The B12 (XII) Forum, home of the 'Front Porch, y'all' at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

I'm feeling pretty optimistic about OU sports for 2022.

I believe that Brent Venables as HFC is an upgrade from Lincoln Riley.  The Sooners should play tougher and more disciplined football.  I think that Venables has assembled a good staff that can recruit as well as it can coach.  It's a good mix of young and old, black and white, OU alums and new blood.  I think Venables is the right guy to get the program prepared for SEC-style football.  If I had to pick a favorite for the 2022 Big 12 championship, it would be OU.  That's not to say that I'd take OU vs. the field, but the Sooners are my totally objective favorite.

In men's hoops, Porter Moser has a relatively small and not greatly talented team.  But he's got them playing well, competing hard, and I see sunlit uplands lying ahead for the program.

In women's hoops, I think that Jennie Baranczyk is a great hire.  She has a team mostly of Sherri Coale's recruits, and she has them leading the conference race after yesterdays ugly-game win over Texas in Norman.

Men's and women's gymnastics should be right up there competing for NCs again.

Ryan Hybl has the golf program going well.

Then there is Patty Gasso's softball program.  It's been the best in the country over the past 10 years and is the consensus #1 going into this season.  And she's getting a bright, shiny new stadium.  In college softball, she is the equivalent of Nick Saban, but with a pleasant personality.

Disappointments: Baseball and Wrestling. OU has been very good in these two sports in the past, and there's no compelling reason that they can't be good again.  But they aren't.  Money, facilities, coaches, results--failure on all fronts.

Heh!

You horns have a one-track mind on that subject.

I may be hijacking my own thread here, but I saw this posted on an OU board.  If the poster is legit, it's something.

It's addressed to our former head coach, now known affectionately as Muleshoe.

Longhorn Republic
@LonghornPod
1h
You left OU 17 days before Early Signing Day, flipped a large number of committed players, and took the star transfer QB with you — after he waited damn near a month to announce — just a day before NSD.

Could you be any more of a disingenuous hack?

Most new coaches come into a dumpster fire, that is a bit different this past year, but usually a coach is fired because his program is bad.

LSU, Florida, OU, and USC are not really of that ilk, but Tennessee was for example.

I wonder what will happen once OU and UT get into the SEC.  The landscape could be different then, maybe, but the shot at winning the conference inherently goes down.

This may be naive of me to say and think, but NIL makes cheating the old fashioned way obsolete and stupid. Plenty of legal ways to get money into the hands of your players. And everybody is doing it, and those that aren’t will not be involved in the upcoming super league. 

I wonder if NIL will cause players to stick around and not go to the NFL early

I know the Texas Legislature actually wrote NIL legislation. It's extremely permissive. Anyone still using their old "under the table" networks is behind the times. It's far easier and more lucrative, at least in Texas, to do it the legal way. I believe the coaches making unprompted statements on the subject "doth protest too much", but I got no proof.
OU's big advantage in the Big 12 was always continuity. Ever since the mid 90's, when Stoops and Leach pieced together the pass-first dynamic, there's always been surety with the Sooners. Coaches and players would move, but the program was always assured that the man in charge would keep the talent going. 
That's not true right now. The head coach is gone, and both starting QBs are gone. A new staff is running the show (one hurriedly pieced together after all the other programs had their pick). Other starters left the program in their wake. 
Maybe this will work out. No reason to assume it won't. However, it represents a gross departure at a critical time for an OU program that never had doubts for 25 years.