New Nike Uniforms for OU

Info's been trickling out this week, but nothing official from Nike yet. However, the fine folks at Friends of the Program have uncovered the new Nike Uniforms. I took the liberty of grabbing the photos off the site. Here's the Sooner uni.

My first reaction is that Nike stole the creative design of the Penn State Nittany Lions and changed the blue to crimson, and added a stripe on the shoulder. Wow. Big thumbs down.

Now, let's take a look at the Va Tech unis. As you can see, these are wildly different. First of all, they have no stripe on the sleeve. Second, there are more stripes on the helmet. Finally, there numbers have some trim elements that the Sooners don't have.

Sadly for Virginia Tech, this is an improvement over the normal ugly--- uniforms they normally wear.

What I don't understand is why the uniforms have to be so alike? Is it because OU is playing like an ACC school this year?

The Fraudulent Unbeatens - Cincinnati

Today we're going to look at Cincinnati, one of the unbeatens that I believe is fraudulent. First look at their schedule to date.

• Rutgers - 6-2 against the 126 ranked schedule. It's really tough to identify Rutgers signature win. Is it Howard? Florida International? Maryland at 2-7? Texas Southern? Army at 3-6? Or Connecticutt at 4-5?
• Southwest Missouri - 1-aa team. 1-7 this year, with a win against Quincy. I thought he was dead.
• Oregon State - the best W on the Bearcats schedule to date. The Beavers are 5-3, and have played one of the tougher schedules in the country.
• Fresno State - a 5-3 team with losses against Boise, Cincy and Wisconsin. Hard to identify their premier win...is it Hawaii? San Jose State? New Mexico State? Utah State? UC Davis?
• Miami (OH) - the ChickenHawks are 1-9 this year.
• South Florida - 6-2 following the Bill Snyder school of non-conference scheduling. They played Wofford, Western Kentucky and Charleston Southern to start the year. They have beaten West Virginia.
• Louisville - 3-5, with signature wins against Indiana State, Southern Miss and Arkansas State.
• Syracuse - the 'Cuse is so bad their starting QB hadn't played FB in four years. That's like using your tight end for a guard. They are 3-5, with wins against Northwestern (who's apparently good enough to knock with Iowa from the unbeaten ranks), Maine and Akron.
• Connecticut - the Huskies are probably the top four win team in the country. They've had a DB killed at a school function, and their five losses have been by a combined 15 points. UConn even had the guts to play two automatic qualifying non conference games this year.

So, after this review, Is it news that they are undefeated? Or is it that they one their one big non-conference game, then have mowed through a mediocre conference?

On the other hand, their second string QB rocks. Zach Callaros has completed 76% of his passes, averages 12 yard per pass, has a 10-1 TD-Int ratio and runs for 6+ yards per carry. If he played for Florida, he would be a Heisman candidate. Of course, the Florida O-coordinator appears to be the Dean Smith of football.

We'll find out about this team in the next three weeks, as their schedule has ended up being pretty backloaded, with West Virginia, Illinois, and Pitt in these last three games.

Prediction: 11-1

Pick the Heisman Candidate

Pick out the Heisman Trophy candidate from these two players

Passing Yards-Tds-Rush Yards-TDs


Game 1: A) 51-0-(6)-0; B) 188-1-1-1
Game 2: A) 286-3-4-0: B) 234-4-71-1
Game 3: A) 336-6-0-0: B) 115-0-76-1
Game 4: A) 188-1-(17)-0; B) 103-1-123-2
Game 5: A) 0-0-0-0; B) 134-1-38-0
Game 6: A) 250-1-(4)-0; B) 255-1-69-16
Game 7: A) 252-2-11-0; B) 127-0-88-1
Game 8: A) 294-4-(3)-0; B) 164-2-85-2
Game 9: A) 245-0-(17)-0; B) 208-1-27-1


Season Totals: A) 1902-17-(32)-0; B) 1531-11-578-9


Player A is Landry Jones, Player B is Tim Tebow. The difference between the two? 7 interceptions, 3 losses as a starter and a lot of hype. I'm a big Tebow fan, but the discussion involving him as a Heisman finalist this year is baffling. The leadership is there, but the stats just aren't. If you're voting for the Heisman and reading this blog (let's be honest, they're probably mutually exclusive lists) pick someone else. Choose McCoy. Or Shipley. Or Case Keenum. Or Mark Ingram. Or even, heaven forbid, Jimmy Clausen.

Ineptitude

Here are the drives for the Sooners against the Huskers:

1. 16 yard drive to the Husker 29. 46 yard field goal missed.
2. 2 yard drive to the Husker 28. 45 yard field goal missed.
3. -10 yard drive starting at midfield. Punt.
4. 2 yard drive to the Sooners 4. Punt.
5. 0 yards prior to interception on drive starting at Sooner 8.
6. 45 yard drive to the Husker 35. Turnover on downs.
7. 4 yard drive to the Sooner 24. Punt.
8. 59 yard drive to the Husker 28. Field goal made.

At the end of the first half, the Sooners have made it to midfield or into Husker territory 5 times, and have three points.

1. 5 yard drive to the Sooner 28. Punt.
2. 28 yard drive to the Husker 44. Interception.
3. 11 yard drive to the Sooner 25. Punt.
4. 26 yard drive to the Husker 24. Missed field goal.
5. 32 yard drive to the Husker 39. Interception.
6. 43 yard drive to the Husker 24. Turnover on downs.
7. 41 yard drive to the Husker 33. Interception.
8. 0 yard drive to the Sooner 48. Interception.

In the second half, the Sooners had five possessions in Husker territory, and came away with zero points.

Pellini had an offensive game plan that was straight out of the Pat Jones playbook. Run the ball and hope you don't fumble. The Husker scoring drives were 1 and 33 yards. And they won handily.

This was the worst offensive performance since the season opener against TCU in 2005. Or the 2005 Texas game.

The Bugeater-LandThieves rivalry

There's been some talk these past couple of weeks about Big 12 realignment, as well as about a schedule format that would facilitate restoring old rivalries, like Oklahoma-Nebraska. First of all, I love the Oklahoma-Nebraska rivalry. The Husker fans are great. They are the classiest fans you'll ever meet, and the Oklahoma-Texas rivalry will never match the Huskers-Sooners in mutual respect of the fan bases.

However, the Big 12 North-South scheduling format didn't kill the luster of the OU-NU shootouts. Gary Gibbs hampered by probation and a disgrunted fan base, accidentally maimed the rivalry while cleaning a gun and Schnellenberger, Blake and Bill Callahan shot it in the back while it was trying to run for help. Let's look at some facts.

While Switzer was battling Osborne from 1973-1988, Nebraska was ranked, on average, 4.75 in the country coming into the game. OU was unranked twice coming into the game, but the other 17 games were ranked an average of 5.26. The win loss records of the two teams, outside of games with one another, during this time was 145-24-4 for Oklahoma and 153-24-2 for Nebraska. In that entire 16 season period, at least one of the teams was in the top 10, and 11 times both teams were in the top 10. Only two times was a team not ranked entering the contest.

Since 1989, there have been 15 games between the two. Only five times have both teams been ranked coming into the game since, and only twice have both teams been ranked in the top 10.

You can reset the Big 12 scheduling format all you want, but the reality is there are generally three things that make rivalrys great: 1) geography; 2) playing for something; 3) recurring matchups.

1) Oklahoma-Nebraska does not have geography on it's side. The state of Kansas lays between them, so it's not like it's a border war.

2) As for playing for something. The schools are playing for some piece of crap oak bucket, an axe or egg bowl or a hat. In the 70s and 80s, they were playing for the right to go to the Orange Bowl and play for the national championship. That's what made this rivalry great. Courtesy of some bad coaching hires, the rivalry diminished.

3) as for recurring matchups, playing every year does make a great rivalry, but it adds additional flavor. Let's face it. Mississippi State plays LSU in the SEC West every year since 1944, but outside of Louisiana and Mississippi, no one cares. There's no history to it, there's probably never been an SEC or SEC West title on the line (too lazy to look it up).

I'd love to see the Husker-Sooner rivalry regain it's former luster, but the reality is that will happen from both schools return to excellence at the same time, not when they play each other annually When one is ranked 20th, and the other is not even receiving votes, it's not a great rivalry, it's a rivalry with great history.

Stat of the Week

If the season were to end today, Landry Jones 17 passing TDs would rank as the 9th highest total in Sooner history. And the 8th highest total this decade.

Fat Little Girlfriends

You can say a lot of things about them, but you also have to include devotion and loyalty.