Gig this

Farewell Nebraska.

So long, Colorado.

Get outta here, A&M. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

All dressed up and nowhere to go for Texas A&M. Nice move, Aggies. All ready to go to the prom with SEC, only one big problem: your date, the SEC, doesn’t want you.

Gig that.

Talk about your Aggie joke. I have an idea for all the Big 12 conference big dogs—Dump A&M.

It’s obvious Texas A&M doesn’t want to be in the conference. Be proactive! Kick them out.

Go with nine teams, or bring in BYU and Air Force in the north and TCU or Houston in the south.

That will put the conference back to 12 teams and will also give the conference the playoff game once again.

But that is something to be worried about later. The first thing the Big 12 needs to do is to stop fretting over A&M. The Aggies don’t want to be in the conference so make it happen.

Don’t wait for A&M to leave…do it for them.

Personally, I like the way the conference is set up now with nine teams so everybody plays everybody. I was never a big fan of the mix-and-match scheduling as it always gave somebody an advantage.

Eight teams works pretty well. I seem to recall the Big 8 had some pretty good runs. That would give all the conference schools seven conference games and plenty of non-conference games to play all the directional schools and pick up some wins and revenue from home games.

Dumping A&M won’t happen, of course. But it should. Think how happy TCU, Houston, Air Force or Tulsa would be to join the Big 12.

And what would the conference lose? A so-so football team, good basketball and baseball, along with an awesome band.

Tough games await state schools

Aside from the heat, most of the conversations around the state have turned to football.

Most of the talk has been about the start of preseason camps and that Oklahoma and Oklahoma State are both ranked in the Top 10 and rightly so.

Another topic has been Tulsa’s early schedule. The Hurricanes open with OU and OSU and finish out the month by playing Boise.

That means TU is playing three teams ranked among the 10 best in September. Nice scheduling.

Coach Bill Blankenship and his players say they like the schedule and the challenges.

Sure. I bet they like the 115 degree temperature, also.

As a smaller program, TU has to schedule games like this to keep the program going and hopefully generate some excitement. Don’t expect the players, coaches or fans to be all that nervous.

This is the same group, for the most part, which went to Notre Dame last year and came away with one of the biggest wins in school history.

I don’t expect the Hurricanes to win any of these three games. But don’t be surprised if at least a couple of the games are close, especially the one with OSU. That game will be held at Chapman Stadium, following the opener at OU and a road game at Tulane.

After the first month, we should also be able to decide whether Blankenship was right when he said his quarterback was the best in the state.

Or, we will wonder what the new coach was, uh, doing to make him issue that statement.

The Hurricanes are not the only state college with a difficult schedule. OU also plays three teams in the Top 10 in Florida State, OSU and Texas A&M. Two of those games are on the road (FSU and OSU) and those two games are the major stumbling blocks in the path of the Sooners once again playing for a national championship.

OU, Texas fans off to early start

Hey guys and gals!

Let’s put on a shirt for our favorite college athletic team and go out and fight a fan from another school!

Wear that Oklahoma shirt (nothing wrong with that) deep into the heart of Texas and let’s get involved in an argument that might evolve into fisticuffs and maybe more.

Sounds fun, huh? Just to make it better, let’s take a knife to inflict even more damage.

Yeah, sure beats staying home and watching whatever crud is on television.

Okay, that probably wasn’t planned, and if it was, whoever thought this is how an adult should spend an evening needs to be locked up at the nearest nut house. How about it, Vinita? Got any beds open?

That is what happened in a San Antonio Applebee’s where a Sooner and Longhorn got the Red River Rivalry going approximately two months early.

The two men started arguing about college football. It escalated to something more. My bet is a Brutus or two was involved.

Not content to merely discuss college football, a fight broke out. The OU fan reportedly pulled a knife (way to represent!) and both men wound up stabbed from the fight and visited a local hospital.

According to the report, neither man has been charged.

Yet.

Please do, however, Texas police officers and district attorney. Charge them, throw the book at them. Maybe this will teach some nut out there a lesson

This is even worse than the OU fan who got into it in Oklahoma City a few years ago and damaged a Texas fan’s genital region.

I am all for supporting your favorite team. Wear the attire, shout at the television when things go bad. Maybe even write bad stuff about your rivals on a forum.

But that is where it needs to stop. Don’t try to knife somebody because they support a different school. Never grab another guy’s baggage and squeeze until something pops that should not pop over who you think has a better football team.

This is a sport, a little diversion from the rest of life. Who wins a football game really has no impact on your life. If your team wins, great. If they don’t, move on. There is always next week or next year.

I know, football is considered a religion in these parts. Fine. But don’t let those feelings make you resemble the people involved in terrorism or shooting another person because their belief is different than your own.

Even if there is football involved.

Let the countdown begin

August is officially here and many of us are looking forward to the 2011 football season.

It is only 32 days to the official start of the high-school football season and 33 until the colleges start.

As we endure the worst heat wave in recent memory, I remember the summer before my senior year.

It was 1980 and that was the worst summer I remember prior to the current one.

Just like many players of today, we worked out in the heat and many of us had summer jobs out in the heat.

Most of us were in pretty good shape and a lot more used to the heat than many of today’s players. Some of us had spent the summer working in the pastures hauling hay while others worked in other jobs. We didn't have the game controllers, computers or texting to distract us.

I worked for the county road department that summer in my first real job.

It is amazing how much has changed over the years. We had two-a-day practices early in the morning and in the evening. Both practices were long and we closed the practices by running.

As the school season started, our practices were after school. Most of the practices lasted some three hours. As soon as we could, we put on the pads and started hitting.

We had live blocking and tackling drills and when we practiced, we hit. Full speed. None of the form tackling and short practices like is common now.

But fortunately our coaches did allow us to take water breaks, unlike many coaches did back a few years earlier. A water break was seen as a weakness by the old coaches, not as a preventive measure to keep players from having a heat stroke.

We did not have the summers like the players do now. There weren’t team camps or 7-on-7 leagues.

Prior to my junior year, two teammates and I attended the Barry Switzer Football Camp at OU. I was so pumped, thinking we would get coached by the best coach in college football.

Switzer showed up twice. The first was when the players arrived and the last was for the pictures. His assistants did the coaching. And we quickly figured out while we were getting some valuable instructions, the main purpose of the camp was to find out who could play for OU.

Buster Rhymes, who was a standout at OU later, was at the camp. He came from Miami, as in Florida, and was truly a man among boys. His high school coach was also there. Hmmm.

Bobby Proctor, former secondary coach at OU, was my favorite.

He was hard but could also make you laugh although I thought he was going to get me killed. He had me go up against Rhymes and I saw my life flash in front of me. There weren’t any 6-4, 200 plus pound players who were chiseled and could run a 4.4 in Heavener or on our schedule.

Some of the other assistants were not as enjoyable. Instead of teaching, they screamed. A lot.

Aside from some technical skills I learned at the camp, the major lesson I learned was that my dreams of playing at OU were not going to happen.

Ugh

Ugh.

That was my inital reaction upon seeing the new football uniforms Oklahoma State University will be wearing for the coming season.

And after some more reflection, several more adjectives come to mind. None of them, mind you, are the least bit positive.

I have never been a big fan of OSU's uniforms. That were okay, but nothing great. I did think the black uniforms were cool, especially with black helmets. Those were worn on special occasions.

Let the Oregons of the world were the silly uniforms. OSU did not need them. But unfortunately, Nike stormed into town and provided the Cowboys with 48 different color combinations.

Does a football team need 48 different uniform combos? I think not. Look at OU. The Sooners have worn the same uniforms since back in the 1960s. They are classics.

OSU has switched uniforms and logos, almost like they could not decide on a look. The last act is the worst.

The Cowboys should wear orange shirts at home with white helmets and pants. I even liked the orange shirts and pants. On the road, all white will do. Go for the black look for big games.

Slate gray?

When did that become a school color?

If Nike wants to provide uniforms, that's great. But please go back to the old ones.

This is not a good move. Yeah, it provided some publicity. But in a bad way, at least the way I see it. Since when does a football team want to resemble a fashion show?

And if OSU ever wears anything resembling the Oregon uniforms that make me want to yack, the channel is changed.

Not a good sign

I was at the local Walmart yesterday for some insane reason of my wife, and managed to escape long enough to check out the magazine and book section.

The football magazines are starting to fill up space in a quick manner.

Without putting a whole lot of effort into it, I glanced at three different magazines and saw each one had a different pick for national champions.

First off, I think it is ridiculous to pick a national champion in the summer before a game has been played. Same deal with the rankings.

But they do encourage people to read and BUY the magazines, and also gave me something to write about, not that I need a whole lot of prompting.

The three teams predicted to win national championships are Oklahoma, Alabama and LSU.

All three teams have a lot of potential and talent returning, but I would have to say there are some 10 teams capable of winning the national championship and while I hope OU brings home the gold, I have some doubts of that happening.

First off, the Sooners' defense has to start dominating its opponents like they did in Bob Stoops' early years. The loss of Austin Box will not help. Plus, they need to perform better in away games. Yeah, they did close out the year with wins at Baylor and Oklahoma State, plus the Fiesta Bowl win over UCONN.

But their road performances prior to that time were not exactly overwhelming. Plus, OU will have to win on the road at Florida State, in Dallas against Texas and in Stillwater again, because of some scheduling snafu. Plus, there is a road game late at an improving Baylor team for the second straight year, along with trips north to Kansas and Kansas State.

The Sooners do get Texas Tech and Texas A&M, along with Missouri at home.

It will be interesting to see if the loss of the Big 12 championship game has any effect on the chances of playing for a national championship. The shootout at OSU is on the date of the other conference games so the Sooners should be in the headlines.

But it is never easy for the Sooners to win at OSU. And the weather will probably be brutal on that date with the wind blowing 40 mph and wind chills nearing 0.

Welcome

Welcome to the oksportsreview blog.

This is the first day oksportsreview.com has published. As you can tell, the website is brand new and there is a lot of work yet to be done.

But hopefully you will like what you see in the early stages of my latest project. We hope to have links to stories about Oklahoma pro, college and high school sports, along with original content.

To make the site, successful, we need your help. If you see a story online about any sporting event or person in Oklahoma, send the link by email to craig@oksportsreview.com

In addition to linked stories, there will be exclusive content and photographs, along with the biggest feature of the site: scores to all the Oklahoma football games ever played.

No, I don't have those scores yet. But with your help, I hope to eventually have most of them. Last year, I was checking out websites and saw one from Texas that had a bunch of their scores and that really impressed me.

When I first started the website, it was going to be called okgridiron.com and was just going to have the old scores. But I had a brain surge and while trying to think of ways to improve the site, I thought it would be cool to have links just to Oklahoma sporting events involving professional, college and high schools, and not to limit it just to football.

So now if you see a story concerning any sport or would like to submit a story about an event, send an email to the address listed above.

This will be a project that will grow steadily. A person can't climb a big mountain in one day, or build a website with this much content. But we hope you enjoy the site and share with friends, family or anybody you think might be interested.