Five Worst Things That Could Happen to OU Football in 2016
By Chip Rouse
Sooners Suffer a Second-Straight Home Loss in Bedlam with Big 12 Title on the Line
Oklahoma has dominated its in-state rival, Oklahoma State, in football, owning an overall record of 85-18-7 in the century-old rivalry series. And Sooner head coach Bob Stoops has continued that domination, winning 13 of the Bedlam games played during his 17 seasons in Norman.
The Sooners have lost just eight times at home in the 104 played at Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium since Stoops took over as head coach in the 1999 season. Two of those eight losses, however, have come against Oklahoma State, including a 38-35 overtime loss the last time the two teams played in Norman.
A year-ago, the Big 12 title was on the line in Stillwater when the Sooners burst the Cowboys’ bubble, handing their rivals a devastating 58-23 defeat behind a two-headed rushing attack that rolled up 344 yards on the ground to go with another 200 yards through the air.
A year before that, in 2013, a home win over the underdog Sooners would have given Oklahoma State its second conference championship in three seasons. OU again spoiled the then-sixth-ranked Cowboys’ championship bid with a 33-24 come-from-behind win.
It is a reasonable assumption that the 2016 Big 12 championship could be on the line again when these two teams meet on Dec. 3 in Norman.
What worries me about this scenario is that, sooner or later, the Cowboys are going to do to the Sooners what the Sooners have done to them the last two times the game was played in Stillwater (i.e., extinguish the home team’s conference title chances with the visitors clinching the crown for themselves).
This would be a crushing blow, and under the worst possible circumstances, to the 2016 Oklahoma football season.