April Issue Hits Newsstands April 11!

A few thoughts, while wondering if we’ll be able to maintain our regular appearance in the national championship game every time it’s played in Miami this century.

Spring practice lacked a certain thrill factor this year, what with DeMarco Murray still rehabbing a knee and so many other big-time playmakers sitting out for one ailment or another. The good thing is that everyone looks like they’ll be back when it counts in August, which is the main thing, knock on wood.

Every Sooner fan is going to go into the 2008 season all twisted up about BCS bowl games and when we’ll win one. The team and the coaches, of course, will not lose sight of the fact that, despite our recent regular attendance at the BCS party, it’s not automatic. It takes a lot of work and usually a conference title to get there.

We’re working on the only repeat Big 12 title run in the history of the conference so far, and we’re likely going to have to make it three in a row if we want to worry about whether we can get over the BCS hump in January 2009.
So don’t get ahead of yourselves — there are a lot of things that have to happen before we get that shot again.

Once that opportunity presents itself again, which I think it will next postseason, I would imagine the approach to the BCS game will change in almost every respect. From when the team heads to the site to the practice schedule, to what the players are doing for fun.

Given recent history, it can’t hurt to change things up wherever possible.

If any of you have been browsing the innerweb, and who hasn’t really, you may have stumbled across the construction pictures from the Cotton Bowl. It’s definitely going to be a different look when we roll in there on October 11.

The bond issue that was passed down there to put $50 million into the old dump is starting to show results beyond just the new scoreboard we saw last season. The upper decks in the end zones are almost done at this writing, and we’ll see a full double-deck bowl for OU-Texas this season. That translates to somewhere around 92,000 people on hand for the Red River Shootout.

It will be quite interesting to see how much louder it will be, both because of the increased attendance and the new seating arrangement. The bathroom improvements are going in as well, I’m told, which is perhaps the more important renovation from the fans’ perspective.

In any event, with hoops over now, we’re on the downhill run to the end of the school year and the long, hot days of summer. Personally, I recorded every bowl game from last season, or at least most of them, on my DVR for the sole purpose of having some stuff to watch during the summer to get ready for football.

Who knows, I might even watch the Fiesta Bowl for the first time on TV. Maybe. To this day, I have not looked at one highlight or read one newspaper story about that game.

On a brighter basketball note, it’s nice to see that Joe C’s hiring wizardry has proven itself once again with Jeff Capel. With the progress he’s made in only two seasons, after the mass exodus of the 2006 recruiting class, he deserved a raise whether another school was after him or not.

I can’t think that anyone seriously thought he would go to South Carolina from here. We don’t have the history of a Duke or anything like that, but South Carolina is a non-entity when it comes to basketball pedigree. It still weirds me out that I remember him playing for Duke against us when Kelvin Sampson was our coach, but that’s just me.

As for Sherri Coale’s bunch, they just didn’t have enough to overcome a home game for Notre Dame in the tournament to get to a home game in OKC. Honestly, the way they were playing at the end of the season, Tennessee might have put a hurting on them in the Ford Center, but it would have been nice to see how 19,000 screaming Sooner fans affected the thing.

Next year is the Paris twins’ last, and everyone is back, so I think it’s got to be the time to make the big push to get back to the Final Four.

And finally, on April Fools’ Day came word that Sean Sutton has been canned at Oklahoma State. The real joke was when Papa Sutton somehow got the powers that be up there to hire his boy as the coach-in-waiting in the first place. Trust me Ags, Bill Self is not coming home to roam the bench at Eddie Sutton Quart, no matter how much of T. Boone’s money gets thrown at him. If he does, well, he’s a true Aggy.

But enough about hoops. Football season is that much closer now. With spring practice winding to a close with the Red-White Game, let the killing of time resume.

(Editor's Note: Read this story and much more on OU football in the April Issue of Sooner Spectator. Call toll free to subscribe at 1-877-841-8877)