And sometimes, some glaring defensive issues done't seem so bad...

[sooneron]

I stumbled across this earlier tonight and still had trouble comprehending what I was reading- about how bad things had regressed downward. I was at OU when it all went down and even lived in the apt complex where the whole Thompson thing blew up. I even remember the slimy dealer that was implicated from the SRO club days. We are really lucky to have made it back from the brink that we were upon...

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1126571/index.htm

[cleller]

Funny how time blunts pain. And that is painful reading.

[PLaw]

Funny how time blunts pain. And that is painful reading.

Won't read it, don't need to read it. I remember all too well the shock and disgust from those days. I love Barry, but com'on, man.

Today, above all other days, we should be humbly thankful for the OU administration, Joe C. and the Athletic department, and Coach Stoops. We have a whole bunch of good and solid citizens that have come through our football program over the last decade. Now, that's not saying there haven't been a few that disappointed, but Coach, in every case, dealt with those circumstances in a good way.

"BOOMER SOONER", NATION. Be thankful and glad for what we have here.

[jkjsooner]

Won't read it, don't need to read it. I remember all too well the shock and disgust from those days. I love Barry, but com'on, man.

Switzer neither asked for nor ignored bad behavior from his players. His mistake was that he considered himself a football coach of young men. The young men had a responsibility to obey the law and it was the legal system and AD's responsibility to deal with issues that go beyond football.

As it turns out this was a fatal mistake but I don't blame Switzer for it. We don't blame the political science professor if one of his students commit a crime outside of the classroom. In retrospect it was the wrong way to look at it but at the time Switzer's arguments made a lot of sense to me.

There was also an major element of bad luck having so many incidents happen at almost the same time.


As for recovering from it, you gotta be crazy if yoiu think that could have been a death blow to our program. It had some negative recruiting aspects but 90% of kids wouldn't have been swayed by the fact that a few outliers had legal problems under a previous administration. The probation (which was a completely sepearate and unrelated event) had a lot more to do with our struggles over the next few years.


Frankly, we should have recovered a lot quicker. We made several horrible coaching decisions and had an OU administration that was intent on downplaying the role of football in the university.

[sooneron]

As for recovering from it, you gotta be crazy if yoiu think that could have been a death blow to our program. It had some negative recruiting aspects but 90% of kids wouldn't have been swayed by the fact that a few outliers had legal problems under a previous administration. The probation (which was a completely sepearate and unrelated event) had a lot more to do with our struggles over the next few years.



If this were to happen today. NO WAY would the program bounce back the way that it did. NO WAY. And we could have very well disappeared into the annals of College football history back then...