With a gullet full of turkey and the anticipation of tomorrow’s Bedlam showdown, this weekend is simply the most wonderful time of the year.
Houses will be divided, trash will be talked, and twelve months of bragging rights will be on the line.
It’s tough to find an Oklahoman who doesn’t care about this game. But tomorrow, Bedlam will be foremost in the mind of a football crazed nation. The game has the prime time slot on ABC and ESPN’s College Gameday is setting up shop in Stillwater. I might make the journey to the land of orange if for no other reason than to give Erin Andrews my phone number. No doubt, I’m exactly what she’s looking for.
OSU is in unfamiliar territory because there has never been this much at stake for the Pokes. The program has never played for a Big 12 championship. Beat the Sooners, and the Cowboys will do just that. Not to mention OSU can secure the first 11-win season in school history and snap that pesky seven game losing streak to its in-state rival.
Pressure can do funny things to a football team, but the Cowboys have proven themselves in crunch time all year long. The Sooners? Well, not so much. OU still hasn’t figured out how to solve the equation of a road game on prime time TV against a highly ranked opponent. The win over Baylor was nice, but routing an overrated Bears team doesn’t mean the Sooners’ road issues have suddenly disappeared.
While the Sooners may have been victimized by expectations, the Cowboys came into this season without any. They’ve been a looser bunch because of it. When asked on a local sports radio show which of his players were playing over their heads, Mike Gundy named nearly every starter on both sides of the ball. Can Bob Stoops make that statement about any OU players outside of DeMarco Murray and Ryan Broyles? I’m not so sure.