There's no article here, no stat-backed divulgence of expert insight...just one football fan's observation, intuition, and prediction.
Looking forward to responses and opinions...
I have been sensing for some time that the beginning of the end of ou's dominance was at hand. It started the day Stoops resigned/retired. No, they arent going to crash to the bottom of the pack all of a sudden....in fact there may be little real noticeable change over the next few years.
But, the signs are written on the wall. Rather than some eloquent, prose-style dissertation, for time and space sake, I will bullet-point the reasons this may occur .....sooner...
rather than later:
1. Bob Stoops was an anchor for their most recent run of stabilized success and is gone
2. I've never fully bought Lincoln (though he seems like a nice enough guy) and believe he will be exposed as not being an elite college-level head coach.
3. I see ou currently as ttu but with better athletes and coaching. Not the worst indictment in the world, but not good enough to be an perennial conference winner, national top 10, and NewYears Day or playoff bowl participant.
4. I believe Linc's ttu pedigree and background will ultimately guide his vision and scope of understanding and limit ou's ceiling.
5. ou has had an unsustainable period of timely luck to bolster perception and results...primarily at QB. I am a big believer that most luck is earned, so I credit them for this...just believe it is unsustainable.
6. Ironically, one likely outcome of multiple appearances in the CFP playoff and some high-profile face-plants is overexposure and "viewer" fatigue. It it like that overplayed song that is real good but not great. It's not cool for long.
7. I believe the reliance on transfer QBs was a cheap Walmart holiday cookie that tasted pretty good going down....but left them unhealthy. Taking time to create some old-fashioned, from-scratch goodies would have provide a more delicious long-term reward. I also think the bad aftertaste of artificial ingredients may adversely affect recruiting, loyalty, and culture.
8. If ou were a stock....or even just a football team...you'd have to say that making the tops lists of Fortune 500...or appearing in 3 out of the last 4 CFP playoffs...would he a huge boon to stock price...or recruiting. It hasn't.
9. I believe ou may soon enter territory UT has just barely avoided fully and is starting to claw out of....a program whose perceived relevance and elite standing is lost on many modern day recruits.
10. The fact that ou is in Oklahoma, according to all of God's law, nature and truth itself, must catch up to it at some point.
11. Texas is rising...and so are a few others....I believe the tell-tales were there during the 2016-2017 and then 2018 regular season matchup...We are starting to emerge as the more physically imposing team (something necessary to rise to elite status). If Orlando and his guys don't screw it up in the 4th quarter '18, I believe the stomping would have carried over into the Big12 Championship and the balance of power begun to shift. The 4th quarter near-collapse changed the narrative drastically for 2018 and behind-the-scenes distractions and coaching issues added to postpone a new trend in 2019. Like a stock divergence and run in early stages.....the trend begins before it is realized.
12. I believe Tom Herman will ultimately prove to be the better coach vs LR
13. TH's Ohio State pedigree and "plugged-in" nature with understanding of what elite programs are doing today will bear more fruit soon and prove greater than Linc and his staff's understanding of what it takes to accomplish this and sustain it.
14. I do not believe that ou's defense will become one of the sustained best in the Big12, or anywhere, anytime soon.
15. Sustained runs like the one they've enjoyed are hard to hold onto. Gravity catches up eventually...always.
16. Very simple...ou still sucks and won't stop. Eventually, that sucking will pull them back down
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Last edited: Feb 18, 2020