1999 Texas Tech Game

[SoonerNutt]

Just trying to think along the "silver lining" angle here, but...


I keep going back to our regular season finale in 1999. We had 7 wins going into that game, and had a chance to play our way into a nice bowl game (remember we hadn't seen a good bowl game in years at that point). It may not seem like a big deal today, but coming off the blake years, it really was a big moment for us.

Anyways, we got hammered by an average Tech team, and that game (rather the feeling the guys had on the ride home) became the rallying cry for getting prepared for the 2000 NC run. Stoops would say "None of us ever want to feel again like we did on that long drive home" and that motivated the team to go out and have a great season, and set the foundation for putting OU back in the elite status of college football teams.

So, Saturday night, it may not have been as long of a bus ride home, but I bet it felt like a million miles. I hope our guys never forget what it felt like. Hopefully a fire burns in their belly and it shows on the field next season.

Anyway, a boy can dream, right?

[Widescreen]

I'm concerned that the mentality of these particular players is very different from the mentality of the 1999/2000 kids. Those guys had a major chip on their shoulders and were tired of losing.

[rainiersooner]

I've thought this after every inexplicable loss we've had...and unfortunately, there have been many of them over the years; haven't seen much change. In Stoops' defense, he would say something along the lines of "there's no silver bullet; it's not about being motivated; it's about executing the fundamentals - either you do or you don't and if you don't, you will lose the game."

[goingoneight]

In that regard, he's right. They can't spend much time patting guys on the back when we're this bad. They've got to get to work on things like blocking, tackling, protecting the ball and all those things better than they are doing.

Team maturity is something that is a collective effort of a bunch of mature guys. Alabama and LSU are loaded with five star guys everyone here seems to think is a problem compared to the supposed three star "humble guys." They're playing for a MNC and we're not. 2008 team had a lot of what it took, they just had some unfortunate bad breaks injury-wise.

[SoonerPride]

We win conference championships every ever numbered year and I expect no difference in 2012.

[NormanPride]

Championship teams are made over the summer, and we had great student leaders back then that took the Tech game to heart. Do we have those guys now? I think we have the talent to win, but we lack the fiery guys in practice that get everyone else ready. We need a Patrick Fletcher or five.

[madillsoonerfan5353]

But we had T. Lew. He's loud and pumps people up! I mean he acts like he eatin on the field after he makes a play or puts a shark fin on his head. He talked Thursday or Friday on the Tweeter that it was time to eat on Saturday. He ate alright, all the dust that the oSu players where kicking up running down the field and he was chasing behind them. This "team" has a few "I"s in key places that I'll be glad to see move on.

[NormanPride]

Yup. Best of luck, Travis. Thanks for four years of excitement, but I hope you do better at the next level than you did at this one...

[soonerbub]

Our final game was osu in Norman (a 44-7 win)

[RacerX]

I thought they took the bowl loss to heart.

Tech was playing their hearts out because Spike Dykes was getting canned.

[oudavid1]

2000 - No major injuries.

[SoonerNutt]

Our final game was osu in Norman (a 44-7 win)

Ouch. Man, my memory sucks. I was even at that game. For some reason, I thought it was the week before the Tech game. I guess my thoughts about the importance of it was how Stoops always went back to that game and the "bus ride home" as motivation during the next off-season.

It will be very interesting to see how this bowl game goes down. It feels like the program is in a state of despair, but they need to pull it together and go take care of business to help build a little momentum going into next year. A loss to Iowa will not be good for this team's psyche.

[trey]

Last game was ole miss in independence bowl

[jkm, the stolen pifwafwi]

Team maturity is something that is a collective effort of a bunch of mature guys. Alabama and LSU are loaded with five star guys everyone here seems to think is a problem compared to the supposed three star "humble guys." They're playing for a MNC and we're not. 2008 team had a lot of what it took, they just had some unfortunate bad breaks injury-wise.

I think that you are missing something significant between OU's recruiting and those of schools in talent rich areas. In general, Odds are that a 5 star player will be better than a 4 star player will be better than a 3 star player. 5 stars have like a 40% chance of being drafted and it goes down from there. Thus, in general, you favor taking the 5 star over any other ranking because the odds favor that player contributing. If you look at our history, we have seen this ratio pan out with some good ones (Harris, Peterson), some average ones (Latimer) and some busts (meh).

So to your point, what Alabama/LSU have done is to stack the odds in their favor by increasing the pool of picks. So if their pan out rate is 40% they sign 7-8 extra kids to artificially boost that pan out percentage (IE 10 kids out of 25 becomes 13 kids out of 32 which effectively becomes 13/25 moving you from 40% to an effective 55%). Think about how much 3 extra good players would mean per class to us because we are chronically short on players at positions all the time. Just one example of this from the 2000 class, had we oversigned, we'd have had Wes Welker on fall scholly for when Vernon Maxwell DUI'd out.

The only real difference that I see between us and the SEC teams is that while we throw fliers at eval picks that end up pretty good, they throw fliers at 4 star athletic kids hoping that one will stick.

[MI Sooner]

Just trying to think along the "silver lining" angle here, but...


I keep going back to our regular season finale in 1999. We had 7 wins going into that game, and had a chance to play our way into a nice bowl game (remember we hadn't seen a good bowl game in years at that point). It may not seem like a big deal today, but coming off the blake years, it really was a big moment for us.

Anyways, we got hammered by an average Tech team, and that game (rather the feeling the guys had on the ride home) became the rallying cry for getting prepared for the 2000 NC run. Stoops would say "None of us ever want to feel again like we did on that long drive home" and that motivated the team to go out and have a great season, and set the foundation for putting OU back in the elite status of college football teams.

So, Saturday night, it may not have been as long of a bus ride home, but I bet it felt like a million miles. I hope our guys never forget what it felt like. Hopefully a fire burns in their belly and it shows on the field next season.

Anyway, a boy can dream, right?

We took that loss to heart so much that Ole Miss beat us in the Independence Bowl a month later.

[SoonerNutt]

We took that loss to heart so much that Ole Miss beat us in the Independence Bowl a month later.

I think where the motivation made it's mark (if it actually did) was in the offseason preparation for the next season.

On a week to week basis, I think the impact of emotion is way overblown. You pretty much are what you built in the offseason. Getting all pumped up and making an *** of yourself isn't going to make you better or worse. It is a game of skill, technique, and critical thinking, not so much emotion.

But if an emotional issue helps keep players focused and doing the right things during an extended stretch of time, then you have something to build on.