As we look forward to kickoff Saturday, I wanted to give a few thoughts on the 2017 season.
First and foremost we should all understand that we saw the greatest quarterback in Sooner history play his final season in the Crimson and Cream. And an argument can be made that Baker Mayfield was the greatest quarterback in the history of college football.
And to me that fact makes it all the more painful Oklahoma couldn’t take home number 8 in 2017. We have to be more than a great offensive football team. If we score 48 points, that has to be enough. That should be enough to win any game. The defense has to get better.Talent, coaching or both, have to get better.
Last year I laid blame at the foot of Mike Stoops. And maybe that was fair last year. We don’t know if Riley was forced to keep his staff intact as a condition of the job or not. I tend to think that he was probably told that he could not make any major changes, especially when it came to Bob’s brother, as a condition of getting the job.
But this has to be Riley’s program now. And Riley should get to make any decisions regarding the coaching staff on his team. So I’m not going to fault Mike Stoops anymore when it comes to defensive play.
This game is not a gimme. And for all the things I can’t stand about Lane Kiffin, he can coach an offense.
This game is not a gimme. And for all the things I can’t stand about Lane Kiffin, he can coach an offense.
The buck stops at Riley. If the defense continues to falter the next few years, that’s now on Riley’s shoulders. It’s his program. He needs to make the changes that will ensure 48 points, and lower, is enough. The 2017 season was a great campaign. It produced another Big 12 Title, the third in a row, and a trip to the program’s second College Football Playoff.
But it could have, and should have been so much more.
Moving on to the new season, the Sooners begin the 2018 schedule on Saturday in another 11 a.m. kickoff against the program that old Howard Schnellenberger built. Remember him Sooner fans?
Lane Kiffin and his Florida Atlantic Owls come to town with his version of Last Chance U. Kiffin has built his team with outcasts from Power 5 programs, a few of which have gained their 15 minutes of fame appearing on the popular Netflix series.
The probable starting quarterback, De’Andre Johnson was once a highly touted Florida State recruit who found himself in East Mississippi, the junior college featured on the show, after punching a girl in a Florida bar.
Defensive end Tim Bonner was also seen on the series when he was sent packing from Louisville after having been found with a gun on campus.
But not all of Kiffin’s troubled transfers came from the realty TV ranks though. The likely second string quarterback came from our own back yard. Chris Robison was a four star player recruited by our very own University of Oklahoma Sooners in 2017. He enrolled in the spring, but was sent packing after violating multiple team rules. He transferred to FAU and sat out last year. He will now come to Owen Field and stand on the visiting team’s sideline.
Add to this list of highly touted recruits Devin Singletary and you have a very dangerous team coming to town. Who’s Devin Singletary? Well, he led all Division I FBS players last year in rushing touchdowns and finished with 1,920 yards.
This game is not a gimme. And for all the things I can’t stand about Lane Kiffin, he can coach an offense.
The same things they say about Lincoln Riley being an offensive guru are the same things they said, and still say about Lane Kiffin.
The Sooners will have to score points, because FAU sure as heck will. In the end our overall talent should be able to wear down the Owls and we should win the game. But it will be a big challenge for the first game of the season.
We can’t just roll out the helmets and expect a win. This isn’t Northeast Midwestern Directional Missouri coming to Norman.
As such the Worry Meter is at 75 percent this week.
Since Oklahoma won their first National Championship in 1950, the longest we have gone between Titles has been 18 years. If I remember correctly our last National Title was in 2000. Now I’m not a math genius, but…..With all that being said…BOOMER!!!
— Dave
Related story: FAU’s Kiffen facing OU QB Murray: “These are the guys you want to play the least.”
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