Schedule's only an issue this week

By Clay Horning
The Norman Transcript

August 27, 2008 01:10 am

— The subplot to the original Bob Stoops’ media luncheon of the 2008 season was thus: Could he find a way to pay the first team on the schedule a compliment.
Because while Stoops is no Lou Holtz, who would have you believe Notre Dame was the little sister of the poor and Navy the powerhouse back in the day, the 10-year Sooner coach can hardly refrain from calling an opponent “sound in what they try to do.”
But this had to be tough, because Tennessee-Chattanooga is an historically bad team when judged against all who’ve come before at Owen Field (except, perhaps, when judged against the John Blake-Joe Dickinson Sooners who were not at all sound in what they tried to do).
It’s not that the Mocs are an FCS team (an anacronym that means formerly Division I-AA), but they’re a 2-9 FCS team, 2-5 in their conference last season, who, checking their stats against their depth chart, appear to have lost a bunch of important folks (but maybe that’s a good thing).
The Sooners are a near-50-point favorite and the oddsmakers have to know we’re going to a see a lot of Joey Halzle Saturday. Basically, if OU loses, Chaminade no longer claims the biggest upset in the history of college sports.
Well, Stoops did, sort of.
Something about how the Mocs’ schemes were sound or how they seemed to have a clear idea what they were trying to do. It was a reach. And it was at the end of an answer, almost lost, which is probably why I can’t find the direct quote.
Like that Seinfeld episode.
I know I heard something.
But that was it.
So there you go.
Probably the worst opponent of the Stoops era.
But these things happen.
“There are times, and you’ll see this throughout the country,” Stoops said, “when you’re left without a game.”
So the Sooners are stuck with an embarrassing opponent.
Somebody’s going to complain about it. Well, let them. Maybe OU will offer an apology. It might as well, because it would be the only one.
Perhaps not the toughest schedule Stoops has ever faced after the Sooners pound the Mocs and maybe not just the right matchups OU would prefer at this point in the season or that point in the season. But it might be the best schedule assembled yet when the object is winning a national championship.
The Sooners get Washington there. The Huskies sound good, but they’re not good. Cincinnati, however, is good, and the Sooners get the Bearcats here. TCU might be really good. But not top-5 good. And the Horned Frogs are here.
Kansas, a good team, is here. Missouri, maybe a great team, isn’t on the schedule until the Big 12 championship game. Texas A&M, tradition-rich but not very good, will wait for OU in College Station, while Texas Tech, sort of an historic thorn in OU’s side, is coming to Norman.
Bedlam is in Stillwater.
No team can have it all.
It’s clear OU did all it could.
Who knew Tryone Willingham simply didn’t have it.
Making the schedule, athletic director Joe Castiglione likely thought Cincinnati a speed bump on the way to a real test against TCU. Yet both will be tests, and both at home. And if the Sooners are anything like they ought to be, easily passed.
So hold your nose Saturday. You won’t have to again.
Clay Horning
366-3526
cfhorning@normantranscript.com