Postgame P: Five-foot putts, tinfoil hats and waffles

I was introduced to golf at the age of nine, when I convinced my father to pay $20 for a set of five Golden Bear clubs on Craigslist. That first set consisted of a driver, three irons and a putter in a little yellow bag. After several trips to the driving range at Miracle Hill Golf Course, the site of the world’s longest hole-in-one, I felt ready to play a round and we headed out one Friday to a local par-3 course.

I beat my dad by one stroke that day, and perhaps with an unconscious emotional lift from the thrill of that initial victory, I began to take golf very seriously. For years, we’d play a round every week if the weather permitted, and when I was sixteen, I got my first job as a groundskeeper at the beautiful Indian Creek Golf Club. Situated in the booming suburban region of west Omaha and home to an annual Korn Ferry Tour event, Indian Creek features a gorgeous 27-hole layout with plenty of water, tall trees, carefully manicured greens and immaculately maintained bunkers. I worked there for three summers. My boss, a mid-thirties agriculture whiz named Jim, was one of the more easygoing employers I’ve ever had. The early-morning alarms could be brutal, and the work itself could be crappy depending on the day’s tasks and the weather conditions. But outside of the one time that I somehow made the egregious mistake of filling a diesel mower with gasoline, the job was largely drama-free and the perks were truly incredible. I got heavily discounted food at the clubhouse, and I also got to play the course for free after 5pm. I’d typically play three or four rounds a week, and playing that regularly on a pro-level course will sharpen your golf game very quickly.

By age seventeen, even though I’d only ever played recreationally and not competitively, I could regularly shoot in the eighties for a round of 18. What made this more impressive to many of my various playing partners — baseball teammates, church acquaintances, etc. — is that I never hit a driver. Rather than dealing with the unpredictability of the club, I’d simply tee off with a 4-iron and be content to play 50-100 yards behind the typical position of a second shot. What I lacked in distance off the tee, I’d typically make up in precision, especially in the short game. One particular mantra that I carried had been passed on to me by a more experienced player one day as we walked onto the green and squared up our putts.

“You gotta be money from inside five feet,” he told me. “If you get to the point where you can hit every single putt from five feet or less, everything else about golf becomes a heck of a lot easier.”

Five feet doesn’t seem like a substantial distance in theory, but when you’re actually out on the green and staring down a five-foot putt, it can feel like half a mile if you’re not in a confident and levelheaded mental state. If you visualize the putt missing wide or lipping out, it’s going to miss wide or lip out. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. 90 percent of five-foot putts will go in the hole… unless you overthink it. In the overwhelming majority of cases, if you know the fundamentals of golf and can read a green worth a crap, your own headspace is all that will prevent you from sinking a five-foot putt.

The Sooners’ road trip to Cincinnati yesterday was a five-foot putt. On paper, Oklahoma was the athletically superior team with a better coaching staff and more skill-position talent. The Sooners should not have lost to the Bearcats. And fortunately, they did not. They hit the five-foot putt. And to me, that underscores how much progress has been made in the span of a year with regard to mentality and confidence, because this team couldn’t hit a five-foot putt to save its life last season.

My estimable colleague Jesse Crittenden said it on the Under the Visor Postgame Podcast, and I believe it to be 100 percent true: the 2022 Sooners would have lost the game yesterday. In a hostile road environment, with a somewhat inefficient offensive performance and no favor shown by the officiating crew, last year’s Oklahoma team would have crumbled. This team didn’t.

It wasn’t a perfect game yesterday by any means. There is improvement to be made on both sides of the ball for Oklahoma. But a 20-6 win, and especially one in which the Sooners never really relinquished control of the game, is a welcome opening act to the Sooners’ Big 12 swan song. A 20-6 win lends credence to the notion that this team has turned the corner defensively. Consider for a moment that after a similarly effortless waltz through non-con, Oklahoma’s first game of Big 12 play last season was a 41-34 loss to Kansas State. Though the Wildcats would go on to win the Big 12 title and this year’s Bearcats aren’t exactly a world-class offensive team, 41 points is 41 points. Six points is six points. A 20-6 football game likely has the Oklahoma fanbase feeling much more secure than, say, a 52-38 football game. The margin is identical. The optics are anything but.

But per the usual, let’s start with some negativity…

— Okay, let’s not bury the lede here. Oklahoma’s backfield is its most glaring issue through four games, which I did not have on my 2023 bingo card. One possibility is that this is the most intricate and sincere deepfake of all time by Jeff Lebby and DeMarco Murray, who are jointly attempting to make it seem as though Texas has no real reason to gameplan for Jovantae Barnes and Gavin Sawchuk. But that’s verging on conspiracy theory. Then again, I’m not really sure how else to explain the truly bizarre backfield usage thus far. Last week against Tulsa, Barnes saw 13 carries and Sawchuk saw nine. Meanwhile, Marcus Major and Tawee Walker combined for zero touches. This week, Major got 15 carries and Walker notched five totes, while neither Barnes nor Sawchuk played a single offensive snap. It’s weird, and I’m not sure what else to call it. Oklahoma is essentially doing with running backs what Mike Gundy is doing with quarterbacks. I’m not one to feed the fire when it comes to questioning coaches’ personnel decisions, and by no means am I saying Jeff Lebby and DeMarco Murray are idiots for playing their hand in such counterintuitive fashion. They know their running back room better than anyone. But like many, I simply want to know why. And we haven’t been given a satisfactory explanation as to why.

— I mentioned this on the postgame podcast; it was a quite random mid-game thought that popped into my head. Right now, the 2023 Sooners are outplaying the 2022 Sooners in pretty much every respect with the exception of the rushing offense. I imagine there are more than a few Oklahoma fans out there that wish Eric Gray would have used his extra year of eligibility to return. But is Michael Turk perhaps the guy that you miss the most from last year’s team? Emmett Jones has taken the wide receiver room to new heights, and it’s helped salve the sting of Marvin Mims’ loss. But in Turk, you lost objectively one of the best punters in college football, not just in the year 2022 but in recent memory. The Sooners don’t have anybody that’s remotely close to his level, and that was evident yesterday in several boots from Josh Plaster that gave Cincinnati relatively short fields. In games dictated by defense, field position looms large. It didn’t cost the Sooners yesterday, but an offense more potent than Cincinnati’s will no doubt be able to take advantage when given an extra 15-20 yards of field position. If there was a knock on Turk during his time at Oklahoma, it was that sometimes he kicked the ball too far, and that’s a first-world problem if there ever was one.

— I’m not a conspiracy theorist. And until now, I haven’t really subscribed to the notion that Big 12 officiating crews are doing their darnedest to screw Oklahoma and Texas on their way out the door. But the discrepancy in yellow laundry was blatant yesterday. Off my camera roll alone, I can count at least 4-5 missed holds and a couple no-calls for illegal hands to the face, not to mention the obvious end-zone PI against Jalil Farooq that wasn’t flagged. The Sooners drew seven penalties in the fourth quarter and Cincinnati drew zero. Could that be a product of sheer coincidence? Sure, it very well could. But there’s a pattern emerging. And Brett Yormark’s very public comments about Oklahoma and Texas haven’t done a whole hell of a lot to diminish the idea that the Big 12 has it out for its two departing member schools. If we see this phenomenon another two or three times, I’ll have no choice but to don the tinfoil hat.

— How in the name of Bo Schembechler did Michigan throw all of one pass to Andrel Anthony last fall and then let him bail for the portal? My acquaintances on the UM beat have suggested that Anthony had major struggles with drops while a Wolverine, but if that’s the case, we sure haven’t witnessed any such struggles since he arrived in Norman. As much as I love Nic Anderson and believe he’s a Biletnikoff-type guy down the line, I’d argue that through four games, Anthony has established a foothold as the clear WR1 in this offense. He’s demonstrated the ability to run the entire route tree and dominate at every level. He can win with speed, he can win with precise cuts to create separation, and he can win with ball skills. The third-quarter play he made to reel in a badly underthrown deep ball from Dillon Gabriel would have had Ceedee Lamb beaming with pride. Back in January, many message-board regulars had reviled the Sooners’ decision to pass on 6-foot-7 Bowling Green transfer Tyrone Broden in favor of Anthony. Chalk one up for the Oklahoma staff and their evaluation ability, because Braden has all of five catches for 46 yards and a touchdown in his first four games as an Arkansas Razorback. Meanwhile, Anthony has at least 65 yards in all four of Oklahoma’s contests this far, and he’s topped the century mark twice.

— Can we have a candid conversation about Peyton Bowen and PJ Adebawore? Because I think I’ve seen enough to draw conclusions on those two. This is not intended as a slight on Woodi Washington, Billy Bowman, Trace Ford, Ethan Downs or any of the other well-seasoned individuals in the secondary and on the defensive line. But I’m absolutely convinced that Bowen is already the Sooners’ top defensive back and Adebawore is one of this team’s top two pass rushers. Cincinnati had a chance to tie the game at 10 with seconds remaining in the first half, and faced a third down at the Oklahoma 9-yard line. Bowen denied the Bearcats with a supremely athletic pass breakup that demonstrated an uncanny level of instinct, and it came on a play where most Oklahoma defensive backs of days past would have done one of three things: 1) gotten mossed, 2) committed pass interference or 3) made a noncompetitive play on the ball for lack of ideal position. Meanwhile, Adebawore played a ton of snaps in the second half as the Oklahoma staff cut him loose for the first time all year. He responded by doing the same thing he’s done all season: getting consistent pressure on the quarterback. At one point in the third quarter, he came within a split second of burying Emory Jones for a remarkable strip-sack — and it was utterly astonishing how fast he beat his man off the edge and got to Jones. Adebawore is a truly elite athlete playing a position that fully showcases his athleticism, and he’s already good enough to start for all but a handful of FBS programs. I’m almost to the point where I’d assert he ought to start for Oklahoma. Length, technique, strength, quickness, nastiness — he’s got the complete package, and he’s shown it all off thus far.

— If All-American selections were made today, Danny Stutsman would be on the first team and I hardly think there would be much contention over it. The junior linebacker is the best player on Oklahoma’s roster right now, and he’s been a pure terror on every down — without exception — all season. Perhaps the most impressive aspect of Stutsman’s play is that he isn’t just a tackling machine right now. He’s been a force as a rusher. He’s made plays in pass coverage. Hell, he’s even chipped in on special teams. When he showed up to Oklahoma in 2021 and instantly earned periodic snaps as a true freshman, it was safe to expect he’d be a multi-year starter and potential all-conference guy. In the span of a year and a half under Brent Venables’ tutelage, he’s blossomed into perhaps the most dominant linebacker in college football. And that, folks, is one of the many reasons Venables was hired. Soon enough, we’re going to have to start the conversation as to whether Stutsman returns in 2024, because he’ll have some pretty solid draft stock after this season. But he’ll also have a legitimate opportunity to graduate as one of the top five tacklers in program history. He’s not breaking Daryl Hunt’s program record of 530, but he’s on pace to finish his junior year with somewhere around 300 career tackles. Rocky Calmus is currently fifth in school history with 431. That’s a very attainable milestone for Stutsman... if he stays for his senior year.

In this new addition to the column, Parker’s father, a known OU football doomer and Uncle Rico-esque former high school quarterback, speaks via in-game text messages on behalf of the fans who tend towards a nonconformist perspective on the Sooners.

Strong opinions on Jeff Lebby: Our defense is playing inspired football… It’s been a long time since I felt like OU’s linebackers and secondary were flying to the ball and making plays… They look sharp… Now if only we had an OC who could call plays

Field position woes: Inexcusable that we give them a short field with 58 seconds left in the half because we can’t get a first down… Just terrible play calling and game management at the end of the half

Run game MIA: 35 rushing yards at the half… Dismal

Chess matches don’t excite: Zero OU fans are satisfied with 10 points midway through the 3rd Q against Cincinnati… We need more scoring

Second-half improvement on the ground: And suddenly we find our running game… Downhill running instead of dumb predictable zone read… Again it takes Lebby 3 quarters to locate the playbook

DG’s downfield problems: And then a lame duck deep ball from Dillon but Andrel Anthony balls out and makes a stellar catch… Dillon is so average at throwing the go route

One guy actually looked good: Peyton Bowen is fire… That dude can play

RonnyCrimson69: Why does Nic Anderson continue to make plays but then not get rewarded with more playing time?

Look, Ronny. I am of the opinion that he needs to be on the field as much as humanly possible. But I also think this staff, and especially Emmett Jones, deserves the benefit of the doubt when it comes to wide receiver usage. They’ve got boatloads of talent, and it gets tough to spread the wealth to everybody. Gavin Freeman and Jalil Farooq had two catches apiece yesterday; Jayden Gibson had one. Do I agree Anderson needs more snaps? I do. Am I alarmed by the fact that his snap count hasn’t drastically increased yet? No, especially with the Red River Shootout just 13 days away. If Texas has to gameplan for six or seven different wideouts who are all getting targets every week, it gives Oklahoma a leg up in the preparation battle.

Boomsoon22: New week same question. What is up with the running game? There are multiple things that I believe slowed down the offense, but the main one is the lack of a run game. Is it the scheme? The lineman up front? The vision from the backs? 4 weeks in and I would be surprised if we are averaging more than 4 yards a carry.

I promise I’m not trying to be a sunshine pumper, but although the splits amongst the backs has been befuddling, I’m not convinced the run game is an overall problem yet. The Sooners ran the ball just fine against Arkansas State and SMU, and they didn’t make a point of establishing the run against Tulsa or Cincinnati because they didn’t have to. When up against a team with a sieve for a secondary, I’m not going to take Jeff Lebby to task for leaning away from the run. The Sooners had over 400 yards of offense Saturday. If this offense legitimately hits a roadblock, then we can revisit this conversation. But there’s more than one way to skin a flea. You don’t need to rush for 250 yards every week to win football games handily.

Awr90: Barnes 5.2 YPC and lead team in rushing last week. Doesn’t see a snap today. Everyone needs a direct explanation for that.

Again, I have no explanation of my own. I guess I’ll try to let Jeff Lebby answer it for you…

“Marcus, [I] really wanted him to be able to get get in a rhythm. He had a really good week and I wanted him to have the bulk of the carries today. He was able to do that for us... We’ll see as we move forward. As we see what we’re gonna get on tape, understand who we’re playing and then how these guys practice every week, [that] will create opportunity.”

TheHappyGriffin: Recruiting question... does Wyatt Gilmore get a look at TE or FB? Between him sending that poor lil Timmy into the stratosphere last week and his game icing reception this week, the question needs to be asked.

No disrespect at all, but no, I don’t think the question needs to be asked. All of Gilmore’s offers were for the defensive side of the ball. He’s a force in the trenches, and while some of the offensive highlights are tantalizing, you must be mindful of the reality that he’s just an outstanding athlete. Outstanding athletes are generally pretty capable of making plays with the ball in their hands. Was Gilmore’s game-winning 50-yard touchdown reception last Friday impressive? Sure. But it doesn’t necessitate a position switch. That’s why Oklahoma recruited Davon Mitchell.

Stuck in Mexas: Did we just win a game by multiple scores without giving up a TD? Did that ever happen against an D1 opponent under TBOW? I for one am very, very pleased that we have a defense which quite often holds up on critical downs.

Yes, that happened. And yes, that actually did occur under Lincoln Riley — exactly once. You have to rewind all the way back to November 2017, when a horrific Kansas team decided it was a good idea to piss off the future Heisman Trophy winner during the pregame coin toss. You all remember it as the day Baker Mayfield grabbed his junk, but it was also the only game of the Riley era in which the Sooners held a Power 5 opponent without a touchdown. And at risk of stating the obvious, the 2023 Cincinnati Bearcats are a slightly more competitive program than the 2017 Kansas Jayhawks.

Pearljammer10: After a fumble, missed wide open receiver for a TD and almost costly backwards pass to no receiver even close to the area are we allowed to be critical of Gabriel now? Or do we still get lectured for being too critical?

You are always allowed to be critical of Dillon Gabriel — or any other player, for that matter. Well, except Danny Stutsman. You can’t really nitpick anything he’s doing right now. But let’s get back to Gabriel. It wasn’t a terribly clean game for him on Saturday; he did fumble and he did miss more than one wide-open receiver. He also made Sooner Nation’s collective heart skip a beat in utter panic with that baffling second-quarter lateral that mercifully rolled out of bounds. But I’m not going to be the one that castigates Gabriel over a couple of mistakes, because he’s more than entitled to a couple of mistakes. He was 26 of 38 for 322 yards yesterday, throwing for a touchdown and rushing for another. Through four games, he’s accounted for 14 touchdowns and two turnovers. He’s flirting with an 80 percent (!) completion rate and he’s eighth in the nation in QBR. Gabriel would be the first to tell you that he needs to minimize errors, of which there were a few yesterday. But there are 50-something teams in the Power 5 that would love to have the Sooners’ quarterback play right now.

a s: We are 4 games in an Stogner has been invisible (outside of blocking). What gives?

I gave Stogner a lot of love this offseason and truly believed he would have an outstanding year in this Oklahoma offense. If I just completely whiffed in that regard, I’ll be happy to own it down the line. But I think it’s too early to conclude that he’ll be a nonfactor in Oklahoma’s offensive scheme this year. The gameplan just hasn’t been conducive to his success through four games, and I think — think — that Stogner’s lack of targets has also been somewhat by design. The Sooners made it a point to attack Cincinnati on the perimeter yesterday, which meant a lot of targets for wideouts and very few for backs and tight ends. And I wasn’t shocked to see Stogner utilized only sporadically in nonconference play, which we’ve discussed at length. Given the Sooners’ lack of depth at tight end, it wouldn’t have made sense to run Stogner all over the gridiron against second-rate opponents.

dcsooner1: Any info on why Everett started at LG over S. Byrd?

Yeah, it’s a pretty straightforward explanation there. Byrd was injured and didn’t travel.

eboeboebo23: DG is an intentionally conservative qb. He doesn’t throw many picks but he also doesn’t always let his wr’s win 50/50 balls and instead seems to overthrow them (i.e. fade to Gibson). Do you think that will change as the season progresses or is he who he is?

I’ve said this before: I think Gabriel is who he is, but I don’t think Oklahoma fans should have any issue with who he is. Yes, he does err on the side of caution. But if you have a guy who can complete 60-70 percent of his passes week in and week out, consistently provide a threat in the running game and keep the ball out of harm’s way, that ought to be good enough to win a ton of football games. He is not Caleb Williams. He is not Baker Mayfield or Kyler Murray or Jalen Hurts. But he is the perfect quarterback for Oklahoma’s new identity as a football program. The Sooners’ identity in years past revolved around a gunslinger at quarterback who could almost always firebomb the team out of the most dire straits. Those teams won games in sexy fashion and they were undeniably fun to watch, but they weren’t championship teams. To borrow a phrase from Dan Lanning, the Sooners’ identity in 2023 is “rooted in substance, not flash.” They’re geared toward playing sound, consistent, complimentary, old-school football with minimal mistakes. Put another way, if Oklahoma ever needs Dillon Gabriel to throw for 450 yards and six touchdowns to win a game, that reveals a lot more about the Sooners’ program as a whole than it does about any shortcomings in Gabriel’s game.

SoonerCoach10: What do you think about our matchup with Iowa State next week?

I expect the Sooners to roll. The Cyclones are not a good football team, and if they somehow manage to topple Oklahoma, the transitive property will suggest that the Sooners aren’t even the best OU in the FBS. That ignominy, even in the hypothetical realm, is painful.

Ted Roof, on the growth within his defense over the past year: “Comparing this year and last year, I don’t get into that. I just get into what’s going on right now. We certainly learned and have gotten better and we’re moving on.”

This man is the defensive coordinator of the No. 2 scoring defense in college football through four games. There will be no further context provided. He’s on all his mob boss vibes right now, as he dang well should be. Light a cigar, Ted. Life’s good right now.

Walter Rouse, on the sense of camaraderie within the locker room: “We love everyone. Like, the O-line, we’re brothers. DG’s my brother. I think that love that we have for one another, we’ll go out — I’ll die for them on that field… I’m going to go kill someone on the field, put them in the dirt, make waffles out of them.”

You can tell that Walter Rouse spent four years at Stanford, because this is an utterly brilliant soundbite for multiple reasons. First off, he understands how to give the media something unique and compelling, as opposed to the same cookie-cutter insight week after week. Secondly, he just unlocked a world of new NIL opportunities. There will be edits made of Rouse cooking waffles in a chef’s hat. T-shirts will be printed. Neighborhood Jam will probably host the entire O-line for an unlimited waffle breakfast. This is truly fantastic content strategy by the Sooners’ stud left tackle.

Danny Stutsman, on whether this team has improved since the season opener: “Absolutely. Isn’t that the whole point? The whole point of the season is to get better as you go along.”

I love that Danny Boy is not only playing like Teddy Lehman, but now he’s talking like Teddy Lehman too. For those of you who spend your afternoons listening to Ted on KREF, just read that quote in his voice. Now complete the mental tapestry with a few quintessential Ted facial expressions, and it’s truly a beautiful picture.

Dasan McCullough, on how he ended up drinking Skyline Chili out of the can after the game: “I actually don't know. Okay so, me and Jonah [Laulu] got handed the chili. And at first we were just supposed to cheers it and kind of look and smile. But we were like, let's drink it. So we took it, drank it, and then the video cut off right before we had to spit all that out.”

Until hearing this soundbite, I could not have been convinced that there was actual Skyline Chili in those cans. I would have bet anything that in the process of staging the video, the Oklahoma in-house media team had filled those cans with coconut water or some other nutrition department-approved beverage. The fact that these men drank Skyline Chili straight out of the can is obscene levels of SEC Ready.

Brent Venables, on whether his defense could be categorized as dominant yet: “Dominant means you’re close to playing perfection, somewhere close. I don’t feel like we are. There are lots of places we’ve gotta get better. Up front, all three levels, in our coverage, in our run fits, our pressure packages, we do. And our guys know it. I don’t have to tell them. They know.”

That’s the press-conference version of IT AIN’T GOOD ENOUGH. And he’s right: it ain’t good enough. The Sooners played good defense yesterday. But it wasn’t quite championship-level defense. And until that’s the type of defense Oklahoma is playing, Venables will be less satisfied than anybody. Which, once again, is why the guy got hired.

— I have no strong opinions on Deion Sanders one way or another as a person. I do think he is objectively good for college football, and it’s fun to see a program like Colorado on the come-up after so many years of misery. However, we’re definitely seeing the true colors of the Deion apologists after his team got skull-Ducked by Oregon yesterday. The Deion apologists love to watch Deion talk his smack and back it up, and they simply can’t cope when the shoe’s on the other foot. Dan Lanning and his program wanted all the smoke — hell, the Oregon Duck was decked out in a white cowboy hat and sunglasses before the game. Lanning himself told his team in the locker room, “They’re fighting for clicks. We’re fighting for wins.” And when the two previously undefeated programs hit the gridiron, Oregon gave no quarter to Prime. The Ducks raced out to a 35-0 halftime lead and coasted to a 42-6 victory, after which Sanders proclaimed, “You better get me right now — this is the worst we’re going to be.” And fortunately for Prime, that’s probably true, because win or lose, his offense should have a much easier time moving the ball next week. Who awaits them? Funny you should ask!

— In this week’s edition of Keeping Up with Alex Grinch, we take you to sweltering Tempe, Arizona for some Pac-12 After Dark Action. The Arizona State Sun Devils, led by a transfer quarterback who wasn’t even good enough to start over Tyler freaking Buchner, are fresh off a shutout loss to Fresno State. They are two weeks removed from getting throttled on their home field by Oklahoma State’s conglomeration of sister-wife quarterbacks. So WHAT, dear reader, do you suppose they do against the mastermind that is The Grinch? If you confidently answered, “They hang around until the fourth quarter and prompt Caleb Williams to do some patently jaw-dropping Caleb Williams crap in order to save USC’s bacon,” congratulations! You have witnessed and learned enough to see directly through the Speed D masquerade. The score of this football game was 35-28 with eight minutes remaining, and it wasn’t until Williams iced the game with a touchdown pass to Tahj Washington that the Trojans could finally exhale. Colorado looked like an atrocious offensive team yesterday, but if there’s one man that is consistently so gracious as to elevate even the most pitiful offenses to borderline-prolific status via the ineptitude of his units, it is Alexander Gregory Grinch. The over-under for Colorado-USC next weekend might verge on triple digits.

— We have long known that Ryan Day and Lincoln Riley are cut from the same cloth, but the parallels between the two were solidified last night when Day outed himself as an incredibly insecure human being. After Ohio State scored with mere seconds to play and eked out a 17-14 win over Notre Dame, Day decided to essentially spend his entire postgame TV interview calling out 86-year-old Lou Holtz for whatever 86-year-old Lou Holtz said about Ohio State prior to the game. I frankly have no idea what Lou said, which underscores the degree of insecurity at play in Day’s comments. It would be a different story if Holtz had made national headlines by calling Ohio State a poverty program and accusing Day of egging the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. But whatever Holtz said about Ohio State clearly wasn’t a big enough deal to make a major ripple in the news cycle. When a chronically unintelligible geriatric’s opinion of your football program is enough to make a down-to-the-wire game into a sideshow to your scathing comments about him, you could stand to stare in the mirror for a little bit longer tomorrow morning.

For the second time this year, the honors go to Joey McGuire and Texas Tech. It admittedly feels somewhat disingenuous to rag on the Red Raiders for losing in Morgantown, because Oklahoma did the same just 10 months ago. But I have elected to shame the Sand Aggies in this week’s column not because they lost to West Virginia, but because they’re making me look like more and more of an idiot with each week that passes. I actually went to bat for this team. I pumped them up throughout the offseason. I touted their surprisingly successful 2022 campaign and a less-than-ironclad 2023 schedule that provided a path for a 10-win season and perhaps even a berth in the Big 12 championship game. Hell, I even said that behind Cody Campbell’s wealth, Tech could become one of the perennial top dogs in the new Big 12. They are now 1-3 and in legitimate danger of missing a bowl. Do the Red Raiders win two of five against Kansas State, BYU, UCF, Kansas and Texas? Survey says not likely. And if Texas Tech goes 5-7 or even 4-8, does five-star WR commit Micah Hudson actually sign with the program? Things went from bad to worse for Tech this weekend, but for the purposes of this column, the worst offense the program committed is the offense of Making Me Look Stupid. Furthermore, it is time I said what we all know to be true: Texas Tech’s throwback uniforms are leaps and bounds better than the modern atrocities they wear, and provide clear proof that making change for the sake of making change is generally a moronic idea. In particular, the black jersey/red pants combo is an abomination and should be punishable by forfeiture. Their logo looks like a Photoshop novice retooled the classic, virtually flawless double-T by using the bevel effect. It sucks and has sucked for 25 years. Sorry not sorry, Lubbock folk; take it as a backhanded compliment to your university's aesthetic history.

Have an outstanding work week, folks, and we’ll talk again next Sunday.