SALON

Monday, Nov 26, 2012 10:00 PM UTC

No. 12 Sooners right on schedule for Big 12 title

By

Topics: From the Wires,

No. 12 Sooners right on schedule for Big 12 titleOklahoma players celebrate following a 51-48 overtime victory over Oklahoma State in an NCAA college football game in Norman, Okla., Saturday, Nov. 24, 2012. Oklahoma linebacker Jaydan Bird (44) is at center. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)(Credit: AP)

NORMAN, Okla. (AP) — Casey Walker looked squarely into a television camera, clapped his hands and uttered words no Oklahoma player is accustomed to saying: “Let’s go Texas!”

Archrivals for decades, the No. 12 Sooners (9-2, 7-1 Big 12) are pulling for the 23rd-ranked Longhorns to upset No. 7 Kansas State this week with their only chance to win an outright conference title riding on it.

So, Casey, how about flashing a Hook’em Horns — right side up instead of upside down this time?

“That’s too far,” he said.

Like clockwork, Bob Stoops his team in position to contend for a Big 12 championship just in time for December.

If history holds, the Sooners will win at TCU (7-4, 4-4) on Saturday and get the help they need from Texas to claim the conference crown outright. After all, Oklahoma has won the Big 12 championship in every even-numbered year since Stoops has been the coach.

Is cheering for the Longhorns uncomfortable? Sure. But in this case, it’s whatever it takes.

“I guess now I’m OK with it because we need them to handle business, so then that puts us in a better spot,” Walker said. “So, that’s all right.”

If that scenario doesn’t materialize, the Sooners’ BCS chances could be in jeopardy and rest in the unlikely hands of Kent State. The Golden Flashes are 17th in the BCS standings, one spot away from securing an automatic BCS bid and perhaps taking away the last at-large opportunity out there with Florida and Oregon seemingly locked in.

Stoops said he hasn’t gone through all that could happen with the BCS, trying to focus instead on the game at hand.

“I think that we have a chance. That’s the only thing I’ve been aware of,” receiver Justin Brown said. “I don’t know anything about all of that other stuff. You guys probably know way more than me. I just know we’ve got to play TCU.”

That’s all that Oklahoma can control at this point. With the Big 12 membership falling to 10 teams, there’s no longer a championship game to decide it all. The closest to that came in September, when Kansas State won on the Sooners’ home field. That would be the tiebreaker if both teams win — or lose — on Saturday.

“That’s why every game is so important now in the regular season. Once you get into conference, every game is important. Typically to be the conference champion, you have to not lose a game in conference,” quarterback Landry Jones said.

“In an ideal world, we all want the championship game to have another redemption and be Big 12 champions but that’s not the way it is,” he said. “We have to play the hand that we’ve been dealt and really just go after it, win this game and then see what happens in the end.”

A year ago, the Sooners had more control of their own destiny in the season finale. With a win at Oklahoma State, Oklahoma could have tied for first place and claimed the tiebreaker in the process. At that point, Stoops was emphasizing the Big 12′s “One True Champion” campaign and dismissing the thought of co-champions.

Now, he’s changed his tune and said he’d have no problem accepting a split conference championship.

“I brought that up in our Big 12 meetings but they haven’t changed anything,” Stoops said. “You play the hand you have.”

“The rules are what they are,” he added. “I don’t make them.”

In the old divisional format, Oklahoma won seven Big 12 championships — in 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010 and the title in 2007. It’s a remarkable run not only for its predictability but the sustained success of never going more than a year without winning it.

“It’s difficult and challenging with all the excellent teams. I think this is 11 of the last 13 years we’ve been in the last game with championship implications,” Stoops said. “It’s always tough. It’s hard to do. This game will be equally tough to go down and give ourselves an opportunity to win.”

More Jeff Latzke.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
New Yorker launches tool by Aaron Swartz to protect leaks: Strongbox, co-created by the late technologist, is an open-source drop box for leaked documents
206 points207 points | 7 comments
vote
New Yorker launches tool by Aaron Swartz to protect leaks: Strongbox, co-created by the persecuted late technologist, is an open-source drop box for leaked documents
149 points150 points | comment
vote
Obstruction will ruin the GOP: Playing politics and abusing the system can excite the extremes, but it's a recipe for long-term political disaster
44 points45 points | 8 comments
vote
Loaded terminology like "entitlements" and "welfare" skews the debate and alters America. How right-wingers use semantic tricks to kill government.
66 points67 points | 25 comments
vote
With the help of Photoshop, artist Yao Lu has made shanshui — traditional ink paintings — of China's landfills
24 points25 points | comment

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations