Oklahoma will play in its 13th straight bowl game when the team takes on Iowa in the Insight Bowl on Dec. 30 in Tempe, Ari. That is a big deal. That many bowl games in consecutive seasons is a solid sign that a program is having success.
Try telling that to Sooner fans, though.
The Sooners entered the 2011 football season as the top-ranked team in the nation for good reason. The team finished 2010 with a win in the Fiesta Bowl and had virtually every impact player returning. Both junior quarterback Landry Jones and senior receiver Ryan Broyles were touted as Heisman contenders, the entire offensive line was returning, the receiver position appeared to be loaded and the defense was looking like it could be Oklahoma’s best in years.
Once the season was under way, OU did not give anyone reason to doubt its prowess as a national powerhouse. The Sooners opened the season at home against the Tulsa Golden Hurricane and rolled to an easy 47-14 victory.
In a highly touted matchup with No. 5 Florida State in Tallahassee, Fla., Oklahoma took care of business on both sides of the ball and silenced any doubters with a clutch fourth quarter that led to a 23-13 victory.
“Our offense and defense, when we’re on the same page, we’re going to be very tough to beat,” senior linebacker Travis Lewis said after the game. “When we needed them, they stepped up, and when they needed us, we stepped up.”
The team had cleared one of its toughest hurdles of the year and was heavily favored in every game the rest of the season, but games are not played on paper.
The Sooners got a taste of that lesson the very next week on their home field, when — despite poor play and no intensity — OU scraped by Missouri with a 38-28 victory.
A win is a win, but everyone on the team expressed disappointment with the performance.
“We had mental bust after mental bust, and it was a very easy game plan,” defensive coordinator Brent Venables said after the win. “We practiced poorly this week, and we played poorly and coached poorly. You can’t let your guard down. You lose your edge, lose your respect for the game, and you’re going to get exposed. It’s very disappointing.”
Was the game a fluke, simply a reminder to the team that if it doesn’t play well, it can lose? Or was it more of an omen of things to come?
It does not take much to get football fans in Oklahoma riled up. However, OU fans did not worry long.
Oklahoma rolled over Ball State at home the following week, and all worry was put aside when the team dominated Texas, 55-17, in the annual Red River Rivalry.
Oklahoma seemed to have reached another peak with that win, having hurdled its second major obstacle en route to a national title.
The question was answered: Missouri was nothing more than a fluke, a letdown after a splendid performance on the national stage.
Or so it seemed.
OU rolled to its sixth win the following week, beating unranked Kansas, 47-17. Just like that, the team found itself in a valley.
Texas Tech came to Norman on Oct. 22, unranked and struggling to find itself, but the Red Raiders broke the nation’s longest active home winning streak by knocking off the No. 3-ranked Sooners, 41-38, at Owen Field.
“They came out, and they flat out beat us,” senior defensive end Frank Alexander said. “It wasn’t anything special they did.”
A simple statement, but painfully true. Texas Tech played the same football it had been playing all year.
The problem was the Sooners did not. They played like they played against Missouri; this time, though, it got the best of them. The Missouri game was suddenly less of a fluke and more of a symbol for this team’s inconsistently.
OU faced No. 8 Kansas State the next week, going from losing at home to a sub-.500 team to blowing out a top-10 team on the road.
Led by the new “Belldozer” package, the Sooners’ offense was unstoppable, and the defense decided to show up that week. Oklahoma blew out the Wildcats, 58-17, and everyone wondered more than ever what went wrong against Texas Tech.
The Sooners — minus junior sensation Dominique Whaley, who suffered a season-ending injury against K-State — returned home the next week and had a repeat performance against Texas A&M. Two straight wins against ranked opponents, combined with other top-five teams being defeated, meant the Sooners still had an outside shot at a national title.
But without senior All-American Ryan Broyles — who saw his college career abruptly end against the Aggies — and Whaley, the road became considerably more difficult.
If OU shot itself in the foot in the Tech game, the Baylor contest was more of a knife to the heart. Unlike the Missouri and Texas Tech games, OU did not lose to Baylor by falling behind early — they lost the game in crunch time by making multiple errors with minutes to go and the game on the line.
A false start, a timeout that probably shouldn’t have been called and a defensive breakdown resulted in a 45-38 loss.
“I never questioned our players’ want to and fight,” coach Bob Stoops said. “But in the end, [Baylor] made a few more big plays than we did, and that’s the difference in the game.”
It was true. OU played with heart the entire game. The team played with intensity and played through mistakes to give itself a chance to win. Despite that, or maybe because of that, the loss somehow seemed more painful.
After easily dispatching Iowa State, only OSU stood between the Sooners and a shot at a BCS bowl to redeem their season.
But by the fourth quarter of Bedlam, Oklahoma had five turnovers, Oklahoma State had almost 500 yards of offense and the pecking order in Oklahoma had just taken a huge hit. The Cowboys gave the Sooners their most embarrassing loss of the year, a 44-10 blowout, to become outright conference champions.
The once-favored future national champions had finished the year 9-3 with another trip to the desert in their future, only this time not as glamorous.
“Obviously, the season didn’t go the way we planned,” junior center Ben Habern said. “We have to take ownership of what happened.”
Now the Sooners are left with a Dec. 30 appearance in the Insight Bowl against their head coach’s alma mater, Iowa — unbelievable considering where OU started the 2011 season.
Undoubtedly, the Sooner players are just as disappointed as their loyal fans. With only one more chance to finish this season on a strong note, though, the team cannot afford to be disappointed. A loss in the Insight Bowl could turn the season from terrible to disasterous in the eyes of Sooner nation.
“I think we’re going to come back and finish strong,” sophomore fullback Trey Millard said. “We have enough character to do that.”
The Sooners still do have their character to defend, and of course, there is the prospect of a shiny new Insight Bowl trophy to satisfy the fans until next year.
Oh yeah, and there’s always next year.
Greg Fewell is a journalism senior and the assistant sports editor for The Daily. You can follow him on Twitter at
@gregfewell.
AT A GLANCE: Sooners in Arizona bowls
» 2011: Insight Bowl
Tempe, Ariz.
After a 9-3 regular-season finish dropped OU to fourth in the Big 12, the Sooners will face off against the Iowa Hawkeyes in the Insight Bowl.
OU coach Bob Stoops, wide receivers coach Jay Norvell and tight ends coach Bruce Kittle graduated from and coached Iowa.
The only time OU and the Hawkeyes met — in 1979 — Stoops started for Iowa as a redshirt freshman safety, and the Sooners won, 21-6.
» 2010: Fiesta Bowl
Glendale, Ariz.
Oklahoma redeemed itself in the desert, winning in the Grand Canyon State for the first time in 34 years.
The Sooners beat the Big East champion Connecticut Huskies, 48-20.
» 2007: Fiesta Bowl
Glendale, Ariz.
West Virginia ran up and down on the Sooners during a 48-28 romp.
» 2006: Fiesta Bowl
Glendale, Ariz.
Hook-and-ladder and the Statue of Liberty.
OU may never forget this 43-42 overtime loss to Boise State.
» 1994: Copper Bowl
Tucson, Ariz.
BYU 31, OU 6
» 1982: Fiesta Bowl
Tempe, Ariz.
Arizona State 32, OU 21
» 1976: Fiesta Bowl
Tempe, Ariz.
OU 41, Wyoming 7
Source: OU athletic department
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boomer3 5 months, 1 week ago
Make the Cotton Bowl a BCS bowl, rotate the NCG between the now 5 BCS bowls like they used to do before the separate game.