The Oklahoma Sooners are one win away from winning a national championship. That seemed unthinkable only a few weeks ago. But then everything changed after Skip Johnson and his team ate some fried chicken.
The Sooners extended their winning streak to nine games with a 9-3 victory over No. 5 national seed North Carolina on Saturday in Game 1 of the Men's College World Series best-of-three championship series. If that winning streak reaches 10 on Sunday afternoon in Omaha, OU will claim its third national title in school history after not even being able to put together more than one win a weekend just a few weeks ago.
Skip Johnson used fried chicken and two-a-days to turn OU baseball into a national contender
ESPN continues to share a story during its broadcasts of OU's games in the CWS of when things seemed to change for these once-struggling Sooners. Anyone who just started paying attention during the NCAA Tournament would never know this team on the cusp of being the best in all of college baseball this season looked unworthy to even get in on Selection Sunday.
The Sooners entered the NCAA Tournament having lost seven of their last 10 games and hadn't won an SEC series since mid-April after dropping four in a row. That slump included getting bounced by LSU, seeded lower than the No. 11 Sooners, in the first round of the SEC Tournament.
When the Sooners returned to Norman from that brief trip to the SEC Tournament, Johnson wanted to remind his team the toughness it takes to win in college baseball, especially during the postseason. Johnson knows just as well as anyone after 16 seasons in the junior-college ranks as the head coach at Navarro College about the grind of baseball. And most of his players today should, too, with 13 coming from JUCO themselves, which is more than any other roster of the eight MCWS teams.
Just like he did when he was at Navarro College, where resources were basically zero, Johnson made his team practice twice a day leading up the Atlanta Regional to start NCAA Tournament play. The team wouldn't even leave the facility between practices. They just ate fried chicken and biscuits together as if on a lunch break at a 9-5, then went back to work.
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There's obviously more to a turnaround as dramatic as the Sooners' than fried chicken, but they've been one of the best teams in the country since those two-a-day practices and fellowship with their teammates, which included burying a box negative thoughts. And now Oklahoma can even prove to be the best team in the country.
"Why do you pracrice? Why do you go out everyday and practice in the fall and in the spring? Why do you practice? To try to win the last game of the year," Johnson said ahead of the championship series.
On Sunday, the Sooners can win the last game of the year.
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