the SEC standings. The Tigers lost their third-straight game, 27-16, to Florida on Saturday. The losses get more and more suspect for LSU, as being toppled on the road at Texas A&M three weeks ago wasn’t a major worry, but absolute annihilation at the hands of Alabama in Baton Rouge last week followed by the double-digit loss to sub-.500 Florida bodes poorly.
- Might LSU, in two weekends, offer a legitimate chance for the Sooners to salvage a .500 record and a bowl berth from this morass of a season?
- Like a wise man once wrote, it’s the hope that kills you.
