L is for LOSER

You know it's bad when Your Dad e-mails you and says he is "sorry" that Oklahoma lost. And your good friend, SJHJR24, e-mails his "condolences" to you. Someone leaves a voicemail, asking if you are "OK." Someone else attempts to cheer you up by pointing out, "It could be worse. You could be Michigan."

And so it went on Loser Saturday.

It started in the morning when Soccer Team 708 went down in defeat, losing its first game of the year, 5-4. (The Playmaker had 2 goals.) If we wanted to, we could point out that the other coach failed to split his team up into two teams of equal numbers of boys and girls. Instead, for much of the game, he had all boys against our team, which often had two girls. But we will rise above all that and not even mention it.

Then Our Sooners went out and laid a defensive egg in the Cotton Bowl against the hated Longhorns of Texas, losing 45-35. Heading into the game, it was apparent there were three areas of concern for the top ranked Sooners. Their kick-off coverage had been down right abysmal. Their running game mediocre and their pass defense questionable. But in their first five games, they did not play a team talented enough to exploit all three.

Yesterday, they faced a team that not only exploited all three -- they abused all three.

The Sooners had complete control of the contest when Ryan Broyles caught overrated All-American tight end Jermaine Gresham's dropped pass in the end zone to put Oklahoma up 14-3. And then - bang! - Jordan Shipley took the kick off 96 yards to the end zone, cutting the lead to 14-10. The rest of the way, OU would never have total control again.

Time after time, Sam Bradford would get OU into the end zone, only to have the Longhorns shove the ball down OU's defensive throats. The sad thing was Texas' running game is even worse than OU's, so Colt McCoy was passing on almost every down. Shipley had about 36 receptions over the middle. And what did OU defensive coordinator/stiff Brent Venables do? Um, he did nothing. And when OU middle linebacker Ryan Reynolds (OU's defensive leader) went out with a bad knee, Texas immediately went to Shipley over the middle 26 more times. What did Idiot Brent do then?

You got it -- NOTHING. He left Reynolds' backup (green, very green sophomore Brandon Crow) in the game. It's a safe bet Crow will need emotional counseling for a long time to recover from the abuse he took yesterday.

We will say this: Texas played with class yesterday. And they were the better team. They stopped scoring in the second half only because the clock ran out. Otherwise, it looked like they could have scored on five more possessions. And McCoy is every bit as good (if not better) than Bradford. The two of them are the best players we have seen this season. Finally, with #3 Missouri and #4 LSU both losing, it would seem that Oklahoma will drop no lower than #5 in the polls today. And with Texas still having to play Missouri, Oklahoma State and Texas Tech the next three weeks, as well as travel to Kansas later on, there is still hope for Our Sooners.

And who knows, maybe Venables will do the noble thing and quit, and Mike "Bob Never Won a Title without Me" Stoops will get fired at Arizona and come home again to OU. Then we'd really be fired up.