Sooners have the goods to win BCS title
All Oklahoma has done is win 90 games in eight years with a national title, five Big 12 championships, and six BCS appearances. And yet it all seems so empty. For all the success and all the great numbers, the program that was such a killer in every big game now doesn’t seem nearly as bad or nearly as intimidating.
When the Sooners turn it on and have the full focus from the opening kickoff, which was obvious in games against Miami, Missouri (both of them), and Texas A&M, forget about it. When they don’t appear to have much in the way of energy and the other team has the momentum early, like Texas Tech and West Virginia had, OU loses.
So the key for OU has to be to get out to a hot start early in every game and then ride the talent level the rest of the way. On experience, skill, NFL talent, depth, and any other way you want to measure, no one on the schedule, including Kansas, Texas, and Texas Tech, can stay with the Sooners. But everyone gets up for OU and brings its “A” game, and now, as it needs to realize, OU has to find a way to get up for everyone and bring its “A” game, too.
More than anything else, the Sooners have to be hungry again. The earlier teams in the Bob Stoops era couldn’t hang with the OU teams of the last few years on talent, but they brought an attitude and nastiness week in and week out that the current versions only seem able to find every once in a while. If the Oklahoma that beat Missouri in the 2007 Big 12 Championship can come up with that focus and fire from UT Chattanooga to Oklahoma State, it’ll be in the BCS Championship Game.
foxsports.com
7/15/08
Magnolia Tribune
