Better to temper season optimism in August

August is usually the best part of the college football season.

New recruits bring hope of being future stars. Coaches are upbeat. Two-a-day practices are about to start. Sports writers are predicting great victories.

Everyone is undefeated.

Even the thought of cool fall evenings at the stadium provides a brief respite from the reality of those 100-degree temps outside.

But six years ago this week, some of that “good feel” was seriously deflated when Oklahoma’s 2006 season was turned on its head before it even started. That was when Coach Bob Stoops dismissed starting QB Rhett Bomar for Big Red Imports-gate.

I learned the Bomar news while checking my email on a hotel lobby computer in Milan, Italy. Not a good way to start your summer vacation.

Since then I’ve tried to temper my optimism the first week of August.

Good thing, considering this week’s bad news.

It started with the announcement that Juco transfers WR Courtney Gardner and OL Will Latu did not academically qualify and won’t be joining this year. Then offensive lineman Dylan Dismuke had a career-ending injury.

Then the BIG bad news came when Stoops announced that Senior Center Ben Habern opted to retire from football for medical reasons. Suddenly, the much experienced and heralded Sooners offensive line – and more importantly THE guy set to protect his former roommate Landry Jones – became less experienced and heralded.

It had to be a tough decision for Habern. He has suffered through two season-ending injuries during his career (broken leg his freshman year and broken arm last year). In the off season he had neck surgery.

I spoke with Ben’s father while boarding the plane back from Phoenix following the Fiesta Bowl last January. He said that Ben was considering foregoing his senior season to enter the NFL draft, but that advisors thought his stock would increase if he stayed at OU and got through an entire season without getting hurt. I took the conversation to mean that Ben was returning – which he later announced.

One can only speculate whether Habern’s off-season surgery was just too much from which to recover. Or, the risk of catastrophic injury to his neck was too great.

As if to soothe the fans upset by Habern’s decision, Stoops offered some Pepto-Bismol — an announcement that previously suspended WRs Jaz Reynolds, Trey Franks and DB Quentin Hayes were reinstated to the team, although not fully released from the dog house. Suspended WR Kameel Jackson’s fate remains uncertain, depending on his summer school grades.

Given Stoop’s hard-line stance on rules, something remarkable must have been done by these guys during the summer. Selling Mary Kay products for Carol Stoops or something big like that. Or, more likely, doing extremely well in class and passing medical tests for certain un-favored substances.

And, it could also be that Stoops saw that a couple of injuries to his diminished wide receiver corps (which consisted mostly of Kenny Stills and never-before-played-a-college-game-but-expected-to-be-superstar-someday wide receiver Trey Metoyer) would render the high potent Oklahoma offense pretty pedestrian. Lose any more receivers and the Sooners would be placing an advertisement in the Oklahoma Daily student paper for walk-ons who could catch a football.

Reynolds, Franks and Hayes may sit on the bench for a few early games (Stoops said they will miss “multiple” games). But I have the feeling by the time we pack the car for the trip to Dallas to play the Longhorns on October 13 those guys will be on the field.

Or, maybe I’m just letting August optimism creep back in.

In any event, I don’t take vacations in August any more. I don’t need the bad news to ruin a good time.

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