OU Sooner Football
January 9, 2009
I graduated from the University of Oklahoma (OU) and have been a huge fan of Sooner football for the last ten years. Last night, the Sooners lost the BCS National Championship Game to the Florida Gators, 24-14. Despite the loss, this was quite an exciting season to be a Sooner fan. I have had a lot of fun over the last few months watching college football.
OU won its first four non-conference games in impressive style, averaging nearly 50 points per game; two of those games were against teams that finished fairly high in the BCS rankings (Cincinnati #12, TCU #11). They started conference play with a win against Baylor and then a tough defeat against Texas on October 10. Texas is a bitter rival, and losing to them is always a crushing blow. It has recently meant the end of any national championship talk at Oklahoma; the winner of that game typically continues on to win the Big XII South title.
However, an interesting thing happened a few weeks later: on November 6, Texas lost to Texas Tech. This set up a potential three-way tie for the lead in the Big XII South. Oklahoma won all the rest of their games with record-setting offense, including a 65-21 victory over Texas Tech on November 20. All three teams won their final game during Thanksgiving weekend, and the division ended in the three-way tie. The controversial tie-breaker appealed to the BCS rankings, in which OU (#2) barely edged out Texas (#3). OU went on to play Missouri in the Big XII Conference championship game, advancing to the national championship game with a 62-21 victory.
I had hoped to post today about our victory and our second national championship in the ten years that I have been closely following Sooner football. But, unfortunately, that is not the case. OU missed some key opportunities that could have made all the difference, getting stopped at the goal-line twice in the first half. They did keep the game close throughout, tying it up at 14-14 in the fourth quarter. Though the defense played much better than anticipated, Florida’s offense finally wore them down in the fourth quarter to finish the game with two strong drives. It was incredibly disappointing to come up just short of another championship, a tough end to an exciting and successful season.
I guess it’s time to start thinking about college basketball. OU just finished up non-conference play ranked #6 with a record of 14-1; conference play begins tomorrow (January 10) with a game against Kansas State. Boomer Sooner!