United Airlines began direct service between Oklahoma City and San Francisco this week. When United announced this plan months ago, they said it was to provide a link between growing activities at the University of Oklahoma and similar activities in the Bay Area.
They were talking about the bio-science research at the OU Health Sciences Center and its connections with researchers in California.
Or so we thought at the time.
This week, two days after the first non-stop flight left OKC for SFO, OU President David Boren made public statements from which we can extrapolate that ties between the OU athletic department and similar activities on the Pacific Rim may be in the offing.
“We have interest from other conferences and other universities. It’s really attributed to the strength of the programs at the University of Oklahoma that there is so much interest in us,” Boren said on Friday.
“We have to carefully evaluate the various comments being made to us and various possibilities before we decide what’s best for the University of Oklahoma.”
OK, United Airlines’ decision was probably a coincidence. Surely they had no clue the Big 12 would be on the verge of collapse or that OU and others might realistically be enveloped into a West Coast super conference.
After all, Boren has worked hard recently to keep the conference together, at least to keep Texas A&M from leaving. He conducted Kissinger-like airplane shuttle diplomacy between College Station, Norman and other conference locations to try to convince the Aggies that leaving was a bad idea. But that didn’t work. A&M announced it was leaving anyway.
“I hoped we had stability. I guess I’m just disappointed that the original Big 12 is not the same Big 12. I was extremely disappointed when Nebraska departed. I was disappointed when Colorado departed. Obviously, as you’ve tracked my plane flying here or there, you know that I would be disappointed that Texas A&M left,” Boren said.
Airplane tracking? This whole conference realignment talk has a definite aeronautical theme to it.
In short, the Big 12 just wasn’t the old Big 8, which we all loved like the great uncle who smelled of Old Spice and brought bags of candy at Christmas. Instead, the Big 12 has been a dysfunctional family with kids squabbling with bullying step-brothers over who gets the bigger snack of sweets, only to find some bolting from the house for a better deal across the street at the neighbor’s.
Boren said some decision is going to be made within the next few days or weeks about what option Oklahoma will take. The net effect of that decision will be a decision about whether the Big 12 survives at all.
Boren said some decision is going to be made within the next few days or weeks about what option Oklahoma will take. The net effect of that decision will be a decision about whether the Big 12 survives at all.
Fact is, if Oklahoma leaves like Texas A&M did, then there will be no conference left. With it will go Oklahoma State. With it will probably go Texas, which loves the idea that OU can be blamed for busting up the conference instead of them, when in fact their own Longhorn/ESPN TV deal caused the big crack that seems to be expanding through the conference underpinnings. I say “probably” because that same TV deal will have to be junked for Texas to gain acceptance into about any conference that will have them.
In the words of Coach Stoops, Big 12, “You’re done!”
On Thursday, Austin-American Statesman columnist Kirk Bohls wrote that U of Texas officials wanted Oklahoma to take the lead in making that decision. The folks in Austin did not want to be seen as the force that killed a conference. They are taking too much unhappy political heat for scaring Texas A&M away from the Big 12 with that Longhorn/ESPN network (even though it’s not yet seen outside of Austin).
It is a job Boren accepts willingly. The former governor and U.S. Senator holds as much political power from his North Oval office as any political figure in the Sooner state. He’s immune from criticism. He was wildly popular when elected. He’s more so as CEO of the most popular organization in Oklahoma — the Sooner football program (a Washington, D.C. research firm announced this week the results of its poll finding that 77 percent of all Oklahomans identify themselves as OU Sooner fans).
Boren is a traditionalist. But his comments on Friday acknowledge that all the King’s horses cannot put the Big 8 or the original Big 12 back together again. And, he’s not thrilled about adding the low profile schools like a TCU or a Houston or an Air Force to the Big 12 just to have warm bodies fill the conference seats.
Boren is a traditionalist. But his comments on Friday acknowledge that all the King’s horses cannot put the Big 8 or the original Big 12 back together again.
He does not want to follow A&M to the SEC. That collection of schools does not carry the academic prestige of the Big 10 or the Pac 12. Besides that, the SEC football conference is seen as a group of NCAA violating immoral inbreds.
Boren wants OU to be a major research institution. He’s made huge strides toward that end, especially in the bio-sciences and weather research — those things that have led to United scheduling direct flights to carry researchers back and forth from San Francisco to Oklahoma City.
And therein lies the Pac 12. You ask Boren if he wants to be in the same league as Stanford and the University of California — two of the most prestigious universities in the country, and you are going to see a grown man get as giddy as a little girl at her 6th birthday party.
And that party is out west.
Buy your airline tickets now, Sooner fans. Flights leave Will Rogers each morning at 7:15 am.
Follow
So 77% are Sooner fans? Can we now put an end to the 1/2 the space in the newspaper for the other guys? Half the display for souvenirs in the stores?
Sheesh.
What other guys? Oh, those redneck halloween guys.