Anyone watching this series? It's excellent so far.

This ****ing sucks.

It seems the honeymoon phase is already over in Baton Rouge. Local media already taking shots.

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Glad it's back, but a 2 1/2 hour episode?????

“They set the standard. We will defend it.”

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IT IS HERE, IT IS HERE!

Time for our annual survivor series - that is both my love and potentially the most painful part of my week.

It’s time to get started with our seventh year of the Sooner Survivor Series - the annual Big 12 Survivor Pool.

The rules are simple:

---(READ THIS ONE CAREFULLY, AGAIN) as there are only 10 Big 12 teams we always spend the end of the year filling out the regular season schedule. Well, to keep me from hating my life while filling out 500+ winners (until my BELOVED upset comes in) we’re going to do it in reverse. The first four weeks will be picking ONE winner from three hand picked games around college football. You don’t need to pick the winner of each, you simply pick the winner of ONE of the three games. If you’re right, you advance, if you’re wrong, your season ends early.

---Starting in week five, you’ll pick one Big 12 team each week that you think will win that week's game. If your team wins, you advance to the next week. When a team you picked loses, you are eliminated from the competition. Remember you ARE NOT picking against the spread, these are straight up win/lose scenarios.

---Once we've started the Big 12 segment and you've picked a Big 12 school, you cannot pick them again the rest of the season. This means you have to pick carefully and assess for things like bye weeks, matchups, etc.

---There are no byes for participants. In other words, you have to pick a team every single week. You have to watch later in the season to make sure you have a team to pick every week, because if you get into a situation where every team you have left is on a bye week and can't pick a team, you'll unfortunately be eliminated.

---Also, you MUST have your picks in before the first game on the docket (it will always be the first game listed below).

--- If anyone (or multiple people) can make it all the way through 14 weeks without losing, we'll use the bowl weeks as tie-breakers.

If anyone has any other questions, please feel free to write them below!

And now, here are the options for Week One.

PRIZES:

1st Place: Free Year of SoonerScoop.com (50$ Gift Card to your choice of Amazon, Best Buy, etc.)
2nd Place: Free Six Months of SoonerScoop.com and your Scoop Shirt of Choice
3rd Place: Free Three Months of SoonerScoop.com and your Scoop Shirt of Choice
4th and 5th: Two Free Months of SoonerScoop.com

Sept. 3

North Carolina @ Appalachian State (11:00a)
Utah @ Florida (6:00p)

Sept. 4

Florida State @ LSU (6:30p)

Who is it?

I hate that song. That is all.

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Pardon me while I find a wall to run through.

And exhale. Oklahoma and Kansas State will be footballing tomorrow at high noon. East coast time, of course.

Welcome back. It's been awhile. The Happy Hour my friends is back. Maybe we should start doing an actual happy hour in the OKC area (socially distanced, of course, wink wink).

Here's some thoughts as we head into what I'm considering the 'first' actual real football weekend of the year. And no this doesn't coincide with the return of the SEC, but has more to do with Oklahoma actually playing a real football team on Saturday.

* I'm excited to see more of Spencer Rattler. Yeah, okay. Everyone is. The throw the Theo Wease on the sidelines was elite. The throw to Jeremiah Hall on the first series. How about the throw to Charleston Rambo (see below).

It's refreshing. I want more. I want to become addicted to it. Rattler's 303.3 passing efficiency rating vs. Missouri State is the best in the nation this season by 50 points and set Big 12 and OU freshman records.

I know, I know. Let's see him do against someone other than a defense Jotay's nephew could start for.

* Seth McGowan. Uh ... as advertised, indeed. Much like Rattler I want to see more but there was a heckuva lot to like in his debut. You could even throw Marvin Mims into that mix as well. His 148 all-purpose yards were the second most by an OU freshman in his career debut.

Me thinks recruiting matters.

McGowan and Mims were two of 11 true freshmen who saw the field for OU in the opener.

This isn't new to anyone reading but when you evaluate and recruit as well as Oklahoma has in recent years under Lincoln Riley, it's hard not to think it's going to be fun to see that talent develop over the next few years.

* Speaking of true freshmen ... I'm ready to see the Anton Harrison and Andrew Raym. I think we'll get that opportunity this weekend.

How much does that help the Sooners offensive line? That's probably still in question but I do think it'll be fun to see them perform.

* Listen to Alex Grinch and I think you hear optimism and confidence. It's my belief they think this defense can be pretty good.

How good? We'll see. But listen to Grinch talk and there's a number of players in the program that could have a bright future in the Sooners Speed D.

We're talking about the Nik Bonitto, David Ugwoegbu, Isaiah Thomas and Brian Asamoah's of the world.

Like Grinch said earlier this week ... it's time for them to consistently make plays on Saturday. Afterall, that's when it counts.

* When it comes to the OU student section ... why are we mad at college students for being college students? Wait. Don't answer that.

* Redshirt freshman safety Eric Gallegos entered the transfer portal this week. I'll be honest. I didn't even know he was on the team. Goodluck to him.

Some notes that caught my eye:

* The road team has won six of the last nine meetings in the OU-Kansas State series, but the home team has won three of the last four, including each of the last two.

* Some of these numbers may be a bit of a surprise to you .... last season in Big 12 play, OU led the league in total defense (330.6 ypg) and passing defense (190.4 ypg), and ranked second in rushing defense (140.1 ypg), pass defense efficiency (125.7 rating) and third- and fourth-down conversion percentage (33.3 each)

* I'm pretty proud of our guys @Josh_M and @BPrzybylo ... in recent weeks we've see Ethan Downs, Mario Williams, Danny Stutsman, Clayton Smith. Bob went and saw Jordan Mukes a few weeks ago. Tonight Josh and I will get and up close look at Choctaw and Mukes when they take on Booker T. Washington.

SCOOPHD: Ethan Downs

SCOOPHD: Mario Williams

SCOOPHD: Danny Stutsman

SCOOPHD: Clayton Smith

* OU baseball Fall ball is underway ... some new names that I have heard impressed: Brett Squires, Jimmy Crooks, Dalton Fowler, Luke Taggart ... also was told Cade Horton and Jace Bohrofen are 'better than advertised'. That's some positive news. I'm hoping to sneak into a couple intrasquad scrimmages soon.

* Loved the steak thread on the board. I'm a huge Mohagany guy. Love a good trip to the Ranch. And Michael's is, indeed, way underrated. Dynamite shrimp at the 'Hog is a great appetizer. It's almost red wine season and that's when we thrive.

* I got blocked by resident idiot Christine Brennan on Thursday night. That felt good. Someone please keep me in the loop if she says anything more dumb than she already has.

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* Lastly, what an incredible tragedy in NE OKC on Thursday morning. Here's a link for the GoFundMe if you are interested.

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Good to be back. Let's have a weekend, everybody.

I'll be around this afternoon. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

Any recs Saturday before hand (obviously tailgating is a touchy subject)? Any bars or restaurants jump out?

Season is over. Let's hit it.

Scholarship players still on roster:
Jalen Hill (returning)
Tanner Groves (returning)
Jacob Groves (returning)
C.J. Noland (returning)
Bijan Cortes (returning)

Transfer portal defections:
Alston Mason (Missouri State)
AK Mawein (Sacramento State)
Elijah Harkless (UNLV)
Rick Issanza (Loyola Marymount)
Mo Gibson (DePaul)

Transfer portal additions:
Sam Godwin (Wofford, walk-on)
Joe Bamisile (George Washington)
Grant Sherfield (Nevada)
Yaya Keita (Missouri)

2022 recruiting class:
Otega Oweh
Milos Uzan
Benny Schroder (Germany)
Luke Northweather

Departing Super Seniors:
Jordan Goldwire
Ethan Chargois
Marvin Johnson

Departing Assistants:
David Patrick (HC Sacramento State)
KT Turner (Assistant Kentucky)

New assistants:
Matt Brady (Maryland)
Ryan Humphrey (Notre Dame)

Director of Basketball Operations:
Tad Glibert

And we're off.

Porter Moser culture:
"It’s everything. How you build a program is then when the new guys come in, you have a foundation of guys that are like, ‘This is how it goes. This is how we do things. This is how we do things.’ It was new to everybody. You know, I was in the NCAA Bubble last year for 15 days. Like four or five days later, I’m in Norman. Then I’m trying to move forward, I’m trying to put together a new team in a pandemic. And then when we finally got together and starting working out, it was everything from terminology, you know, I mean from scratch.

"Now we come back and in the workouts, we’ll have spring workouts with whoever is coming back. And then the summer when everyone gets together, you got a foundation of older guys helping the new guys. That’s how you build the program is when you get a group of guys, the new ones, you’re adding and continuing to grow your talent.

"And then when they get there, the group that’s already been there is like this is how this is done. This is our culture. And that’s when it starts to go. This is just a year like no other because only a couple of them played together. And then everybody else was new. And it was from scratch."

I can’t post screenshots but he is predicting an 8-4 season with losses to Bama, K State, OSU and Baylor. He does admit he picked 8-4 last year.

Proceed.

We have a foreign exchange student this year, and her first game is next week. Taking her shopping today.

I'm ready to go there. I think it's gonna be a thing.

Buh bye Eyes of Lincoln... hello, Lock of Venables.

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Jan. 14 - DT Jeffery Johnson
Jan. 15 - CB CJ Coldon
Jan. 15 - DB Trey Morrison
Jan. 16 - CB Kani Walker
Jan. 23 - CB Jamarrien Burt
Jan. 23 - DL Gracen Halton
Jan. 25 - OL Tyler Guyton
Jan. 29 - ATH Erik McCarty
April 24 - S Kaleb Spencer
June 15 - Kalib Hicks

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July 30 - Colton Vasek
July 30 - Jacobe Johnson
July 30 - Makari Vickers
July 30 - Jordan Renaud (Bama)
July 30 - David Hicks (A&M)

Well, this took 20 mins to post so I’m not banking on cell connection here to allow me to update. But I’m here.

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The season is on the way and everyone wants to know what this team is going to look like in 2022. Will this defense finally look like a great defense? Will Jeff Lebby step into the spotlight as one of the premier offensive coordinators in the country? Will any freshmen jump out and become stars? Will the offensive line be more physical this season? We're just as anxious as you guys are to find out the answers to a lot of those questions. We need some football! Josh is here to talk about the latest in recruiting as high school football in Texas gets going this weekend. We also tell you the good and the bad happening on the recruiting trail. Football is almost here, but we're trying to get you through the last of the talking season.

The full rundown follows below:

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00:00 - Football is NEAR
10:00 - Is Stewart Mandel well?
33:00 - High school football starts TONIGHT
43:00 - Okay here's the bad news from the recruiting front
52:00 - But there is good news
1:04:00 - Sooner State Rankings
1:24:00 - The great troll post of 2022

@Eddie_Rado You aight man?

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Looking to purchase a watch for my son around 3k.

Spent all day yesterday at the office trying to get the network sorted out. Went into this morning and finally reached out to my buddy Korry Rodgers at Versatile Networks because after two hours before my radio show this morning, I still wasn't able to get our Audio over IP device Josh uses to connect to the podcast.

Korry does networks for a living. I figured after I checked, double and triple checked all my port forwarding, NAT, DHCP and DNS issues, I had to see if he could see something I was missing. I got out of radio this morning to get this thing right so we could have Josh on the podcast sounding like he always does.

Korry ended up sending a bunch of packets to the ports I wasn't able to reach. Nothing was registering. So now it's about 9:00 and Eddie and Bob have already shown up to the office. We try and get into the admin of the cablem modem so we can open up the ports we weren't able to reach.

Spent 30 minutes on the phone with Cox trying to get them to reset the modem. Eddie, Bob and Josh are all getting antsy, wanting to know when I'm going to get this figured out.

We finally figured out there was no way we were going to get the network ports to open up and I would have to spend time later today speaking with Cox to see how to fix this.

So I finally called it at about 10:40. Josh would come on over Skype and Eddie and Bob would be in studio. I hurriedly hooked up all the equipment to make it work. Then we had an issue where Josh could hear us, but we couldn't hear ourselves. And when we could hear ourselves, Josh couldn't hear us.

I had never setup the podcast like this before on the board. But we finally figured it out.

So we start recording the pod. Josh is going on about everything in recruiting. 40 minutes in, we promote the hell out of primeshrimp.com. Then we continue with a little more recruiting and then Josh has to leave so Eddie, Bob and I dive head first into Big 12 expansion, OU and the SEC, The Big Ten, etc.

We cover Big 12 media days and who was left off the All Big 12 list and reasons why. Bob hits his basketball talk with lots to update.

We all leave, I grab the SD card and head home to edit the pod and get it up for you.

There is nothing on the card. There is a file that is 1 hour and 17 minutes long.

There is absolutely nothing recorded in the 1 hour and 17 minutes. We did a pod and it didn't record.

Do your worst. I'm already as down as I've ever been in life since I got a $10,000 bill out of the blue for bandwidth overages from CI Host in 1998.

Just some food for thought on a Monday.
Dined at a four-star Cracker Barrel deep in the heart o' Texas yesterday. A buddy and I were noticing all the OU gear in the store - hoodies, mugs, gloves, etc.
My buddy asked: "Why do they have so much OU stuff in here?"
A Cracker Barrel employee happened to be walking by, heard the comment and said, "Because that stuff sells."
(I went ahead and bought the Best of Mel Tillis on CD, though.)

After 40 years of life, I started my full sleeve. A mountainscape on the inside of my forearm and started at the inside of wrist. Gotta say, I half ass used numbing cream and so half of my arm killed ( wrist) and the upper forearm was numbed to take edge off.

Sat for 5 hours.

Was listening to the Oklahoma Breakdown and Mr. Ikard brought something up that I found to be quite interesting in terms of tackling everyday at practice and that in turn helping the offensive players, specifically in terms of ball security. On the surface it makes sense. Sort of sounds stupid to even say aloud but stay with me. Ball carrier getting the experience of actually being tackled in practice routinely. One would think that correlates to holding onto the football just as much as it would a defender being able practice the art of tackling.

So I started looking at the numbers. Again, maybe this is purely coincidental. But for this exercise I'm going to tie the Sooners ball security problems to a strength and conditioning program, and maybe even moreso, a mentality throughout the program. We'll define those Bennie Wylie years as soft.

Obviously putting the ball on the ground is also a bit of luck in terms of recovering a fumble. How does the ball bounce, etc? So we'll just stick to flat out fumbles over the last few years.

2021: 16 fumbles, lost four
2020: 14 fumbles, lost six
2019: 17 fumbles, lost eight
2018: 9 fumbles, 6 fumbles

Here's where I remind you Jerry Schmidt left Oklahoma in 2018;

2017: 13 fumbles, 7 fumbles
2016: 18 fumbles, 9 fumbles
2015: 15 fumbles, 9 fumbles
2014: 12 fumbles, 7 fumbles

INTERESTING theme ain't it.

Anyways, it could be nothing but it could be something. The thought of a physical brand of football returning to Norman has been a constant through camp. We haven't mentioned how it would actually affect the offense. I thought it was really intriguing.

.