A Rant on Week Two

September 14th, 2005

By Justin Waganer
Senior Sports Writer

The big winner from week two? The Big 12. With Iowa State pounding Iowa and Texas pulling out a classic in Columbus the Big 12 won two of the top five matchups of the weekend, en route to a 10-1 record from Thursday to Saturday. The one loss? Try those crazy Missouri Tigers, the annual underachievers lost on their home field to New Mexico. “Hey Pinkel, Delta’s ready when you are.”

Oklahoma and Oklahoma State had successful, yet incredibly boring, expeditions against the powerhouses of Florida Atlantic and Tulsa. Both looked about as intimidating as the little league baseball team I played on when I was eight years old (The Commandos were a scorching 2-30, with one win by forfeit). Both have moved past the post-week one “we just didn’t execute” speeches to the post-week two “we’ve got to shake things up” speeches.

Oklahoma fans, look for one of two things in Pasadena this weekend. (1) The Sooners come out with a new look that allows Rhett Bomar to have more run/pass options. (2) The Sooners show UCLA the same thing that OSU did a year ago, run after run with the occasional pass behind “max protection”. Either way, don’t expect to see exactly what you’ve seen the last few weeks again, these coaches are smart enough to know when something is not working.

Oklahoma State fans, the Cowboys have decided on Bobby Reid for the future at quarterback so expect some excitement. I expect Reid to have a strong performance against Arkansas State this weekend as the Pokes begin to realize some potential on offense. If they don’t, expect a rough outing when Colorado comes to town on October 1.

Texas deserves respect for what they did in Columbus over the weekend, a tremendous win in a ridiculous environment. Vince Young has improved his accuracy, but his motion is still so awkward that I think it could still bite them at some point this season. I think the defense has some issues as well, if Ohio State had more of a maverick on the sidelines they would not have attempted six field goals and been more aggressive to the end zone. Nonetheless, Texas is better than I thought.

Just as I thought it was safe to watch the second crew of Game Day this past weekend, it happened. Trev Alberts never left. He was instead morphed into the hideous body of Lou Holtz who declined to have integrity and opposed everything Mark May said all weekend. Not that most intelligent people wouldn’t disagree with May, but this pattern is getting ridiculously old.

Charlie Weis deserves some kudos, he’s not the reemergence of Touchdown Jesus, but he has done a tremendous job in the first two weeks. When Tyrone Willingham was off to his insane start a few years ago there was a feeling that it wasn’t an authentically good football team, they just seemed lucky. While I’m not claiming that they are going to be in Pasadena in January, I do believe they have a shot to win 8 or 9 games and give USC a run for their money.

That’s all I have for weekend number two, I will return next week with a detailed report of the game of the year…Baylor at Army. There will be a small fee to read.

Entry Filed under: Oklahoma Sports