Dantheman, you psyched for the game or what?

[Almighty Colin]

Are you ready for some football? ;-)

[dantheman]

Originally posted by Colin@Sep 5 2003, 10:28 AM
Are you ready for some football? ;-)
Fuck YES :) so is he,http://www.techieboard.com/images/shula.jpeg



RTR

[bpj]

That's going to be a good game!

[dantheman]

so is Brodie,http://www.techieboard.com/images/brodie.jpeg

RTR :rokk:

[dantheman]

http://www.techieboard.com/images/williams.jpeg shaud is also ready :rokk:

[Trev]

is something happening of some importance that I should know about?

:biglaugh:

[dantheman]

Originally posted by Trev@Sep 5 2003, 10:43 AM
is something happening of some importance that I should know about?

:biglaugh:
just to catch you up:)

TUSCALOOSA | It is common for the largest predators in nature to stake out their own territory, an established domain in which their dominance is unquestioned. That way, the lion or the grizzly bear can spend his time preying on the weaker animals, not locked in epic battle with other lions or tigers or bears.

Sometimes, though, the boundaries get blurred. The King of the Jungle decides he wants to live up to the title, and prepares to take on all comers.

Sometimes, it even happens in college football.

For most of the past 50 years, Alabama and Oklahoma have been among the dominant teams in college football, blessed with legendary coaches like Bear Bryant and Bud Wilkinson, or players like Billy Sims, Lee Roy Selmon, Lee Roy Jordan, Joe Namath and countless more.

Not surprisingly, there have been undercurrents connecting the two teams.

As a Kentucky coach, Bryant beat Bud Wilkinson in a memorable Sugar Bowl game that snapped Oklahoma's 31-game winning streak. A Bryant disciple, former Kentucky star Jim Mackenzie, was Oklahoma's coach for one year, 1966, before his death from a massive heart attack. Another Bryant protégé and former UA assistant, Howard Schnellenberger, had a one-year tenure at OU in 1995.

As recently as New Year's Day of 2003, the Sooners were beating the coach-designate for Alabama, Mike Price at Washington State, although history took a different path.

But there have been few head-to-head contests, which makes the current regular-season series something to cherish. Prior to today's game, Alabama and Oklahoma have met only three times. From the Crimson Tide perspective, that is fewer meetings that UA has had with Penn State (13), Southern Cal (seven), Notre Dame (six) or (if the visiting Sooners will excuse the inclusion of the Cornhuskers and Longhorns among the elite), Nebraska (five) and Texas (eight). It is no more meetings, until today, than Alabama has had with Michigan and Ohio State.

Alabama, by its calculations, has 12 national championships and would probably credit OU with eight. Oklahoma, which calculates by a different standard, claims 13 national titles and lists Alabama with 11. European nations have fought wars lasting decades over less important issues, but, in the interest of conflict avoidance, the best way to approach it is that the two teams have won more national titles than any other school except Notre Dame.

The teams have met only once, amazingly, in a major bowl game, the 1963 Orange Bowl. They also met in the 1970 Astro-Bluebonnet Bowl in Houston, both coming off disappointing seasons, yet poised -- though no one knew it at the time -- to enter a decade of dominance at both schools.

Over the ensuing 30 years, Alabama won 283 games and Oklahoma won 275.

The two programs seemed to mirror each other in many ways. In the '70s, both won -- and rolled up awesome offensive numbers -- with the Wishbone.

Later, both went through coaching changes and NCAA turmoil, with OU seeming to have once again found smooth sailing under Bob Stoops.

But for those 30 years -- until last year's classic in Norman -- the two schools did not meet.

"I thought we were close a couple of times," said long-time OU coach Barry Switzer, a national championship and Super Bowl winner who is now a Norman, Okla., businessman, in a phone interview on Thursday.

"I thought we were going to play in 1971, in the Sugar Bowl," recalled Switzer, who was an assistant under Chuck Fairbanks at the time. "That was the closest that it came. We had already played Nebraska in that famous game, and we knew we would meet either Alabama or Auburn, but Alabama went on to beat Auburn 31-7 and went to the Orange Bowl."

Oklahoma had switched to the Wishbone the year before, and rolled up 366 yards rushing against Alabama in the 1970 Astro-Bluebonnet Bowl, although the Sooners needed a late field goal to force a 24-24 tie in that game.

When Alabama returned to the field for the 1971 season, it was also running a Wishbone offense.

"In the 1970s, Oklahoma, Texas and Alabama were the three teams running the wishbone, and we dominated college football at that time," Switzer said. "We would talk with the coaches at Alabama, including Coach Bryant and Mal Moore, about the technical part of the offense. We set records with it that I think will never be broken. We averaged 472 yards per game rushing in 1971, and I don't think anyone will ever do that again."

Throughout the decade, Switzer -- who took over as OU's head coach in 1973 -- maintained a relationship with Bryant.

"I grew up in southern Arkansas, about 40 miles from [Bryant's hometown of] Fordyce," Switzer said. "I knew where Moro Bottom was. There wasn't a bridge over the Saline River when I was young, but now, I could drive from my childhood home into Fordyce in about 30 minutes.

"I played against his teams in the '50s, when I was a player at Arkansas and he was the head coach at Texas A&M," Switzer said. "I played against the team that had John David Crow and was ranked No. 1 in the nation. I can still remember running on the field at Razorback Stadium and seeing Coach Bryant leaning against the goal posts.

"He was also a great influence on me, both directly and through other coaches like Jim Mackenzie and Pat James."

The two coaches from rural Arkansas dominated football throughout the 1970s. Between 1971 and 1979, the two teams finished together in the Top Five of the Associated Press poll seven times. In two of those seasons, 1973 and 1974, Oklahoma was ineligible for the postseason due to NCAA sanctions, although the Sooners still won the national title in '74. The Sooners also won in 1975, while Alabama won the title in 1978 and 1979, with Oklahoma finishing No. 3 in each of those years.

Still, there was no matchup between the two teams.

"It was just very difficult to match up in that era," Switzer said. "If the formula had been what it is today, we probably would have played. But the Big Eight had a contract with the Orange Bowl, and Alabama would usually go to the Sugar Bowl."

That continued over the next two decades, even though both programs were consistent winners and managed to add to the national championship totals, with OU winning again in 1985 and Alabama taking the title in 1992. In 2000, Alabama had the preseason hype, but it was unheralded OU that finished first in the final poll.

Finally, a contract negotiated in the late 1990s brought the two teams together for the current regular-season series.

"I think a game like this is good for all of college football," Switzer said. "It creates great national interest. There will be media representatives on hand from the both coasts and every major city in between. Players want to be a part of this. Coaches want to be a part of this. It's what we relish.

"I loved watching the game last year, even though Alabama beat the hell out of Oklahoma for most of the second half. I told the Oklahoma coaches last year, and this year, to forget about Alabama's problems or staff changes or whatever. Alabama's got great players, and if you've got players, and you have coaches who can orchestrate a game plan, then you've got a chance against anyone."

There is not another scheduled Alabama-Oklahoma meeting following today's game, and while UA officials have expressed some interest in resuming the series in the future, it might take a full-time adoption of a 12-game schedule to make it a reality.

Still, Switzer said that in any given year, an Alabama-Oklahoma game would probably be a classic.

"Alabama can be just like they used to be," he said. "They can overcome probation because they can get players. Players want to come to the Alabamas and the Oklahomas. Oklahoma's problems [in the mid-90s] weren't because we didn't have players. We just weren't organized, but the nucleus was here.

"You don't win the national championship without great players. Bob Stoops came in and was a great motivator. He exuded confidence and preached continuity. If you can get that, and you have players, then you are going to win, at Alabama or at Oklahoma."

[Trev]

Oh it's football...

That American kind that involves mainly the hands and arms :blink:

:D

[dantheman]

Originally posted by Trev@Sep 5 2003, 10:59 AM
Oh it's football...

That American kind that involves mainly the hands and arms :blink:

:D
yeah something like that :)
http://www.techieboard.com/images/DEFENCE.jpeg

RTR :rokk:

[Trev]

oh my... thats so brutal.. just like rugby but with padding :awinky:

[dantheman]

Game Day...................Are you ready:)

ROLL TIDE :rokk:

[Meni]

Bob Stoops
Best Coach In The Country

[Almighty Colin]

Originally posted by Meni@Sep 7 2003, 09:02 AM
Bob Stoops
Best Coach In The Country
Loses too much. ;-) ;-)

Bob Stoops, Oklahoma, 43-9, four years
Larry Coker , Miami, 24-1, two years

[dantheman]

Damn, GREAT game :okthumb: Damn I've got a Hangover :(

OU's Defence was to much for our "O" last night. Not by much though:))

Good game sooners :)


RTR :rokk:

[Meni]

Coker inherited a great great team
stoops? i think we were under .500 when he game
then 7-5
then 12-0
and we'll win it all this year too
and best coach?
would coker pull a fake punt on his on 31 yard line
after gaining no yards on downs 1 thru 3 and BAMA having all the momentum????
then going for the dagger with a 50 yard TD pass?
good game Bama
Miami lucky to win last night
Brock ain't shit
Let us play Miami, our D will get better
our O line and running game will get better
our D would destroy Brock
Lehman runs a 4.4
he's our LINEBACKER

[dantheman]

meni, leyman CAN play! The stadium was the loudest I've ever seen it, and I"ve been to hundreds of games here. I would love to play OU ever year.

What a night. That's what football is :rokk: Roll Tide!

[Almighty Colin]

Originally posted by Meni@Sep 7 2003, 11:18 AM
would coker pull a fake punt on his on 31 yard line

Lehman runs a 4.4
he's our LINEBACKER
That fake punt call was insane. I was very impressed. :okthumb:

Same here on the fast linebacker speed. DJ Williams. 4.4 40 yard dash.
#1 High school recruit in 2000. He's big too. 6'2" 249 lbs. We always have guys like this.

I like this guy though. Sean Taylor. Safety. 4.38 40 yard dash. Hits like a freight train .. but we have faster.



Last edited by Colin at Sep 7 2003, 06:47 PM

[Meni]

Lehman's white
white LB's can't run that fast
usually

[Meni]

back to talking about Stoops

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- There is gutsy, and there is Bob Stoops gutsy. Gutsy is that first leap off the high dive, or stepping forward to take the blame, or playing a $20 nassau with $10 in the wallet.

There is gutsy, and there is Bob Stoops gutsy. It is finding that line that divides courage and stupidity, and putting your toenails right on it. It is driving the lane on Ben Wallace, digging in against Pedro Martinez, taking the first swing at Mike Tyson.

Bob Stoops gutsy is calling a fake punt on your 31-yard line. On the road. With the momentum rolling downhill away from you. Stoops must have stolen away during the spring and had his nerves removed. Or maybe it's just that Bob Stoops gutsy is the reason that Stoops is the best college football coach on the planet.

[dantheman]

I've never seen BDS as loud as it was at that moment. We had just scored a TD and held the sooners to 3 and out with a shot at great field postion. Very ballsy call for sure :wnw:

[Almighty Colin]

Originally posted by Meni@Sep 8 2003, 10:54 AM
Lehman's white
white LB's can't run that fast
usually
Haha.

"Lehman, fastest white linebacker in college" ;-)

They should give him bonus points in the Butkus Award sweepstakes.

[Bama]

I was throughly impressed with O's defense - great linebackers for sure.

Bama's offensive play calling had me pulling out my hair out though. There were *many* 3rd and's where the defensive corners were playing 10 yards off the line of scrimmage and a quick out or inside slant would have converted and a drive kept alive. Not picking up on this makes me want to smack a coach or two.

Brodie should have scrambled more - he was pretty successful when he did.

I don't mind it when Alabama gets beat despite its' best effort. I get naucious when they give a game away though!

[dantheman]

Originally posted by Bama@Sep 8 2003, 01:27 PM
I was throughly impressed with O's defense - great linebackers for sure.

Bama's offensive play calling had me pulling out my hair out though. There were *many* 3rd and's where the defensive corners were playing 10 yards off the line of scrimmage and a quick out or inside slant would have converted and a drive kept alive. Not picking up on this makes me want to smack a coach or two.

Brodie should have scrambled more - he was pretty successful when he did.

I don't mind it when Alabama gets beat despite its' best effort. I get naucious when they give a game away though!
said like a true bama fan :wnw:

Brodie will come around, CMS will see those points you make(plus a few more:), he's got to go from a pro_set to the college mindset. I think the fake punt complety caught the coaching staff. I'm sure their reworking that part now:) Give them a few more weeks to get the offence in stalled. Could be a fun year yet.

Also,I agree in the 4th brodie was able to keep us moving by scambling like he did.

whoa nelly, what a play or 2 "would" have done:)

never the less, I'm pleased with the players, coaches,and the fans. Bama you would not beleive how loud BDS was. Fucking AWESOME :rokk:

[Meni]

I've never bought a porn membership in my life
but I joined the O zone on soonersports.com heehee


and Butkus was WHITE
hee hee