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EDITOR'S NOTE: Each week, The Daily's RJ Young and MJ Casiano debate the biggest question in sports. This week, Young and Casiano discuss whether OU met expectations this season.

RJ says no

Yes, the Sooners did what was expected of them by coaches, players and generally all college football fans when they won the 2010 Big 12 Championship. But they have once again failed the Sooner Nation in the way of falling to the wayside during mid-season in regard to the national title race.

Winning the Big 12 Championship has become something of a semi-regular event in Norman, and fans of Sooner football have accordingly grown accustomed to being the Big 12’s representative in the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl.

However the privilege of watching OU play in a BCS bowl is not why parents raise their children to become fans of the crimson and cream. That is not why 81,000 screaming fathers, mothers, sons and daughters make the pilgrimage to Oklahoma Memorial Stadium every fall.

Sooner fans expect to win championships. They expect to be known for supporting the best of the best in all walks of life, but especially in the one thing many claim that OU does better than any other college in the country: win football games.

OU won its 800th football game in program history this year, a feat only a handful of schools — including Michigan, Notre Dame and Texas — have managed to accomplish. Simply put, it is next to impossible to mention college football’s greatest programs and not mention the Sooners.

Bud Wilkinson put OU on the map. Barry Switzer made sure that anyone and everyone who had a stake in college football knew exactly where to find Norman in an atlas, and Bob Stoops brought the university its first national championship of the new millennium.

Since 2000, though, the OU men’s gymnastics team has notched five more national championships than the football team. Who knew that the program supporting the weight of more than 100 years of excellence in winning at OU was the other all-guys team in spandex?

I just hope that next year’s Sooner football team will remember that they are not measured by how well their season ended, but whether they won a national title.

— RJ Young, journalism grad student

MJ says yes

Any time a team goes to a BCS bowl game, you can go ahead and mark out failing to meet expectations.

If you had asked me about four months ago where this team would be at the end of the season, I’d have said the team would be fighting for a BCS spot and a Big 12 Championship.

That’s exactly what they’ve done, and it’s a season worth appreciating.

But because OU is a prestigious football program, I feel only a few people would say the Sooners exceeded expectations based on the fact fans think OU will go to the national championship every season.

When you look at the season OU has had — disregarding the two surprising losses at Missouri and at Texas A&M — the team has looked good in every game, with the exception of Utah State on opening day.

Sophomore quarterback Landry Jones, who I thought would be pulled by midseason, actually finished with a season worth applauding, and that is an accomplishment in its own. Jones even led the team to a top-10 ranked passing offense.

Junior wide receiver Ryan Broyles was dynamite in almost every game and led my fantasy team to a championship (thanks, Broyles).

We even got to see senior running back DeMarco Murray bounce back with a great season and develop a receiving game that we haven’t seen before. And when Murray was out, true freshman running back Roy Finch was proving his worth in his debut season.

That, of course, was good news, because OU fans were able to see what next season — when Murray is gone — will look like with Finch as the feature back: amazing.

And staying on the topic of freshmen, wide receiver Kenny Stills is a true No. 1 talent who will only get better with experience. And if Broyles stays, OU may possess the best receiving tandem in college football next season.

So with the experience we saw headed to the future of a dynamic offense and the BCS bowl game that OU is expected to win against Connecticut, this season has met my expectations, and I’m sure yours, too.

— MJ Casiano, journalism senior