Patty Gasso admits WCWS disappointment was the wake-up call Oklahoma needed

Both the Oklahoma softball program and its fans got a reality check when the Sooners fell short of reaching what had become an annual trip to the Women's College World Series down the road in Oklahoma City.

The No. 3 national seed Sooners' stunning Super Regional upset at the hands of Mississippi State halted a run of nine straight trips to the WCWS for Patty Gasso's program. It was the second-longest such streak in the history of college softball, which in itself proves how difficult it really is to get there, no matter how easy the Sooners made it look for almost a decade.

Chris Plank this week had Gasso on his radio show on KREF and immediately pointed that out as many OU fans had gotten so accustomed to making the WCWS that they believe the sky is now falling at Love's Field.

"Thank you for throwing that out there," Gasso somewhat joked. "It's kind of what it's been like for the last two weeks."

Sooners need program reset after 2026 shortcomings

However, that doesn't mean the failure, at least by OU's standards, was just something to shrug off and chalk up as something the Sooners were due for. The disappointment was a wake-up call that forced Gasso to step back and re-evaluate her program so the Sooners can start a new WCWS streak as quickly as 2027.

"Very humbling, I would say," Gasso said. "But at the same time, sometimes something like this has to happen to wake you up and know it's time to reset your program. And that's what we found out.

"We've really had a lot of long talks as a staff on things that we want to do different. And maybe get back to a little more to the championship mindset -- grind, tough type players that we're used to. So we've talked a lot about that."

The quote from Gasso was somewhat a callout to OU's 2026 roster for something she mentioned throughout the season that her team lacked. After each devastating loss, especially after upsets to Oklahoma State in Bedlam and Georgia in the SEC Tournament, Gasso never pointed to talent as the reason behind a loss, but always the mentality of her team. Apparently what Gasso would refer to as "the championship mindset."

"I think we all had a conversation and decided to go back to Norman and just practice harder, do things sharper -- like clean up practice instead of going through the motions like we've got it," Gasso said in a viral quote after losing to Georgia. "Let's really, really press. We’re gonna press you everyday throughout the entire practice to the point of exhaustion. And you should keep asking for more. And more and more and more. Until your hands bleed.

"That’s the mentality that we want our players to have instead of, like, 'Oh, we're good. We're good.' No, we're not good. And we showed that. And so that is going to be our approach is we're going back and we are going to work as hard as we ever have in a short window to have ourselves prepared for a home regional."

Read more: Sooners' disappointing season still revealed an exciting truth about Oklahoma's future

Gasso eventually walked back her viral "bleeding hands" quote that got fans and former players fired up, but the message was still made clear whether it was emotional or not.

The question now is what those changes will be over the offseason. The Sooners clearly need to find a reliable ace, but it seems the biggest problems to fix aren't just talent on a roster. OU has plenty of that and even more on the way.

Gasso now has to flash her program back to before winning became so easy.

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