THE CIIIIIIIRCLE OF LIIIIIIIFE...
If Stoops game management toward the end of the game seemed a bit curious, it's because he was doing what savvy coaches do in an age of polls, national debate, and the lack of a playoff: he managed his losses.
Stoops admitted keeping the score reasonable played into the decision, hoping that a nine-point loss might look better to pollsters than a 16-point loss. With possession at the OU 4, the Tigers would have had an easy chance of punching the ball in the end zone. "It's a long year. Who knows how poll people look at scores?" Stoops explained. "Had we had a reasonable amount, some kind of field position, had we shown any signs the previous three plays of making a play, we would have (gone for it). But I didn't see that.
(Via RockMNation.) Bob Stoops is both a coach and a "brand manager" who provides "authentic and relevant experiences" for Sooner fans. There's a part of our stomach that gets very queasy when considering the proposition of not trying to win a game using every means possible, but this is the ecosystem teams inhabit, and until you flush the whole system and start over, you're going to have to game it at every opportunity. The only bonus this year is the lack of Mack Brown's annual PR pleas on ESPN, where he begs for his two loss team to be included in the BCS and not the Holiday Bowl.
And oh you clever internet commenter, that Oklahoma thing is fake, a very funny and wholly unoriginal fake, especially because if semen clogged up pipes every single men's dormitory in universe would be a wasteland of ruined plumbing. It comes via @ramzyn, who reminds you that ESPN still sucks.
AARON MURRAY SUCKS BECAUSE DAMMIT HE'S ACTUALLY GOOD. If Ahmad Black says he's good, then the dude's good. The worst part about our impending loss to UGA is going to be watching our still inexperienced linebackers standing still while he slides for a crucial five yard gain on third and four all game long. We hate you, 2010, the year we made contact WITH THE PLANET OF SUCK.
NICK SABAN ACCESSES HIS HUMOR PROGRAMMING AND DEPLOYS. Nick Saban is funny, but this is kind of a dick's joke, because you have to be kind of a dick to point at a dude and be like "Hahahah I fuck your girl and you work at the gas station I worked at as a kid while I make mad bank at the U of Alabama."
Saban's wife, Terry, can dish it back at her husband. Saban talked about last summer when he and his wife went home to West Virginia. The old gas station once run by his dad is now operated by Saban's wife's old boyfriend. "After 40 years, I decided this was my chance to get Terry," Saban said. "I said, 'See, if you would have married him you would be over there helping him run the gas station.' "She said, 'If I married him, he'd be the head coach at Alabama.'"
We bet Saban goes there, gets a full tank of gas, and then takes exactly one penny from the penny tray before leaving with a smile and a nod of the head.
DON'T APOLOGIZE OR EXPLAIN, RICKY BUSTLE. Real artists never do, even after losing to Western Kentucky.
BETTER PRACTICE BLAH BLAH ETC EXECUTION. Paul is convinced we could pull a bye week resurrection, but in the midst of all this reverse jinxing it's hard to keep straight what's genuine or not. We mean it--and you'll never, ever believe us due to a long track record of reverse jinxdom--but seriously, if we're still trying to get offensive practice right, we're as doomed as a bus full of unchaperoned schoolgirls broken down in the slums of Bangkok.
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