Sooners and Buffs

I think Gary Barnett has just about displaced Mack Brown as the coach in the Big 12 who annoys me the most. Mack is a whiner, to be sure, and a bit of a windbag. But he usually deflates after his teams lose. And then there's Gary Barnett, who tends to remain full of bluster even after a solid ass-kicking. Here's an excerpt after the thrasing he received in the muck at Oklahoma:

"Our guys are ready to go play," said CU coach Gary Barnett, whose team remains a heavy favorite in the Big 12 North. "If we could play tomorrow, we would. We didn't feel like we got out-athleted today. We got beat. No question. But not to the point where there was a major difference between the two teams."

That pretty much sums up Gary Barnett's problem. Truth be told, the ATHLETES at Colorado are every bit as good as those heralded recruiting classes of Mack Brown at Texas, and yes, the boys in crimson and cream at Oklahoma.

But shouldn't someone be asking Gary Barnett how he's managed to take all that talent and LOSE 3 GAMES already this season?

And shouldn't he be able to come up with a better answer than this:

"It wasn't their defense making great plays," Barnett said. "It was Robert [Hodge] throwing the ball right to them. Whatever anyone wants to attribute the errors to is fine, but we made a lot of mistakes."

Classy, Gary. Blame it on your QB, and don't credit your opponent at all. Even Mack Brown is better than that.

The Big 12 North is weak this year, and for that reason Colorado may well make it back to the title game. They may even win it.

Which makes you wonder why Gary can't beat teams like Colorado State and USC.

In any case, this game marked a turning point of sorts for the Sooners. In the four years now he's been at Oklahoma, Bob Stoops has really not had to deal with bad weather. And that's been good, because when the Sooners were running Mike Leach's spread offense, there was no running game (and hence no offense if the weather turns bad). But Stoops brought on Kevin Wilson to revamp the blocking schemes and running game this year, and just in time -- the last two games have been played in the muck, and the Sooners have been able to play ball-control with their running game and let their defense help them out. It wasn't pretty yesterday, but it was damned effective.

And just in time. Berry Tramel is right: Stoops leads a charmed life.

[Posted at 08:40 CST on 11/03/02] [Link]