Something I read in a HeismanPundit post this morning made me wonder why Oklahoma gets more of a pass from people these days than does Ohio State. Here’s what HP wrote:
… West Virginia didn’t beat Oklahoma because it had more speed. It beat Oklahoma because it ran a very difficult offense to defend, one which Oklahoma doesn’t see very often. The same thing happened against Boise State and USC–the Sooners wilted against offenses that used the whole field and mixed it up with odd formations.
Well, wait a minute. Here’s a list of schools that Oklahoma played during the regular season last year, schools that run some version of an offense that “used the whole field and mixed it up with odd formations”: Tulsa, Colorado, Missouri (twice), Texas Tech and Oklahoma State. Lack of familiarity with spread offenses wasn’t Oklahoma’s core problem in the bowl games HP references.
And that’s what I don’t get. At least when Ohio State laid a postseason egg, it was against teams that won national championships. Oklahoma lost to the WAC champ and a team that dropped its previous game to a Pittsburgh squad with a losing record. Yet mention Ohio State to a typical college football fan, and there’s a visceral, negative reaction to the Buckeyes’ chances for playing in the BCS title game this year, one that I don’t sense the Sooners generate.
For some reason, Stoops’ teams haven’t shown up ready to play in their most recent bowl games. I can’t say for sure why, but if you’re gonna roll your eyes about OSU’s chances because of its less than stellar recent showings, you shouldn’t be showing Oklahoma any more love. In fact, given the inferior talent of the last two teams they’ve played, the Sooners, if anything, deserve less respect.
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