It what was a long week for most of Sooner Nation after the loss to Kansas State last Saturday, the Oklahoma Sooners are on BYE again this weekend. This is their second BYE in a 3 week span. But just because the Sooners are off this weekend, there are plenty of games that the Sooner Nation probably needs to pay attention to. The Big XII is now more wide open than ever and with the slate of games lined up across FBS football, it may be time to focus on what’s going down in our own backyard.

Texas is heading to Stillwater to take on the Oklahoma State Cowboys in what could be a decent game. The No. 12 Longhorns are looking to improve on last years record, which wouldn’t be a stretch. They have missed the postseason for two consecutive years now and are looking for some redemption. They have started out fairly well, with their defense looking great and even QB David Ash is showing some signs of improvement. I think if the Horns get ahead early, they will run all over the Pokes in their own house. Oklahoma State is missing key components on the offense, mostly to the NFL, but Frosh QB Wes Lunt is still not 100% and will most likely not play this Saturday. Advantage – Longhorns

TCU and SMU are playing in Dallas in the annual Iron Skillet game. This is the 92nd Iron Skillet match-up and they play for exactly what you think they do with a game being called “Iron Skillet Game”, an actual Iron Skillet. In a rivalry that is less than an hours drive away from each other, it gets as heated as it can get between these two schools during this week. SMU is the current owner of the skillet, but I think TCU wins this one back easily, even with all the missing pieces on the team. Advantage – TCU

Texas Tech takes on Iowa State in Ames. This game could actually go either way. I’d expect Iowa State to come out on top but it’s a toss-up. Texas Tech brings in the No. 1 defense in the COUNTRY and the No. 4 offense. Yes you read that right, not in the Big XII, but in the country. Granted, they have played absolutely no one of substance and I suspect a struggle. We will see Texas Tech’s true colors in Ames. Advantage – Toss Up

The game I am most interested to see is the Baylor and West Virginia match-up. In what I think we will be the battle of a gazillion points and absolutely no defense, I am interested to see the Mountaineers in their first Big XII game since joining. West Virginia has huge offensive weapons with Geno Smith and Tavon Austin, but lets not count Baylor out yet. Baylor, even with out RGIII is pretty potent offensively. Both of these teams are well coached and it should make for an interesting game, if you aren’t a fan of defense. Still, since it’s being played in Morgantown, I give it to the Mountaineers. Advantage – West Virginia

So sit back, enjoy the week off and watch some of the other Big XII games. Who do you think goes down this weekend?

Men and Womens Sooner Basketball are both in Norman on Saturday.

The Women are hosting Bedlam with a Noon Tip off.

The Womens game features:

• Saturday is Military Appreciation Day and OU will honor each branch of the service during pre-game festivities.
• Limited-edtion Sooner hats designed by OU head coach Sherri Coale will be distributed to the first 1,000 through the Lloyd Noble Center doors when they open at 10:30 a.m. in recognition of I Love Hoops weekend.
• Foam fingers availble for OU students in the student section seats.
• Halftime will feature a performance by Evolution of Dance creator Judson Lappily.

The men are taking on Iowa State with a tip of 5:05.

Special events for the mens game includes:

Tickets are available for $10, $30 and $40 at the OU Athletics Ticket Office and online here.  Lloyd Noble Center’s north and east ticket windows will open at 3 p.m. on Saturday.
• OU students may purchase a ticket for $5.

GIVEAWAYS
• Caps designed and signed by head coach Lon Kruger for the first 1,000 fans
• Foam fingers for OU students

PREGAME EVENT
• World-renowned BMX rider Mat Hoffman will sign autographs from 3:30 to 4:30 in the Clinton Lounge (upper east concourse)

HALFTIME EVENT
• Mat Hoffman BMX Stunt Team performance

Get out to Lloyd Noble today and support Sooner Hoops if you are in or around the Norman area today.

On a cold, rainy and windy day in Norman, we got to see the Sooner Seniors out with a win.

After a horrible Sooner first quarter and trailing Iowa State, Iowa State was held scoreless for the rest of the game. The Cyclones didn’t have a drive longer than 35 yards after their first touchdown (missed PAT) the entire game.

Looking at the numbers, the Sooners should have completely wiped the field with the Cyclones. Red Zone Sooner inconsistency played havoc and was held to field goals on more than one occasion. QB Blake Bell had another great game, though his attempt at throwing the ball instead of running resulted in an interception and the Cyclones were ready for the Bell Dozer. Landry Jones on the other hand ended up not throwing a touchdown for the second consecutive game and also had two INT’s.

We got to see more from Freshman RB Brandon Williams today, who is going to be a huge threat in seasons to come. That kid is fast. Trey Franks also had a great game, with only 2 carries, but 88 yards. He longest run being 45.

Senior Travis Lewis' Last Home Game As a Sooner

The Sooner defense looked much improved from last week against Baylor. Travis Lewis should have had a pick six, but was called back by a questionable block in the back penalty. Still have yet to see it. Lewis also passed Rocky Calmus for the 4th all time tackles in Sooner history, with 431 tackles.

Tom Wort also had a great game leading the team today 11 tackles. We finally got to see Tony Jefferson stand out again today, too. The Sooner D held the Cyclones to their lowest offensive yardage game for 2011, at 183 yards.

Injuries have plagued the Sooners this season, and have yet to hear if Frank Alexander is ok. He seems to have a shoulder injury, which hopefully is nothing serious.

Jaz Reynolds was live tweeting the game from home, who was out with a shoulder injury. Was also told he was suspended for today, that’s the reason he was not on the sidelines and at home. As tight-lipped as the Sooner staff is about suspensions, no word yet on the reasoning.

Stats from SoonerSports.com

The Sooners offense really needs to make some changes and tighten up their play for next weeks Bedlam match-up. Even though the chase for 8 is over, a Big XII championship is not out of the picture.

All of Sooner Nation thanks the Seniors who have given their all for the last four years. Congrats on going out of Norman with the win. Let’s continue this onto next week in Stillwater. You’ve never lost to Oklahoma State, let’s not ruin that streak.

BOOMER

Now that everyone had a day to gorge on Turkey, family and fun, it’s now time to get back to business.

The Sooners will host Iowa State on Saturday for the last home game of the year. The Sooners under Bob Stoops have never lost 2 Big XII games in a row, and are looking for a big comeback win for the last time this season in Norman. They are also looking for some momentum going into Bedlam on December 3rd.

It is also Senior day in Norman, the Sooners will be saying goodbye to a Senior class which includes: Ryan Broyles, Travis Lewis, Frank Alexander, Jemell Flemming, Trent Ratterree, Stephen Good, Jimmy Stephens, Sam Proctor, Dejuan Miller and James Hanna to name a few.

The Cyclones are coming off the biggest win in their school’s history, but for the last 3 years in a row, Iowa State has had a pretty big upset under their belt each season. Starting in 2009 when they beat Nebraska, 2010 their upset over Texas and 2011′s No. 2 Oklahoma State shocker, the Cyclones have gone nowhere but up under head coach Paul Rhodes.

There has been a storm brewing under Sooner players this week, with lots of finger pointing and disagreements in the locker room (so we hear) and hopefully that lights a fire under some of the players butts who are supposed to be leaders on this team. This Cyclone team is not one ANYONE needs to take lightly, aka Oklahoma State.

Sooner QB Blake Bell

The Cyclone’s defense has been stepping up their game and the Sooner offense will have to figure out a way to run the ball. The Sooners have the talent at the RB position and Roy Finch has made an impression since the loss of Dom Whaley, but Finch can’t do it all. Wide Receivers also need to step up and fill in. Ryan Broyles was the leader of this Sooner offensive unit and it really shows without him on the field.

The use of the Bell Dozer and QB Blake Bell has added a major plus to the play book and hopefully we will see more of this Saturday.

Landry Jones has also been doing a great job of getting the Sooners down the field to make the Bell Dozer effective when needed. With Bell’s size, it’s hard to stop the Bell Dozer.

Iowa State players to watch out for are QB Jared Barnett. Barnett, a Freshman, has been filling ever since QB Steele Jantz got hurt. He has been doing a fairly decent job at it. He is 80-158 passing, 4 touchdowns and 900 yards on the season so far. He also has 388 rushing yards. Also on offense is RB James White and WR Darius Reynolds. White has  671 Yards and averages 4.8 per carry with 8 touchdowns. Reynolds has 33 Catches with 588 yards and 7 touchdowns. Oklahoma’s secondary can’t play like they did against Baylor if they want to contain the Iowa State offensive unit.

When looking at the quality of players between the two schools, of course Oklahoma is going to win out. But you have to take into account that quality of players doesn’t mean anything when you believe you can do it. This is exactly what this Iowa State team is capable of. Their coaching staff and players believe every Saturday they are just as equal as the team across the field from them, and the way they have been playing, they are.

I do believe the Sooners win this game, and go out with bang at home, but the heart of this Iowa State team can’t be dismissed. The Sooners have to recognize this and respect it, or they may regret it.

The game is set to kickoff Saturday at 11:00 CST on FX Network.

Brent Venables, people either love him or hate him. Lately the dislike has been more prominent due to the defensive inconsistency on the field.

A quote from Coach Venables about this weekend:

“These types of times don’t build your character, these types of times reveal your character.”

“We have enough guys with the right maturity to recognize what were the failures, why did it happen and what are we in control of to do our best not to allow it to happen again.”

Our defensive coordinator can make meaner faces than yours

The defensive issue seemed to come on mid-season. After the first couple games the defense was showing dominance, was playing lights-out and seemed to want it. Things seemed to fall apart during the Texas Tech game and the momentum hasn’t really returned. Well it returns, but it takes until the second half for it to show up.

Some of Sooner Nation is calling for Venables head, which doesn’t come as a surprise because some people are also calling for Stoops’ head as well. Fans have a tendency to overreact and think the world is coming to an end with a loss. But these same people who were calling for Stoops’ to be fired after the Texas Tech game were in full support of him the next week with the Kansas State beat down. The only name you do hear on a consistent basis as ‘questionable’ is Venables.

My question to the people overreacting is: Are the coaches the ones on the field playing in the game? You can only do so much from the sidelines. That’s not an excuse for Coach Venables, at this point it’s a legitimate question, somewhere along the line the Sooner defense has become unmotivated.

Understandably, the questions and concerns need to come up as to what has happened with the defense lately. Lets just hope for correction and see how it plays out.

Iowa State is a team that the Sooners can’t take lightly on Saturday and the Sooner coaching staff is fully aware of what could happen.

Oklahoma has 2 games left to play, let’s relax on the panic button and focus on the rest of the season. There is still a possibility that they will win the Big XII.

Do you think Venables should go? And why?

Week two started with a bang this week in Big XII country. Oklahoma State had the Thursday night game against PAC-12 opponent, Arizona. It also resulted in the most dominant win of the weekend for the conference.

The Cowboys beat the Wildcats 37-14 and Pokes QB Brandon Weeden had an impressive game; was 42-53, 397 yards, and 2 touchdowns. If anyone watched this game, you would have thought the score would have been 114-14. The Cowboys started off extremely strong. Going up 21-0 before half. The Wildcats finally woke up and decided to play defense. Ended up being too little too late though for Arizona.

Friday night was another PAC-12/Big XII match-up with Arizona State taking on Mizzou. Mizzou ended up being the only Big XII team to lose this weekend, surprisingly. An overtime game of no defense and Mizzou’s head coach Gary Pinkel, icing his kicker out of the game, twice. He called timeouts before two field goal attempts resulting in a 37-30 loss.

ISU QB Steele 'We now have a' Jantz - AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall

Saturday was a crazy day for the Big XII teams that were not on bye. Starting out with Iowa State playing Iowa in the battle of the annual CyHawk trophy. Can I just say triple overtime? The game was won by a 4 yard td run by James White finally putting the score at 44-41. The real standout for the game was Iowa State QB Steele Jantz, with 279 yards passing and four TD’s.

After a back and forth battle, the Cyclones finally pulled it out and stormed the field after the much deserved win. Yesterday was a good day for part of the state of Iowa. Congrats Cyclones, it has been awhile.

Another game in former Big XII North country was a little bit of a surprise, or not. Kansas took on Northern Illinois and had to come back from behind to win it. Yes, from behind. Against Northern Illinois, but it wasn’t by much they needed to come back from. It was pretty evenly matched the entire game, another back and forth barn burner. The final score ended up being 45-42 Jayhawks. KU QB Jordan Webb ended up 21-30 and had 281 yards with 3 TD’s.

Last but not least, and quite possibly could have been the weirdest, was Texas and BYU. It ended up a deja-vu type situation for the Horns to rally back and win. By a QB named McCoy and a receiver named Shipley. We’ve heard this duo before right? Case McCoy and Jaxon Shipley are the younger brothers of the former dynamic Longhorn duo, Colt McCoy and Jordan Shipley. But before the rally happened, the Longhorns had major struggles in the QB spot. They went through all three, yes three. Veteran QB Garrett Gilbert was the starter and was quickly pulled after his ineffectiveness and lack of leadership.

BYU was dominating the game all over the field. The Texas secondary looked atrocious, and mistakes were being made on both sides of the ball. Once it was realized that the Texas offense was not clicking, they played tandem QB’s with David Ash and Case McCoy. Once the offense started to click and a couple of big defensive plays turned the momentum back to the Lonhorns favor. A crowd that was actually booing their team in the first half of the game quickly turned it back into the Texas Fight chant. The Horns ended up winning the game,but just barely, 17-16.

A crazy weekend of Big XII college football, and it is only week 2.