I wrote this earlier today but you need to check out the new home page on okstate.com – first in the Big XII to 50 NCAA titles. You bet we’ll take those 34 wrestling and 9 golf and 3 combined in football, basketball, and baseball and call ourselves the UCLA of the midwest!

By the way, am I the only one who doesn’t understand how a human can cover 10,000 meters on foot in under 30 minutes?

Seriously though, I just started this blog a week ago and made “49 things” one of my pages – one for each of our national titles, and I already have to change it to “50 things” because German and co. can’t stop winning.

Also, can we black out the ‘l’ in ‘Oklahoma State’ to represent our 50th title like UCLA did with the ‘C’ when they won their hundreth?

Congratulations guys, here’s to our next 50.

Jenni Carlson on bedlam – “But let’s be honest — these offenses are going to score on these defenses. The offenses are too good, the defenses too average. Aliens are more likely to land on the 50-yard line at Boone Pickens Stadium than for one of these teams to score a shutout Saturday.” How is this woman employed by a credible news outlet?

Interesting ticket update from NewsOK – Remember back in August when we thought Holder was out of his mind for charging $125 a head for Bedlam (the most expensive face value ticket in college football this year)? $125 looks like a deal now.

Good stuff from Chatmon on OSUs 3 RBs – We were talking about next year and how it’s going to suck not to have Kendall yada yada yada. BUT, no offense to Kendall since he’s probably one of the 5-6 best RBs we’ve ever had at OSU (and that’s saying something), if Herschel Sims mans up and comes and we’re running him, Randle, and Smith out there for 60 minutes at a time? Well, I’m not real worried about that…

John Helsley reporting on Blackmon’s boot – Funniest line from Weeden about what was going through his head when he saw JB down on the goal line in Lawrence “I’d say it but I’d cuss.” Me too Brandon, me too.

Cory McCartney has Blackmon 4th on his Heisman ballot – I wonder how/if this would be different if we were undefeated. It probably wouldn’t change much but might vault JB over Kellen Moore. At the very least I just hope he gets to go to NYC, he deserves that.

Stewart Mandel has OSU in the Fiesta – “Moving Oklahoma State into my BCS lineup had a bizarre, unintended consequence: It knocked Texas A&M, the hottest team in the Big 12, all the way down to the Holiday Bowl. Here’s how. The Cotton can’t do an Aggies-Arkansas rematch, so in goes Oklahoma. The Alamo will want to grab Nebraska before it leaves for the Big Ten. And the Insight took too much flak for bypassing Missouri last year to do it again. However, if Arkansas beats LSU next week and goes to the BCS, you can scratch everything I just wrote and put A&M (assuming it beats Texas) in Dallas.”

Good stuff from Ubben on OSUs destiny – “Now, all that’s stands between the Cowboys and a first-ever trip to Dallas for the Big 12 Championship are the Sooners from the south. As it should be. For Oklahoma State, the only thing better than a trip to the title game would be denying its in-state rival its own chance. This time, the full-strength Cowboys host the Sooners in Stillwater, with America ready to see them tangle in primetime, College GameDay on campus and history to be made. It’s all there for them. We’ll find out on Saturday if the Cowboys can reach out and grab it.”

Oh, yeah we run cross-country too! - If you haven’t seen the new okstate.com home page, go look at it. First to 50.

I saw this tweet earlier and almost collapsed across my keyboard. Thankfully, the guy who posted it looks about as reliable as a Garrett Gilbert deep ball, but still…smoke and fire and such. I guess if we’ve learned anything this season we’ve learned not to believe stories about whether or not guys are going to play on Saturdays until (and even if) the stories are reported by reputable news outlets. See: Newton, Cam and Martinez, Taylor.

Who knows what Gundy is going to have the team wear on Saturday night but if I had my druthers I’d prefer to see orange tops with the black pants and black O-S-U on the helmets. I think that would look really sharp, especially in contrast to the hideousness going on across the field.

Best email I received all day: “I want to demoralize them. I want Gundy to look over at Dana, just like the coach in Remember the Titans does to Denzel, and say, ‘Dana, Leave no doubt!’”

Best email I sent all day: “I was just in one of our lawyer’s office and she was talking to me about all this stuff I need to write for insurance to put up on the web and about how the health reform law is going to affect our clients and how 2010 is different than 2011 and she’s just going on and on and all I can think is, ‘I hope we take the ball and go over the top to Blackmon on the first play as a big ‘screw you Venables, it is ON tonight’ message.’”

It worries me that everybody (including Vegas to the tune of -2 pts) is riding our horse into the Big XII Championship. OU is good, really good, and I know they’ve had trouble on the road and everything but I don’t really think that’s going to matter on Saturday. I hope everybody picks against us on Saturday. As my boy Nolo said “I hope Corso puts that stupid horse head on and we go out and just embarrass them on national television.” Here here.

Today I realized about a month ago I inadvertently asked for December 31 off. Foreshadowing perhaps?

Brandon Chatmon on the recruitment of Broyles and Blackmon – Yeah, throw Dez’s Sr. year in there and OSU could have had the most prolific trio of wideouts in college football history.

Matt Baker on OSU being a favorite this weekend – “But by embracing this season’s rare role as a Bedlam favorite and knocking off their rival for the first time under Gundy, the Cowboys can turn a great season into a historic one.”

John Klein running his mouth about OUs greatness again – “Besides the Big 12 South title (OSU has already clinched at least a tie and OU can get a piece of it by winning), there are a number of all-Big 12 spots likely up for grabs. And we’re talking important spots on the all-Big 12 team like quarterback, offensive player of the year (both teams have several possibilities) and even All-American votes to be claimed.” – Oh, offensive player of the year is still up for grabs? I was unaware…I would have thought the best player in college football had already locked that up.

Phenomenal time-lapse video of Yankee Stadium becoming a football field – The coolest part is when night time rolls in and the clouds fly past the stadium. Amazing and eerie.

Stewart Mandel of SI on Bedlam this weekend – “It’s hard to believe, but Oklahoma State’s 48-14 win over Kansas gave the 10th-ranked Cowboys (10-1) the first 10-win regular season in the 110-year history of the program. (Bowl wins gave the school three 10-2 records in the 1980s.) Now comes the big one. No. 14 Oklahoma (9-2), fresh off a 53-24 beatdown at Baylor, comes to Stillwater on Saturday for a winner-takes-the-Big-12-South edition of Beldam. Receivers Justin Blackmon (OSU) and Ryan Broyles (OU) will take center stage.”

Oh yeah, we’re playing basketball too – “Maybe Ford was right, although we’ll never know, as Oklahoma State romped to a big early lead and routed the Colonels 76-56 Sunday before an estimated 4,000 at Gallagher-Iba Arena. For a Cowboys squad that had scuffled through games against Houston Baptist and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, it was their most complete game yet.”

We were having a discussion earlier today about who OSU could beat on a neutral field of the teams ranked ahead of them (1-9). So I thought, let’s break this down Merril-Hodge-style. Here we go! (by the way this is categorized under “hail mary” because I’m kind of just throwing something up there and seeing what happens…)

1. Oregon – This would be interesting (obviously). Their offense is UNREAL and I think operates at a higher level than ours. BUT I just don’t think they have the playmakers we have. IF they get in trouble (and that’s a massive IF) they don’t have an “oh, crap, let’s just give it to this guy and see what happens” guy. We do. He wears number 81. Neither of us has a D, Kendall and LaMichael are a wash. They only put up 15 on the road against an atrocious Cal team. We’re a much different team than the one they rolled in Qualcomm two years ago, we’re a lot deeper and a lot more physical. I say neutral field, give me the Cowboys.

2. Auburn – Different story here. Again, no D on either side and Weeden would abuse their secondary. But they have Cam and we don’t have anyone (or anytwo or anythree) who can stop Cam. Auburn beats us on a neutral field.

Read

John Helsley giving my boy Joseph Randle some love – “Randle totaled just eight touches against the Jayhawks. Almost all were electrifying. Randle, becoming a major weapon in the offense, particularly in the passing game, turned four screen-play receptions into 58 yards.”

Jenni Carlson already looking ahead – “This is the biggest game in the program’s history. There have been other times when OSU has played with high stakes, but never have they been any loftier than next week. Take everything that’s in play for the Cowboys, add in the Bedlam rivalry, and you have a game like no other in program history.”

Great article by Chatmon on the KU game – Some epic quotes in this one about from Holgorsen, “I wouldn’t replace [Joseph Randle] with anybody” and Weeden, “I tell them all the time, run good routes and I’m going to throw it to you.” Oh, it’s that easy, huh?

Rivals on why Gundy should be coach of the year – Ya think? Take a rebuilding team centered around a QB who had played 2 quarters, no proven WRs, and a freshman-laden D to the brink of the Big XII title and a BCS game, duh. IMO it’s between him, Mark Dantonio, Chizik, Peterson, and Patterson.

Dave Sittler’s case that this could be the biggest Bedlam game ever – “newcomers to this great rivalry won’t be wrong if they contend that this OU-OSU showdown should be billed as a Bedlam match-up for the ages. All ages of sports fans will certainly long remember what should be a historic build up for the 7 p.m. contest.” Hope it’s not a 9-6 thriller like A&M and Nebraska played yesterday. Was Nebraska just prepping for the Big 10 a little early?

GREAT piece by Matt Hinton on OSUs success so far – “There was no option for a top-10 team that leads the nation in total offense, cruises past Texas in Austin and (as of today) matches the school record for wins in a season with Oklahoma still to come. Weeden has turned Holgorsen’s “Air Raid” inspired scheme into the most prolific passing attack in America. Blackmon is the best receiver in America. Hunter is the best running back in the Big 12, at least. The Sooners come into Stillwater next week with all the big season goals on the line: The Big 12 South, a ticket to the Big 12 Championship Game, a ticket to the BCS. As for the really big goal, though – building a stable contender that holds its ground even in supposed “down” years – Oklahoma State has never been closer than it is right now.”

Gary Bedore doing a nice job here for the Lawrence Journal-World – Quotes in here by Gundy about boy scouts and gumballs. Quite the comedian, that Gundy. Weeden also takes a pretty funny, good-natured shot at some of his lineman.

Tulsa World reporting there was a 4-hour delay on the flight to Kansas City – Awesome, just what we need before the biggest game of the year to date — an incident with our plane as we travel to/from Stillwater to face a North team in a winter game…we’ve already lived through that hell, let’s not go there again. Also, it’s mildly ironic that Boone, Bo Van Pelt, and Verplank paid for the flight so it would be a shorter trip and it ended up being a longer trip because of the delay…

Chatmon with 10 overlooked reasons why OSU is on the brink of 10 wins – My favorite is “Brandon Weeden’s shoulder injury” — because this phenom pitcher got drafted out of high school 9 years ago and jacked up his shoulder throwing sliders against 17-year old Dominican kids, OSU is about to have its best football season (wins-wise) of all time. It would also be a lot more funny if it wasn’t so true.

Jenni Carlson has run out of column ideas – Isn’t she just embarrassing herself at this point?

Doug Tucker on how OSU could win the South on Saturday – I don’t even want to think about this…

Ubben predicts a mauling in Lawrence today – “There’s no reason to think the Cowboys won’t post a big number in this one, and Oklahoma State’s terrifying trio of Justin Blackmon, Kendall Hunter and Brandon Weeden get it done to head to Bedlam with the Big 12 South on the line.”

I don’t even know what to say. It’s absurd, he’s been in the league for 10 games and he’s already this good. He is, according to Tony Dungy, the best wide receiver in the NFL.

The new logos (see below) are fine. They are what they are: hip, sharp, 21st century logos that everybody has but nobody really wants. They’re catchy but cliche. I will say they’re a 600,000% upgrade from the flames thing we threw out there like 8 years ago. Whose idea was that? It was like we hired a group of high middle school students from the Jenks district and said “hey, um, could you come up with a cool logo for the second largest university in our state?” and they just threw a bunch of clip art on the screen and out came the OSU flames logo. I can’t even bring myself to post a picture of it.

I’d also like to take a minute to talk about the old baseball logo that nobody really knows what to do with. Is it Oregon State’s logo? Is it our logo? Is it our baseball logo? Do we sell merchandise in the student book store that we bought from Nike that says “Ore. St.” on the tag but we just don’t care because “it sells well”? The answers, if you’re wondering, are yes, it used to be, it used to be, and yes…in that order. Either we need to stop or they need to stop or Phil Knight just needs to make them an Adidas school or something so we don’t have to have this awkward conversation every few months.

Sorry for the tangent. Back to the point of this post: the old logo. One of my 49 favorite things about Oklahoma State. First of all, what exactly was wrong with the logo that we needed to go away from it? Let’s do the math here — old logo in the 80s means best football teams we’ve ever seen even if we had to slip Hart Lee a couple hundy thou. New logo in the 90s means Nathan Simmons ramming his facemask into a mediocre line for 1.5 yards on every play and lots of punts. Then, inexplicably, we go to the aforementioned flames logo (thank God we never actually put it on the uniforms) and the Mad Hatter takes us to the semi-promised land. And now, finally, the new logo has reemerged on a national stage on the helmet of an All-American running back and Heisman trophy candidate wide receiver. Just like the 80s all over again! Except we don’t look nearly as cool. Dear Mr. Holder, please bring back the old logo, even if it’s only once a year. Thanks.

John Maher (as opposed to John Mayer) in the AA-Statesman on revenue lost in Austin because of how bad UT is – Last week we bought 6 tickets for $100…total. Texas is down in more ways than one. Good thing they got that massive ESPN contract just in time for Garrett Gilbert’s senior year!

John Helsley reports on Mike Gundy’s break dancing skills – Sadly, very sadly actually, there’s no video involved. If I had to choose 3 people involved with OSU who I would want to see break dance the list would go: 1. Bill Young 2. Gundy 3. Keiton Page.

According to Mike Brown, Bobby Reid is trying to launch his pro football career – Shouldn’t this dream have died like 7 times already? I was thinking about it yesterday too, isn’t Cam Newton what Bobby Reid should have been?

Berry Tramel on Pickens’ Plan –  Tramel with some kind words towards OSU, “Sure, Dana Holgorsen’s new-age offense is all the rage. But Brandon Weeden and Justin Blackmon and Kendall Hunter became Cowboys when Holgorsen was just a twinkle in Mike Gundy’s eye. Holgorsen is new-age, but Bill Young is old-school, and his defenders are playing solid.”

Jeff Latzke on Holgorsen’s genius – He quotes Weeden as saying “He’s the mad scientist, he makes adjustments between series better than anybody. He sees things from the sideline that a lot of coaches can’t see on the sideline.”

Kansas City Star predicting a rout tomorrow – “Key matchup: Oklahoma State wide receiver Justin Blackmon vs. Kansas’ cornerbacks.” Um…duh?