TEMPE , Ariz. — There are important things the Sooners can take from a win here tonight in the Insight Bowl.
Of course a win is always good. And, a win to get some of that bad Bedlam taste out of our mouths would be very good.
But even more than that, a win against Bob Stoops’ alma mater would be important to right a ship that is so far off the expected course that we’re not sure anyone is looking for it to return to port.
A good performance by Landry Jones would squelch some of our Sooner fan friends who refer him to as “Laundry” Jones, apparently in reference to how his fumbles against Oklahoma State stunk up the place so much we burned our clothes that night. There is a good chance Landry will return for his senior season. We need him to step up to win this bowl game, but we also need him to do so in order to carry the Sooners into a positive spring practice.
A dominating defense – especially against the pass (although we’re not sure Iowa has the forward pass in their play book) – would go far in erasing from our memories the horrible catastrophe in Waco, Texas that can only be described as a second Hindenburg accident (or the earlier inexplicable loss to Texas Tech in Norman).
A 100-yard game by Roy Finch would elevate his game to a Quentin Griffin level. That’s the yardstick we have for any running back who is shorter than Danny Devito and quicker than the Flash (an odd combination indeed). More important than that is this offense needs to establish itself as a smash-mouth offensive team.
The inability to run the football is what keeps this OU team from being a consistent winner.
A great bowl game by LB Travis Lewis won’t help us much next year, but it would be a sweet cap on the career of a vocal leader of this team. We can knock his play this year because the reality is he played the whole season injured. We can’t knock his devotion and enthusiasm – and a fire that, unfortunately, didn’t ignite some of the other players on this team.
A win against Iowa can facilitate another player – Tony Jefferson or Gabe Ikard, for example, to step up as the new team leader.
A balanced offensive game plan in the Insight Bowl would help us have some level of ease about Josh Heupel’s play calling. Right now it’s more like un-ease, a condition made apparent by the all-pass no-run playing calling by the offensive coordinator in the Sooners’ last game in Stillwater.
All of the above would be nice. And still the Sooners can get what they really need without achieving this wish list. They need a blow out win so that they – and many college football fans, and more importantly, football recruits – know that the Oklahoma Sooners don’t belong in a pre-New Year’s non-BCS college bowl game.
The Sooners program belongs only in a BCS game – and sooner rather than later they belong in the BCS championship game. This Sooners team will decide tonight whether that annual expectation is realistic or not. — Mike
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