STILLWATER – It was a pretty quiet day at the Sherman Smith Training Center. Head coach Mike Gundy did not even go up to his coaching perch high above the fields for a view as he stayed on the field and watched both the offense and the defense walk through different situations. After the offense and defense went through their walk through then the veteran players went to the West End Zone and got ready for meetings and lifting. The newcomers on the squad stayed for some extended work with the coaching staff.
The schedule is clearer for the rest of the week as the team will get back to full practice on Wednesday and Thursday. A lighter day on Friday is likely, and then Saturday is a scheduled to be a day off. Sunday is scheduled as a scrimmage.
Monday the team will get back to a regular schedule like it will be in the season. Monday is a day off and they will work like a game week. That means the following Saturday will likely be the dress rehearsal walk through with officials and game uniforms including a game day warm-up.
That allowed me to leave Stillwater early and I decided to tune into the Southeastern Conference version of “Tokyo Rose” or “Axis Sally”. Yes, I listened to the Paul Finebaum Show. It wasn’t long before a caller phoned in and got Finebaum talking about Texas and Oklahoma, how long he thought it would be before they got to the SEC, and what it would take.
ESPN
Paul Finebaum
This is the same Finebaum that thought immediately after the news broke on Texas and Oklahoma that the other eight schools in the Big 12 were dead. He still thinks the Big 12 will go belly up, but he’s not thinking each of the schools will go with it. He also has Texas and Oklahoma being in the SEC sooner rather than later.
“I don’t think it is going to be (20) 25. I also don’t think there is an easy answer for that right now because there is so much noise going on because of the rather narrowmindedness of Bob Bowlsby and his acolytes,” Finebaum started on a little soliloquy. “Nothing is going to get accomplished in the next couple of months and I think the dust will settle and everyone will realize that the SEC did not hijack college football. In essence, Oklahoma and Texas wanted to leave because their league had very little value any longer. Once things get settled down, we’ll get a little closer to moving this train down the tracks.”
As Finebaum continued, you could tell his friends at the SEC in Birmingham, Ala. had told him that things needed to settle down or Bowlsby might actually contact a lawyer and file a suit against Greg Sankey.
“I don’t think the SEC can do anything right now. I think the Big 12 is going to figure out are you going to be a second tier conference? Are you going to try to align with someone like the AAC, or are you going to go out of business? I think Oklahoma and Texas are hoping maybe they just dissolve the whole thing and let everyone run for … Right now, everyone is putting up a good fight, but when you’re Oklahoma State and you’re Iowa State and you look around see you are about to be de-valued by half, you ask yourself are we going to stick around or find shelter elsewhere?”
Finebaum feels Oklahoma State and Iowa State are two schools that will land with a place at the table in Power Five or major college football. I’ve heard TCU is on his list as well.
“I just don’t see… The Big 12 until a couple of weeks ago was a really viable conference and what is its’ path forward. I don’t think all of this realignment is over yet. I think everyone is trying to calm down because Bowlsby made these claims against ESPN and all the other claims. At some point all of these people will be together, pretty soon in fact. I think there will be some commonality. I think what Texas and Oklahoma have to figure out is how much do they want to get out of the Big 12 right now. I’m sure they are hoping the price goes down.”
Another note from the Finebaum Show as one caller said he knew that the Oklahoma Legislature let Oklahoma go without a fight because Oklahoma State gets state money to help fund their athletic department and the senators and representatives were worried that they might have to subsidize two athletic programs.
I’ve got news for that concerned Oklahoman caller. Oklahoma State athletics hasn’t received state money for their athletic department since the Iba days. That came from a high-level Oklahoma State athletic department employee. I checked to make sure. Some of this stuff is amazing.
