Whoops, looks like I jinxed the University of Oklahoma Sooners with my post about the end of the longest winning streak in college football history. The post appeared 50 years to the day after unranked Notre Dame upset Bud Wilkinson's Sooners on Nov. 16, 1957, after they'd won 47 straight games over four seasons.
Alas, the day after my post appeared, the Sooners' hopes for an eighth national championship were blown away like a old barn in a Great Plains twister when Texas Tech ambushed them in Lubbock 34-27. The fourth-ranked Sooners were 9-1 going into the game, and were certain to move up a notch after second-ranked Oregon ironically lost to Arizona, whose coach is the brother of Oklahoma's Bob Stoops.
The loss to unranked Texas Tech dropped the Sooners to number 10 in the latest BCS standings, ending all the talk about winning another national title, and even jeopardizing their chances of winning the Big 12 title since they'll have to beat arch-rival Oklahoma State next week, probably without star redshirt freshman quarterback Sam Bradford, who was knocked out of the Texas Tech game in the first quarter with a concussion.
The headlines in Sunday's Oklahoma newspapers said it all. "SLAMMED SHUT: Bradford goes down with injury and OU's title hopes go with him," declared The Oklahoman. "DREAMS DASHED: Sooners exit national championship with another loss at Texas Tech," echoed the Norman Transcript. "SAD SOONER SATURDAY," said the OU student newspaper.
Even if the Sooners beat OSU to win the Big 12's south division, they'll face a much tougher test in the title game in San Antonio on Dec. 1 against the winner of the north division, which will be either second-ranked Kansas or fourth-ranked Missouri.
OU can still make it to a BCS bowl by winning the Big 12 title or being selected as an at-large team. But that's little consolation for Sooner fans, whose mood on Monday morning matched that of the dense fog that shrouded Norman and the OU campus, where I'm teaching at the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication this fall. Maybe it was just my imagination, but the fog seemed heavier and lingered longer over the OU football stadium, just a block from my office.
Anyway, I'm heading back to D.C. for Thanksgiving before Coach Stoops or one of his 280-pound linemen finds out I'm the guy who jinxed his team.