Unlike '08, 'style points' might not be these Sooners' style
Published: 11/17/2011 11:33 AM
Last Modified: 11/17/2011 11:41 AM
NORMAN — I asked OU tight end Trent Ratterree about the notion of the Sooners having to win big in their next two games — that voters need to be impressed by what in the BCS age is referred to as “style points” to get from fifth in the Bowl Championship Series standings to the No. 2 spot, where they can play for another national title.
Routing Baylor on Saturday in Waco and then demolishing Iowa State next week in Norman — leaving only the season-ending trip to Stillwater on Dec. 3 — seems to be the best way to let voters know this OU team is as good as everyone thought in the preseason and that a midseason loss to Texas Tech was little more than a puzzling fluke.
Ratterree said he was bothered by the whole idea of having to crush your opponent to make incremental steps up the BCS ladder.
So I reminded him that that’s exactly what the 2008 Sooners did, when Ratterree was a redshirt freshman. I said if Sam Bradford, Jermaine Gresham, DeMarco Murray, Chris Brown, Juaquin Iglesias, Jon Cooper and that group hadn’t scored 60-plus in five straight games to close the season, they probably wouldn’t have won a three-way South Division tiebreaker with Texas and Tech, probably wouldn’t have played Missouri in the Big 12 title game, and probably wouldn’t have played Florida for the national title.
That offense was so good, it kind of ruined it for anyone who decries style points as unnecessary, I suggested.
“That’s true,” Ratterree said. “That offense, there was nothing you could do. We’d put different people out there and we’d still score. I was in the Texas Tech game here — I actually got put into the game — I’m there blocking and Manny (Johnson) catches that one-handed touchdown, like a 70-yard touchdown, and I was like, ‘It’s impossible for us to not score.’
“I went in one play against Missouri in Kansas City. We scored on a 50-yard touchdown run. It’s 16 degrees and it’s too dry to snow, but it was trying. . . . Mossis (Madu), he jukes one guy and jumps over two more and goes and scores. We didn’t even block it that well.”
Even with Ryan Broyles and Dominique Whaley, this version of the Sooner offense wasn’t anywhere near that dynamic. Without those two playmakers, these Sooners have to find an alternate route.
“That was the nature of that offense,” Ratterree said. “I think this offense is pretty competitive. I think we never seem to give up; that’s our nature. It’s not as explosive. We just have a different nature.”
— John E. Hoover
Written by
John E. Hoover
Sports Columnist
