It’s here, the final Sooner football game of the season. It feels like it went by way too fast, by none-the-less, here it is. The AT&T Cotton Bowl against former conference foe, Texas A&M and current Heisman winner Johnny Manziel.

The Sooners are chasing after their 10th 11-win season under head coach Bob Stoops, while the Aggies are looking for their first 11-win season since 1998. Stoops is also chasing after his 150th win since taking over the program.

For those of you having to watch the game from home, you can no doubt count on hearing the name Johnny Football and Heisman all night long. The commercials for the game have showed nothing but him and actually looking at the Ags offensive stats, Manziel is more than half of their total offense with 4600-yards and 43 touchdowns.

This is Sooners quarterback Landry Jones last chance to win a game in a Sooner uniform. He is ending his career in the same stadium he began it in, Cowboys Stadium. That was back in 2009 when he had to come in to replace an injured Sam Bradford.

The Sooners have faced several dual-threat quarterbacks this season, but Manziel, by far, is probably one of the best they will see. The Sooner defense will need to shut down at least one of his most potent attacks, the run game, in order for them to stay in it. The Aggies defense, which has always been stout, seems to have become stouter since joining the SEC. They went 10-2, which almost no one in America was giving them a fighting chance to win even six.

The Aggies offensive game plan is relatively the same from their year removed from the Big 12, with Manziel being the only different factor. Wide receiver Ryan Swope is about to break the Aggies receiving record, who Sooners fans are all too familiar with.

The Oklahoma offensive line needs to be able to give Jones enough time to get the ball out, but with the speed of the Aggie d-line, this is going to be a task. Keeping Jones’ head in the game and the turnover margin down, will be the game winning factor.

I hate picking a score, considering all the other big games I’ve picked this season were way off. Vegas has the Aggies by three, but I will go out on a limb and pick the Sooners by a touchdown.

Regardless, this is the last game for several players who have been key on this team. Let’s send them out the right way with all the support we can give. Boomer Sooner.

The Bedlam math-up between the Oklahoma Sooners and the Oklahoma State Cowboys has been played for 108 years. On Saturday it gave true meaning to the word Bedlam: it went into OT for the first time in series history. The Sooners were never ahead in regulation play, but finally took the lead and sealed the deal in the last play of the game, winning 51-48.

Sooners QB Landry Jones had another record-breaking day, throwing for over 500+ yards for the second week in a row. He also became the first QB in FBS to throw for over 3000 yards and have 26 touchdowns in 4-years. Jones also broke a school record of passes attempted in a game with 41-71 and one interception.

The Pokes took an early lead of 14-3 after the never-ending first quarter which lasted almost an hour. The crowd at Owen Field was almost all the way out of the game, but nobody moved from their seats. The Sooners came back to tie it up going into half time and the second half was a boat race of scoring.

After an 81-yard kickoff return by Jalen Saunders, the Sooners regained momentum and the crowd was 250% back into the game. The Sooner had the ball with about 6 minutes left on the clock and were trailing, 45-38. Jones calmly led the team down the field and controlled the clock almost like he knew what was going to happen. With seconds left in regulation, the Sooners brought on the Belldozer, and scored a 4-yard touchdown to tie things up.

In overtime, the Sooner defense finally stepped up and held the Cowboys to only a field goal. The Sooners came out and did what they needed to do in order to win the game, a 18-yard touchdown from Jones to Brennan Clay sealed it up and the rest goes into Bedlam history.

Despite the final score in regulation, the Sooners had a much better game statistically than the Cowboys in every category except rushing yards:

You’d think the score would reflect a bigger win by the Sooners just looking at it, but the Oklahoma State defense stepped up. The Sooner defense had some problems with the run again for the third week in a row. They have one more game left in regular season against the TCU Horned Frogs.

I’ve seen a lot of Bedlam games and this one had many firsts. I’m glad this is one I got to witness it first-hand.

Yesterday was a banner day for the college football world, in the span of about 4 hours the BCS picture completely changed. SEC back in title talks and undefeated Notre Dame is going to be the No. 1 team in the land. *Insert the Mayans were right comment*

In what was the craziest time slot of the season, the Oklahoma Sooners scraped by the West Virginia Mountaineers, 50-49. The Baylor Bears stomped any chances Collin Klein had at a Heisman or the Kansas State Wildcats had at going to Miami. Stanford took the Oregon Ducks into over-time and the curse of the kickers came out and the Cardinal walked away with the win.

Saturday, the Sooners couldn’t stop WVU’s Tavon Austin and the ‘Eers couldn’t stop Landry Jones. Austin, who is the Mountaineers WR, lined up as a RB and completely shredded the Oklahoma defense. He had over 400+ all-purpose yards. Landry Jones also had a stellar night, with 550+ yards, 5 touchdowns and 1 interception. He led the Sooners to a game-winning touchdown with about a min left on the clock, and the time remaining after wasn’t enough for the Mountaineers to retaliate. Both teams combined for over 1400 yards and Oklahoma allowed a staggering 778 yards on offense. If you know anything about me, you know that I love defensive, smash mouth football. This was none of that. If anything, defensive coordinator, Mike Stoops hopefully had nightmares of it last night. The Sooners have Bedlam coming this week and the Pokes would love nothing more than let their running game roam free all over Owen Field.

The chaos wasn’t really the Sooner game, it was the Baylor/Kansas State game. Baylor, who has the worst defense in the country performed a miracle last night. The Bears didn’t even give the Wildcats a chance, beating them on both sides of the ball all night long. The final beatdown ended up being 52-24.

With Baylor beating the Wildcats, the door to the National Championship game just swung wide open. And the Big XII? That’s completely up for grabs now, too.

If you aren’t a college football fan, why? This game changes every single week and is so unpredictable. And if you have a voodoo doll that represents the SEC and thought maybe you reversed their luck? Good try, good effort. Don’t ever count them out.

The Oklahoma Sooners are travelling to Morgantown, West Virginia for the first time as they take on the Mountaineers in a conference battle. The Mountaineers are coming off their fourth loss in a row.

At the beginning of the season, this game was the hyped up as the Big XII game of the year with possible conference title implications. Now, that is nowhere close to the case, but the Sooners are still playing for a possible BCS game. The Mountaineers are playing to become bowl eligible.

The Sooners have been playing well on the road, which is a change from previous seasons. The Sooner offense comes into Morgantown and are a completely downtrodden team and almost an non-existent defense. The Mountaineers rank dead last when it comes to pass d. And they way Sooners QB Landry Jones has been able to spread the field lately, I think the pass defense will have their hands full.

The Mountaineers offense on the other hand, even though down lately, is still very potent. Geno Smith, the once front-runner in the Heisman race, has so many options on the outside, its hard to keep track of them all.

The defensive plan for the Sooners will stay the same as it has been over the last couple of weeks: shut down the passing game. They allowed over 250+ yards on the ground just last week against Baylor, but the players know what they need to do to shut that down. The line really needs to step up.

Rumor has it that, that the game is only sold around 45K tickets due to the school closing the dorms for the Thanksgiving holiday. Which is kinda disappointing considering the stigma the game had on it during the preseason. Though, it does seem lots of Sooners fans are making the trip. Recently, NewsOK.com did an article about a couple driving from New Mexico just to see the Sooners first game against their new conference foe.

The spread on the game right now is 11, favoring Oklahoma and I am still unsure of which way I am leaning. Meaning, is that too much or not enough. It really depends on how Oklahoma handles the West Virginia offensive attack. If they can handle that, I think the Sooners handle business easily. If the let the Mountaineers hang around for any amount of time, it could go either way. Geno Smith is  not a QB you want to do that against, especially on his own turf.

Saturday marked two things for the Oklahoma Sooners football program. The Iowa State Cyclones haven’t beat the Sooners in Ames since 1960. John F. Kennedy wasn’t even President of the United States yet when the Clones beat them last in Ames, so there’s that fact. This trend wasn’t broken on Saturday with the Sooners  35-20 win. The Sooners are now 70-5-2 against the Cyclones and Stoops is 8-0.

Head coach Bob Stoops also added another notch to his belt with his 145th win as the Sooners shot-caller. His win on Saturday brought him to be tied with legendary Sooners coach, Bud Wilkinson. Stoops is 12 wins away from surpassing Barry Switzer at the top spot for all-time winning record as a coach in program history.

The Sooners had a rough start on Saturday against the Cyclones. The Cyclones are the only team so far this season that held held the Sooners to 0 points in the 1st quarter. Once they got their rhythm going, there was no looking back. They got a running game established and all the receivers were finally clicking. A great improvement over last weeks loss to Notre Dame.

Landry Jones ended up with 405 yards and 4 touchdowns despite starting badly, with 2 interceptions. With Damien Williams’ play time being limited due to an ankle injury, the Sooners went to Brennan Clay as the go-to running back. Clay had a breakout game with 157 yards and a touchdown. He was also much better on third-down conversions.

OU’s biggest issue on Saturday was penalties. They were penalized 7 times for 71 yards. They ran 85 plays with a total of 593 yards compared to ISU’s 64 plays and 290 yards.

Ames hasn’t been an easy place for ranked teams over the last couple of years. Just ask the Oklahoma State Cowboys how that went last season. The Sooners are now sitting at 6-2 in and will be hosting the Baylor Bears next Saturday in Norman.

AP Photo/Michael Mulvey

In was an epic beatdown of mass proportions at the Red River Shootout on Saturday in Dallas. The Sooners didn’t even let the Longhorns up for air until late in the 4th quarter. The Longhorn faithful starting filing out of the Cotton Bowl in droves before the second half was even over? If you didn’t watch any of the game, the final score may tell you why, 63-21.

The Longhorn offense didn’t score a touchdown until backup QB Case McCoy came in after David Ash injured his wrist late in the game, when Oklahoma had pulled the first team. Their previous 8 points came off a botched extra-point by the Sooners where the Horns ran it back and then a pick-six off of Landry Jones. They had a total of 13 first downs and were virtually non-existent the entire game. At one point, the Sooners were leading the Horns on yards, 314-14. The end game yardage was 677-289.

The Sooners took advantage of the terrible play by the Longhorn rush defense and used Blake Bell and the Belldozer scheme very effectively. QB Bell had 4 rushing touchdowns. Fullback Trey Millard also had an outstanding game, with a personal high of 119 yards and one touchdown. Most impressive touchdown of the day was a 94-yarder from RB Damien Williams.

The Horns offense were their saving grace coming into this game with the way their defense has been playing. Today it was a total team effort on the suck. They didn’t look good on either side of the ball. They looked confused, poorly-coached and completely outplayed.

Landry Jones looked pretty decent despite his interception. He ended the day with 321 yards, 2 touchdowns and was 21-37. He found his targets and made plays. His supporting cast of weapons were on point and made it look easy. The Sooners weren’t doing anything out of the ordinary in order to take control of the game, they played smart football, were making plays and only had one turnover. The defense was outstanding, holding Texas to only 13 first downs and picked-off Ash twice.

The Sooners get to take home the Golden Hat for the second year in a row, as well as stake claim to the Red River. Next up on the schedule: Rock Chalk Kansas Jayhawks.

The Oklahoma Sooners went into Red Raider land with a chip on their shoulder and it showed. Landry Jones was mad, Kenny Stills was mad and the defense was mad. And by mad I mean they were out for blood. Apparently the loss to Kansas State lit a much needed fire to help lead the Sooners to a 41-20 win.

After Jones’ performance two weeks ago, many doubted that he had the drive left to lead this team to a much needed win. I never jumped off the bandwagon. Why? I’ve seen Jones play well and I’ve seen him play bad. Landry was due for a good game. The Sooners needed a quick 7 on the opening drive instead of the settling for 3 they have been doing and the offense produced just that. He ducked coverage, the line protected him, it looked like a focused Jones. His second quarter TD pass to Stills marked the 100th of his career.

Give the defense a hand, they picked-off Tech QB Seth Doege 3 times: one for a pick-six, another set the offense up to score and one was picked-off only to be fumbled with a Tech recovery. The former No. 1 Tech defense in the country gave up 380 yards, which is almost double what they’ve given up in the four previous games. Tech head coach Tommy Tuberville said on Friday that he thought Iowa State’s defense was better than Oklahoma’s. Today after the game he said, “Defensively we played a better football team.” They also played a better team offensively, but when have you ever heard Tubs compliment a team.

Something to take notice of was Sooner LB Tom Wort getting benched early on in the game. He also may have been replaced. Frank Shannon came out making plays for losses and putting Doege on the ground. Wort was missing tackles and not finishing up. Mike Stoops made the right call, Shannon deserved it today.

QB Landry Jones and WR Kenny Stills worked well together today. They seem to be more in-sync. After the game, Stills even took to saying that Landry silenced some haters today. Seeing him so excited on the sidelines and smiling was a good change.

The game marked an end to a losing streak in Lubbock that’s been held since 2003. It also marked an end to Texas Tech undefeated start. Unfortunately for the Red Raiders, it also means their record for not winning a conference game at home since 2010 still stands.

You know what this also means, right? It’s now officially Texas week.

Sterling Shepard against FAMU in week 2

In one of the most highly anticipated games of Saturday, the Oklahoma Sooners hosted the Kansas State Wildcats in what ended up resulting in a 24-19 Sooner loss.

The Sooners came out looking strong…until they reached the red zone, where things started going down hill. If one were to not have seen any of the game and looked just at the stats, it may appear that Jones had an ok game: nearly 300 yards and only one interception. If you actually watched the game, you know those numbers are quite deceiving. Jones had two major mistakes both resulting in Kansas State touchdowns.

The most costly and boneheaded of them all? A fumble near the Sooner goal line which resulted in a quick 6 for the Wildcats. The interception was thrown in the second half, when the Sooners had the lead 13-10. The pick gave the Wildcats great field position and Wildcat QB Collin Klein marched right down the field and handled business.

Collin Klein looked great, as expected. The Sooner defense was able to contain him for most of the game, until the 4th quarter, where he became clutch and deserved his nickname, Optimus Klein.

Sterling Shepard was the most outstanding on offense by a long shot. He made plays when the ball was thrown his direction and at one point leaped completely over a standing opposing player to gain yards. If any Sooner should make the highlight reel for week 4, it should be him.

On the defense, the rush d was an issue, allowing 209 yards, 130 of those going to tailback John Hubert. But as a whole the defense was the better unit than the offense on Saturday. The defense allowed the Sooners to stay in the game as long as they did. So if your fingers are pointed in that direction, you may need to re-watch the game.

The game had a weird feeling from the start and Landry Jones had a weird game. It’s one of those unexplained situations where everyone is left scratching their heads at his performance. There is still a lot of work to be done and it needs to happen soon. The season is a quarter of the way over. Already. Sigh.

The Sooners are going into week 5 with a bye before returning to conference play against Texas Tech.

The Oklahoma Sooners are faced with their biggest challenge of the season so far with the Kansas State Wildcats. In a prime time showdown, will the Sooners be able to handle the pressure?

The Sooners blasted the Wildcats last season in Manhattan, but they to remember one thing going in: This is another year.

One of main things the Sooners need to focus on? This is 2012.

Both teams are entering the game with a lot of question marks. Neither team has played anyone of substance yet, though the Wildcats did face the Miami Hurricanes in week 2 and steam-rolled them 52-13. Unfortunately, beating Miami isn’t saying much since the state of football in Miami right now is on dumpster fire status. The Wildcats struggled last Saturday, surprisingly, against North Texas. They had issues getting their run game established, which is their main point of attack. The rushed for a season low, 134 yards, when normally they are averaging 252 ypg.

Wildcats QB Collin Klein has been the buzz player so far going into this week and rightfully so. He has 609 yards in the air and 210 rushing yards after their first three games. RB John Hubert has 296 yards and leads the team in rushing while averaging 6.9 yards per carry.

Another major threat for the Wildcats is Tyler Lockett. Lockett has been outstanding for the Wildcats special teams and offense. He is a deep threat at wide receiver and even more deadly as a their kick-off returner. Another double threat to watch out for is WR Tremaine Thompson. He has made quite a bit of noise at wide out and on special teams.

Kansas State head coach Bill Snyder is fully aware of what is at stake for both teams. Snyder, in my opinion, is one of the greatest minds in college football. He molds one and two star athletes to compete with the teams who are loaded with the three and four.

Kansas State was not a great program before he arrived; he comes in and takes it over and completely turns it around. He retired, and they unfortunately hired Ron Prince to take over and quickly run them into the ground and then begged Snyder to come back out of retirement. Snyder has also been a mentor and friend to Bob Stoops for many years, going back to Stoops’ first coaching job as an assistant at Kansas State.

Snyder this week on the match-up:

(Our) secondary, with the exception of David Garrett, is virtually the same. That is good news. The bad news is that they got torched a year ago. Hopefully the experience has worked in their favor.

Snyder hasn’t had the best of luck in Norman over the last several years. The last time they faced Jones there, he completed 70 percent of his passes, had 4 touchdowns and 294 yards without Kansas State touching him once.

The Sooners offensive line has been suspect so far this season, and Kansas State will be the best defense they have faced. Giving Jones time and the pass protection will be key. They have been able to create holes for the RBs, but the Wildcats secondary is a little shakey, so I would expect Jones to attempt to air most of the balls out; at least to start out with.

On the defensive side of the ball, the Sooners get Casey Walker back and with the Wildcats running game, it will be a great boost. Walker has been back on the team after taking personal time off for the last two weeks. Safety Tony Jefferson has been practicing all week, as expected, and will be starting Saturday after spraining an ankle two weeks ago against FAMU.

The Sooners secondary has looked good so far and looks better and more focused than they did last season. Again, this has been against teams that have not been up to par, but the attitude has been there both mentally and physically. The rush defense has showed improvement, but against a run-heavy team they will need to be virtually mistake free.

The main key to winning the game for the Sooners has to be not starting out slow. Jones has the reputation of getting in his groove later in the game and against this team, it can’t happen. Three and outs will not cut it when Klein is sitting on the sidelines itching to come back in and continue on his Heisman-worthy stats.

This is going to be an evenly matched game if both teams come out on both cylinders. Mistakes on either side and the game could go either way. I give the slight advantage to the Sooners being at home winning 42 out of 43 of the their last home games. Texas Tech proved last season it can be done, and Kansas State is just the team to pull the upset.

It was football time in Oklahoma on Saturday night as the Sooners returned to Norman for week 2. The opponent isn’t exactly what I’d call a good measuring stick of where the Sooners want to be when going over their performance, but all-in-all, they didn’t look too shabby.

The highlight of the Sooners offense was not QB Landry Jones, but RB newcomer, Damien Williams. Williams ended his night with 156 yards and 4 touchdowns, with his longest being an impressive 89 yard run. With this week’s performance added with week 1, Williams became the 4th player in Sooner history to have consecutive 100+ yards in their first two games in the crimson and cream.

Jones had a decent night with 252 yards and 2 touchdowns. He did have an interception and was almost intercepted again shortly after by FAMU standout, Devan Roberts. Besides the pick, Jones broke Sooner records last night by moving into the second most winning quarterback in program history, overtaking Jamelle Holiway. He could tie Steve Davis with another win.

The defense looked good for a second week in a row, allowing only 61 yards rushing by the Rattlers. The FAMU offense only had 235 total yards in offense compared to the Sooners impressive 662. Damien Fleming, the Rattlers QB ended the night with only 133 yards and 1 touchdown. Again, the defense looked good, but against a more evenly matched team, they still have a lot of work they need to do.

Safety, Tony Jefferson did leave the game early on and was later seen on the sidelines with a cast on his foot. Bob Stoops commented after the game that it was only a sprain and if the game was closer, he would have still be in there.

The main problem the Sooners face is getting off to a slow start. They had the same issue last season. Jones and Co. seem to wake up in the mid-second quarter and this can’t happen. Once they get into conference play, they can not get rolling so late. Everyone remembers Texas Tech from 2011, so I don’t need to say much more. The offensive line seemed to be blocking a lot better, but it’s hard to judge against FAMU.

A definite improvement from week one was the special teams play. Penn State transfer, Justin Brown was fabulous on kickoff returns. He almost took 2 to the end zone and set the Sooner offense up in scoring position. Kenny Stills ended the game with 120 yards and 1 touchdown while JUCO transfer, Trey Metoyer had a great 18-yard touchdown.

Naturally, when you have a 69-13 win, we got to see the not so usual suspects. Stoops started rotating more people in and to the roar of the crowd; we got to see Sterling Shepard. When Shepard made his first career catch, the fans that were left in the stadium went wild. Both backup QB’s Blake Bell and Drew Allen got to be under center for a while, which was nice to see Bell throw the ball instead of run. Though we did see hand-off left, hand-off right more than once out of him.

As I have said a couple times, it’s really hard to judge improvement with an opponent like FAMU. The real test will be in two weeks when they take on the always competitive Kansas State. Wildcats QB Collin Klein is on a hot streak and they will be searching for a revenge game in Norman this year, after the Sooners came to their house and handed them a beating in 2011.

The Sooners go into week 3 with a bye. Its time to rest, work and improve. Then repeat.