In what was not the prettiest bowl game of the 2011 season, Oklahoma took on Iowa to play for, I guess all the Insight.

The game started off with a huge turnover over by Iowa resulting in an Oklahoma touchdown right from the get go. Neither team could get an offensive game rolling until later on. Despite the 21-0 score at halftime, it was a much closer game.

Iowa, which we knew going into the game would happen, could not establish a running game at all. The Sooners leading rusher came in the form of backup QB, Blake Bell.

The Hawkeyes were held scoreless until the 4th quarter, where QB James Vandenberg hit C.J. Fiedorowicz with a 5 yard pass. Iowa was on the board again about 8 minutes later with a 9 yard pass to Jordan Canzeri, bringing the score to 21-14.

This is typical  of the Sooners 2011 season, bringing everything down to the line. The game just got stranger in the last minutes. For the first time I can remember, with about 3 minutes left,  the skycam decided he was a Sooner fan and fell from the lines holding it up and onto the field, nearly missing Iowa’s Marvin McNutt, their play maker of the game.

ESPN’s fail, resulted in a lengthy timeout and much to Iowa’s dismay, two more Sooner scores. A field goal with about 2 minutes left and then a 21 yard touchdown run by QB Blake Bell.

No Iowa fans, Oklahoma did not run up the score. After the season we had,a 31-14 win is NOT running a score up.

Both teams had higher expectations then what actually happened. And both teams are ready for the 2011 season to die. Just  like the skycam did. RIP 2011.

I want to wish everyone a happy New Year and we will see you in 2012.

Towards the end of the season, the Sooners had Arizona in their sights for a bowl destination after their National Title hopes went out the door. They just ended up in the wrong bowl. But let’s not use that as an excuse not to play, let’s use it as a tool to move forward.

The Insight Bowl features No. 14 Oklahoma and Iowa. And Iowa couldn’t be happier to be returning to the desert for a second year in a row. So the game pits a team disappointed in their season against a team who is actually thrilled to be there.

Bob Stoops and Iowa coach, Kirk Ferentz at Insight Bowl presser

Both teams are plagued with injuries and suspensions going into the game, so there is that similarity. The other is the Sooner coaches Iowa ties situation. Besides head coach, Bob Stoops being a former Hawkeye, OU recruiting coordinator and OL/TE coach, Bruce Kittle is also a former Hawkeye. Why stop there? Co-Offensive Coordinator, Jay Norvell played for Iowa and was also a graduate assistant coach. Former Sooner QB coach, Chuck Long also played ball at Iowa. So the bonds between the two teams are pretty tight.

The Hawkeyes are now hoping for a similar finish to last years, they had a rough season and finished it out with a win in the Insight Bowl against a Big XII opponent. The Sooners on the other hand, are looking for their 10th win and an end to the 2011 season.

As I mentioned on Wednesday, Iowa is lacking a running back since their star guy, Marcus Coker is suspended. This will be a plus for the Sooner defense, who has struggled with the ground game the last part of the season. The Sooners will be missing Ronnell Lewis, who’s time as a Sooner has most likely come to an end. The rest of the usual suspects will be there, besides the already known about injured players, which seems to be half the roster.

Iowa’s other threats are receiver, Marvin McNutt, who ended the regular season with 12 touchdowns and 1269 yards, leading the B1G. QB James Vandenberg also poses as a threat, throwing 23 touchdowns this year and 2806 yards. Unfortunately for Iowa and their defense, Landry Jones had almost double the yardage with 4302 and 28 touchdowns.

The Sooner defense has to step up and eliminate an early lead by the Hawkeyes and to stay focused. Shutting down the run game needs to be established early on too, which will be a task since they don’t know who will be in the backfield for the Hawkeyes, unfortunately, neither does Iowa.

I am expecting to see a revamped offensive scheme come off the Sooner sideline; the highly effective Belldozer will have to be put into play more and Landry will hopefully spread the ball out as much as possible to get a solid offensive attack going. The Hawkeye defense is not very effective when it comes to turnovers, only having three interceptions in the last 6 games, the worst in all of the B1G.

The spread has Oklahoma by 14, but depending on how the defense comes to play, I may go out on a limb and make it 21. This may be favorable Hawkeye fans, when I get bold, it tends to get me in trouble. So I am going with an Oklahoma win. Let’s end this season on a good note and get ready for 2012. On that note, Sooner Nation picked up highly sought after TE Taylor McNamara yesterday. So let’s use that as a good sign.

The game is scheduled for a 9:00 CST kickoff and will be aired on ESPN.

When reading Iowa Hawkeye news lately, which is something I don’t do often, I love that they refer to Bob Stoops, former Hawkeye and Oklahoma coach. Yes he played football at Iowa, in case you didn’t know.

Oklahoma and Iowa have only met two times previously, and Bob Stoops was a Hawkeye one of those times. Unfortunate for him, Heisman Trophy winner Billy Sims was a Sooner. Look at the air Stoops got.

Last year, when playing in the Fiesta Bowl, the team (Oklahoma) went over to watch the Insight Bowl, which featured Iowa vs Missouri. The Oklahoma players went to the game decked out in Iowa gear, honoring their coach’s alma mater.

Both teams arrived in Arizona on Christmas Day, and have been in full bowl practice mode since Monday. I decided to take to the Internet to see what Hawkeye beat writers were saying about the game, and I couldn’t find one bad thing. I may have been trolling the wrong Iowa sites, but I was impressed with the good nature of the Hawkeye writers.

One thing I did notice was that Iowa head coach, Kirk Ferentz was one of those people praising the Sooners. Most coaches, or at least coaches with class, do praise the other team. From what I got out of some of his quotes, was almost a state of intimidation, but I may be reading into to it too much.

He said that Oklahoma can and will create match-up problems all over the field for the Hawkeyes.

“They’ve got good players up and down the board,’’ he said. “If you start on offense, the first thing is the tempo. They make a ton of yards, a ton of points, so they’re very prolific that way. The pace is something that will test us.”

“Defensively, just a very athletic group, very aggressive. They’re very well coached, very multiple. We’re fortunate that we’ve got a lot of time. We’re going to need it, too because they do a lot of things.’’

The Hawkeye beat writers seem to be somewhat concerned about the Blake Bell ‘Belldozer’ situation because that is what I have seen mentioned the most. That or they are just now doing their research and just noticed that the Sooners have implemented the Belldozer package, even though it was used a majority of the last half of the season.

Besides worrying about their opponent, the Hawkeyes have their own in-house concerns to worry about. They are trying to completely revamp their offensive scheme since their star running back, Marcus Coker has been suspended from the game. They have been working out replacement backs all week,  Jordan Canzeri, De’Andre Johnson, Damon Bullock, Jason White (yes, that’s his name) and even a starting fullback Brad Rogers.

The Hawkeye players and coaches also seem to be worried about Oklahoma’s no-huddle offense.  “They practice against the fastest no-huddle in the country, probably,” O’Keefe said of the Oklahoma offense. “But you never know.”

They are hoping to change some things up to confuse the Sooner defense….

“Hopefully they won’t know what’s going on,” Iowa offensive guard Adam Gettis said. “Hopefully we do know what’s going on.”

Well, I’d certainly hope YOU would know what was going on Iowa OG.

The game will mark the third time in history that these two teams have met.

Bowl preview coming soon.

A couple of quick Sooner hits in case you missed the news. The players and assistant coaches had their press conference yesterday and a their was a couple of highlights, actually not bad news!

Demontre Hurst

RB Brennan Clay announced that he was not transferring, so that is a plus. Demontre Hurst also announced he will not be going pro and will be coming back to the Sooners next season. As far as Landry Jones news, Landry did however submit film to the NFL, this doesn’t mean he will actually be headed that way though. It is standard procedure submit papers/film to NFL when even considering it as an option, to see what your draft forecast would look like, or if anyone is even interested. Landry did say his final decision wouldn’t be made until after the Insight Bowl.

Speaking of the Insight Bowl, the Sooner equipment bus is headed to Tempe, AZ today. The team will leave for the bowl on December 25th. Hopefully a change of locale will be good for the team.

In other positive news for the Sooners going into the Insight Bowl, Frank Alexander has been practicing with the team and seems to be getting better and better each day, he should be ready to go on the 30th. As for the Hawkeyes, they received some not so good news. Their last eligible RB, Marcus Coker has been suspended for the game. According to some (our lovely Buckeye writer, Krista) he has been suspended for something to do with a female and consent. Ill let you fill in the rest.

In not so good news, yesterday Kenny Stills and Tony Jefferson were robbed. Their home was broken into, which they found out about after they returned home from practice. Both of them called out the thieves yesterday on twitter.

Last football game of the season is a little over a week away, are you ready? For once, I think I can finally say that I am.

Sooner WR, Jaz Reynolds

If Oklahoma didn’t already have enough injuries, Bob Stoops announced on Saturday that three more Sooners will have to sit out during the Insight Bowl against Iowa.

Worst of all, is WR Jaz Reynolds. Reynolds really stepped up his game with the loss of Ryan Broyles. Reynolds has been dubbed ”Jaz hands” because of his amazing one-handed catches and athletic leaps he has made during the course of the season. Stoops said Reynolds has been in the hospital for the last seven days, suffering from a severe kidney injury he received during the Oklahoma State game.

Another significant loss is to RB Brandon Williams. He is out due to a neck injury. Williams has been in the RB rotation after losing Dom Whaley to a season ending injury. Also out is FB Aaron Ripkowski with a back injury.

Stoops is trying to stay positive and preparing players to step up:

We’ve had some significant injuries over the last half of the season, but this is an opportunity for other players. We’re excited about our trip to Tempe and the opportunity we’ve got to reach 10 wins.

With as many major injuries the Sooners have had plague the team this season, I’m ready for it to be over.  About 3 weeks and counting now.

Bowl selections were made last night, and the Sooners will be making the trip to Arizona again. This time it’s not for all the Tostitos, it’s for the Insight. Oklahoma was selected to play the Iowa Hawkeyes in the annual Insight Bowl on December 30 at Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, AZ.

This will be Oklahoma’s 45th bowl appearance, they have only played Iowa one other time in school history. The Hawkeyes finished the season with a 7-5 record and came in 4th in the Legends division of the B1G. Oklahoma ended up 14th in the BCS and a 9-3 season record.

Oklahoma isn’t the only team headed back to Arizona for a bowl game. Iowa played in the Insight Bowl last year, taking on another Big XII opponent, Missouri. The Hawkeyes won 27-24.

As for the rest of the Big XII, the bowl match-ups could make for some really great games. Unfortunately for Oklahoma State, their Bedlam win was not enough to convince the voters and the computer that they should be playing for the big one against LSU.

Tositios Fiesta Bowl – Oklahoma State vs. Stanford – January 2nd – Glendale, AZ

AT&T Cotton Bowl – Kansas State vs. Arkansas – January 6th – Arlington, TX

Valero Alamo Bowl – Baylor vs. Washington – December 29th – San Antonio, TX

Bridgeport Holiday Bowl – Texas vs. California – December 27th – San Diego, CA

Meineke Car Care Bowl – Texas A&M vs. Northwestern – December 31st – Houston, TX

New Era Pinstripe Bowl – Iowa State vs. Rutgers – December 30th – Bronx, NY

Independence Bowl – Missouri vs. North Carolina – December 26th – Shreveport, LA

Recaps and coverage will be here at Ride, Schooner Ride for all Big XII Bowls.

The NCAA has issued a statement today regarding the forming of a task force to “examine the licensing procedures of football bowl games”. Earlier, they announced that there will be no more new bowls added for the next three years.

According to the press release,

The NCAA Division I Bowl Licensing Task Force will examine several areas, including governance and oversight by bowl sponsoring agencies, conflict-of-interest rules and policies, advertising and title-sponsorship standards, and the oversight and reporting of financial management of bowl games.

The current requirements that sponsors must meet in order to be licensed are:

1. Generating bowl-based revenue equal to or greater than all of the contractual financial commitments from the two  participating institutions and conferences.
2. Averaging either actual attendance of at least 25,000 or 70 percent of stadium capacity over a rolling three-year period.

Currently the Fiesta Bowl and the Insight Bowl, who are run by the same organization, are under investigation of illegal use of funds; among other things. The NCAA plans on continuing their investigation into late Spring.

All other existing bowls are expected to meet the rules and regulations enforced by the new task force and change accordingly to new enforcements.

Do you think this new task force will actually help crack down on illegal dealings in the bowl system or keep continuing to turn a blind eye? Would the task force have even been formed if the information about the Fiesta Bowl had not come out?

Only time will tell.

You can read the NCAA statement and press release here.