Talk about a year already flying by; the Oklahoma Sooners softball team, who just had their media day will open the season on February 8th…. which is next weekend!

The Sooners are looking to continue from their World Series run from 2012. They return 13 players, including stud pitcher, Keilani Ricketts.

Head coach Patti Gasso on getting ready for the 2013 season:

It’s very exciting because they’re hungry, and it was pretty easy to watch them go through the fall, although there was quite a bit of teaching because I have seven freshmen, all from Oklahoma. They’re trying to learn the system, so there was a lot of teaching going on, but my upperclassmen helped with that because they know freshmen are very important to the success of this program. But they’re hungry and they went after it hard this fall. We still feel like we have some things to take care of before we hit the road, but they are just very anxious about getting started again.

The Sooners will kick off the season at the Kajikawa Classic in Phoenix, Arizona. They take on Stanford, then Oregon State on Day 1. Day 2 consists of Oregon then New Mexico. The final day they will face Northwestern.

Since Dan Beebe’s firing from the Big XII last year, the conference has had an interim in Chuck Neinas, who was once the Big Eight Commish. According to the AP, the Big XII now has a new head honcho name Bob Bowlsby. Bowlsby is the current Athletic Director at Stanford.

The Big XII has ended up being the little conference that could. Many people thought that it was headed for a certain death when 4 schools decided to depart in a two year span. Nebraska and Colorado first, then Texas A&M and Missouri. With West Virginia and TCU joining this Summer, and now all the conference realignment chatter, it looks like the Big XII will make it to 12 teams again. Beebe gone has made a major difference (so far). The Big XII is not only looking to keep expanding, they are reportedly in talks with ESPN for a conference television deal.

Bob Bowlsby

Who is Bob Bowlsby? He was the Athletic Director Northern Iowa and then Iowa before taking the job at Stanford. He also served on the NCAA Basketball selection committee in 2006, as well as the being a part of the United States Olympic Committee for the 2008 Beijing Games.

Apparently Bowlsby and Oklahoma head coach Bob Stoops have somewhat of a history. According to an article by the Gazette, this could have “possibly” happened:

The Bowlsby-Bob Stoops thingie has reached mythical proportions. Who knows what happened. My theory is, yes, Stoops was interested in coming back to coach his alma mater. Maybe the search committee soured him. I don’t know that. Then, Oklahoma got heavily involved and that made a lot of sense, both with the tradition and the financials.

Right now, the conference has not announced anything, the information is coming from that popular, well known guy everyone loves named, “sources”. Bowlsby did call a meeting with his staff Thursday morning at Stanford, so if this is true, I would assume that means a Big XII announcement will be following.

Dan Beebe, well the fake one, offered Bowlsby some solid words of advice online today:

Hope Bowlsby listens…