Look! In the Sky! A new QB!

Congrats to Sam Bradford, the latest starting QB for the Sooners. My personal thoughts are: 1) I think it's the logical choice; 2) I trust in HeadVisor 3) I think Bradford is going to look awful against U of Miami. Expansions on these thoughts:

1. The team's hot pursuit of Keith Nichol after Slappy Smith's firing at MSU was in part a vote of no confidence in Halzle, and didn't exactly express confidence in Bradford either...I heard all last year that "next year's QB isn't on campus yet"...but apparently SB made great strides through spring and the "voluntary" workouts over the summer. Due to Bradford's improvement, the options were: a) Halzle, whom internet pundits characterize as not a prime candidate for a D1 level starting position; b) Keith Nichol, fresh off the h.s. prom, and c) Bradford, who at least had experienced a D1 level defense in practice. According to rivals.com there's been two freshman lead a team to the national championship. Kid named Jamelle Holieway, and another named gent named Bernie Kosar. Bradford's experience as a redshirt likely (and obvious superior performance in scrimmage on Aug 18) helped him. Matthew Stafford at Georgia and Mitch Mustain at Arkansas last year likely didn't excite HeadVisor about putting a hot shot recruit true freshman into the starting role on day 1. I'm sure someone out there in the internet world will do a fabulous job of comparing similarities of 85 Sooners to this 07 squad (talented D, very talented RBs, experienced O-line). Here's hoping Sam doesn't snap his ankle in Sept against Miami. We do have some d-backs that previously have looked a lot like Derrick White covering Michael Irvin.
2. I don't do a good job of questioning the decisions of Coach Stoops. Not that I'm a blind loyalist, but the man gets paid to make decisions, and some of them are wrong and some are right. I watched Texas A&M beat us 51-7 in Norman and Nebraska beat us 73-21 in Norman in the 90s. Bob stopped that and led us to a national title. He still has a few deposits left in my bank before he goes negative.
3. the past several years, UM-FSU has opened the season. Those ball games were just ugly. Part of it was the predictable play calling by UM and FSU coaching staffs (since revised), but part of it was the the Ds were awesome, and the teams had plenty of time to prepare for the opponent. UM's recent slide in CFB prosperity has not been due to the defense. If you think Randy Shannon's as head FB coach is going to make the 'canes worse on defense, you're not thinking properly. If you think they spent all of preseason practice preparing for the Marshall Thundering Herd, you've got a thinking problem. I'm sure Shannon circled this match on the calendar and said, "Here's our chance to make a stmt to the college fb world that 'the U' is back". I'm not predicting a Sooner loss here, but I do think it's likely to be an ugly Sooner W.

ADDITION: Meant to put this in earlier, SundayMorningQb has interesting note on Sooners in the attached link. Stoops has yet to win Big 12 in odd numbered year. Which means nothing. More relevant part of the observation is that Stoops led Sooners have won 4 Big 12 titles with 4 different QBs, each of them a senior. The years non-sr QB, a little bit less successful.