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Duck Tales
Published: 12/22/2006 7:07 PM
Last Modified: 12/22/2006 7:07 PM

While on a road trip that will include covering three sportings events in three states in six days, I reached the conclusion that the fuss over Oregon replay official Gordon Riese was much ado about nothing.
Oh sure, it was a nuclear mess at the time because it was assumed that Riese had snatched away all the goals OU wanted to pursue.
In hindsight, the error perhaps cost the Sooners absolutely nothing. It didn't cost them a BCS bowl, or the lucrative paycheck that goes along with it. And it didn't cost them a national championship.
The computer nerds will have to confirm this, but even if OU had beaten Oregon, the Sooners still wouldn't have ranked high enough to earn a spot opposite Ohio State in the national title game. The only fallout from the Duckgate Controversy is that Bob Stoops' career won-loss record will be different by a percentage point or so.
Some other random observances on the final pit stop of a Nashville to Oklahoma City to Fort Worth road trip:
--The OU-Oregon game wasn't the first officiating controversy involving the Ducks and one of the state schools.
Late in the 1989 Independence Bowl, Oregon quarterback Bill Musgrave lost the ball while stumbling backwards and it was recovered by Tulsa's Lenny Williams at the TU 3.
An official ruled that Musgrave was down before losing possession and the Ducks kicked a game-winning field goal on the next play.
There was no replay rule at the time, but TV replays showed that it was a legitimate fumble and Musgrave told reporters afterward that he was trying to toss the ball backwards to a running back.
Said mild-mannered TU coach David Rader, "I told the officials, and you can quote me on this, I had 50 guys on my side give me 110 percent, but there were seven (officials) out there who gave only 70 percent. It just ticks my butt, end of quote."
Rader said last week that he still gets mad when reminded of the play.
--Utah has 104 players on its bowl roster. I thought this was too goofy to say in print, so I will say it in a blog. The only place you will find more Utes is in the script for the movie "My Cousin Vinny." Joe Pesci had difficulty enunciating the word "youths." Instead, he said something that sounded a lot like "Utes." Sign him up and let him be the analyst for the TU-Utah bowl game.
--The problem with covering a thrill ride of a basketball game like the one Oklahoma State and Pitt played Thursday night is that it gives writers an inferiority complex. No matter what you write, it can't match what you just saw. It was eye candy.
--It's fun to go back and look at clips of old game stories so you can put things in a historical context.
After Tennessee beat Tulsa in the 1943 Sugar Bowl, Vols coach John Barnhill said neither team stopped trying and that's the kind of stuff that will help the American lads clinch victory in World War II. I cleaned up his statement for this blog because some of his terms would no longer be considered politically correct.
According to a newspaper report, soldiers who attended the game got a free ticket and a letter urging them to "root like hell" for Tulsa.
--And then there's this: The 1965 Bluebonnet Bowl in Houston was played in rain and mud. At one point, the public address announcer said, "Houston has given us two splash downs today, the Gemini 7 and the Bluebonnet Bowl." The game was played in such a quagmire that TU players changed clothes at halftime.


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Tulsa World sports writer Jimmie Tramel is a former class president at Locust Grove High School. He graduated magna cum laude from Northeastern State University with a journalism degree and, while attending college, was sports editor of the Pryor Daily Times. He joined the Tulsa World on Oct. 17, 1989, the same day an earthquake struck the World Series. He is the OSU basketball beat writer and a columnist and feature writer during football season. In 2007, he wrote a book about Oklahoma State football with former Cowboy coach Pat Jones.

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