The Sooners have convinced one doubter
Published: 9/22/2007 8:17 PM
Last Modified: 9/22/2007 8:17 PM
I no longer wonder how good Oklahoma is.
After three games, I'll admit, I wasn't sure. Utah State and North Texas offered about the same resistance as my kids' slide in the back yard. Miami, OK, impressive enough. But we all knew that day that Miami was going to have trouble completing a forward pass.
But then Miami changed quarterbacks, and suddenly the Hurricanes looked mighty good against Texas A&M (now, we must ask, how good – rather, how bad is Texas A&M?).
But I've seen Tulsa play a couple times now, and I think the Golden Hurricane is impressive. (Is a one-loss C-USA team out of the BCS picture? I don't know.)
And I've seen Miami play a couple of times now. And North Texas looks more and more like a college team. And Utah State's opponents – the first two of which the Aggies led going into the fourth quarter – have certainly had their moments.
But the reason I wrote today was this: I no longer wonder how good Oklahoma is.
A couple of barometers:
The fourth-string running back (Mossis Madu) has more yards total offense (199) than the third-string running back (Chris Brown, 169), who might be good enough to start for many teams. That shows that OU goes from being ahead to being way ahead to being close-the-gates-of-mercy ahead pretty fast, and Madu gets a lot of playing time.
And leading tackler Curtis Lofton has 42 tackles through four games. That's one short of the Sooners' No. 2 and 3 tacklers so far this season, Ryan Reynolds (23) and Reggie Smith/Lendy Holmes (20 each) – despite being off the field in the fourth quarter much of the time. That's a leader a defense can hang its hat on.
I think the voters have it right: OU is definitely a top-4 team. Top 3? Maybe. Top 2? Better talk to USC and LSU first.
– John E. Hoover
Written by
Guerin Emig
Sports Writer
