Notre Dame

Huge game today down in Norman, enormous actually. The famous Fighting Irish of Notre Dame travel to Oklahoma to take on our beloved Sooners. Notre Dame comes in with a terrific defense that has kept them undefeated, and currently in the top 5 in the country. More importantly, they're legitimate National Title contenders thanks to that unblemished record, and who they will have beaten if they run the table (read: us).

The Sooners, as we all know, played what now looks like the best team in the conference at a time when we hadn't quite come together. That one loss might keep this game from establishing a clear national title front runner (for us anyway) but it hasn't slowed the hype machine of this massive (and nearly unheard of) tilt between two non-conference teams both ranked in the top 10. Incidentally, that loss may also be the only thing keeping Berry Tramel from exhuming Bud Wilkinson's corpse, making love to it, and then writing another nostalgia piece about nothing relevant to today's football, and by "today's" I mean the kind with non-leather helmets and face-masks. (Aside: a game I've made for myself is to go to The Oklahoma Daily's website on my phone and try to guess, by the title, which of the OU articles are by Berry Tramel. It's remarkably easy. I'd say I have about a 96% success rate. The only ones that are tough are that "gray" zone of overlap when Jenni Carlson writes one of her bullshit off-the-field-pieces. Though if it's written about a player currently on the roster then you can almost always rule out Tramel.)

GameDay is in town, tickets are tough which might mean a raucous crowd (please, please, please), and there is even a movement to set up one of those "let's all organize the color of our t-shirts" deals that is so camera-friendly. Though I have my doubts that the even/odd section coloring will actually be pulled off with any real success, still I'm hopeful. In a semi-related story the odds are strongly in favor of the back of my jockey's becoming a "brown out" prior to kick-off. In short, I'm excited.

This is going to be an extremely tough one for us to win I think. If anyone hasn't been watching, our Q doesn't do well with pressure or elite defenses (speaking of brown outs). However, he's teased us the last 3 Saturdays. Also, he's been historically better at home where the pressure of a crowd isn't on him as well. What makes me nervous is Notre Dame has been damn good against the run this season. I think our ability up to now to run the ball, more than anything else, is why Lonnie has had this string of good games. If that gets taken away tonight (a very real possibility), it's going to be up to him to carry us (cash your tickets, brown out achieved). If there is a weak area of Notre Dame's defense, it's the secondary. Let's hope we can exploit it enough. The picks...!

Offense

Man oh man, what to do here. What I'd love to say is Damien Williams. I'd love to have confidence that he will break off some big gainers, and go for about 25 carries and 175 yards with some scores mixed in there. I just don't think it's going to happen. Honestly, I'm not sure anyone is going to have huge numbers today. I do think if someone does though, it's going to be in the passing game, for reasons I mentioned before (don't think you can jump straight to the picks section, reader(s), these are complete journalistic works with foreshadowing and other crap I vaguely remember from college). I'd love for Lonnie to air it out on some deep balls to Justin Brown, and I think we'll try it a couple of times. But, it's a big game against a big time defense. I think Lonnie reverts to his old ways some today (how I hope I'm wrong) and looks to a security blanket. Since Broyles went down last season, the closest thing to that is Kenny Fuckin' Shitbag Stills. I think Stills gets a lot of looks today and does enough with them to be my player of the game.

Defense

Our defense matching up against their offense is what makes me feel hopeful today. We may have a hard time moving the ball on them, no doubt. But I think they're going to struggle doing the same. Notre Dame is unbeaten but it's not been because they're putting up 50+ a game. OK, once they scored 50, against Navy. Anyway, our D has quietly been building steam, and has been pretty damn solid all year and particularly since we lost to K State. I like Tony Motherfuckin' Jefferson to have a huge day today. He's this year's MFer. He's a total badass. Plus, it just feels like the kind of day where Mike Stoops has some crazy wrinkle he'll break out and do some cool things with Tony. I don't know why, but I've got a good feeling about Tony today. Let's pencil him in.

Score

I've left little doubt that I think this is going to be low scoring. Though my normal inclination, when everyone in the world expects a defensive struggle, is to go the other way and pick high scoring, I just don't see it today. I think it's close all the way and I think the score is low. However, I think our defense will do just enough to keep us in it for a late score and victory. I like the Sooners at home, 14-10.

Crack the PBR's, wear your lucky underwear, whatever it takes. Let's roll some heads on these fancy gingers.

Boomer to the Motherfuckin' Sooner.