Oklahoma Sooners vs. Texas Longhorns - The Big 12 Championship

It's the Big 12's wet dream cum nightmare; The conference's bell cow flagship schools playing on the national stage for a conference championship and yet, if Oklahoma loses, the Big 12 is shut out of the playoffs. Let's worry about that later and enjoy this for what it is. A second helping of the best rivalry in the conference, a chance at revenge for OU and a closing argument for Kyler Murray's Heisman bid.

This one will be a slug fest for the ages. Get your pepto, squishy balls, sniffing glue, booze or whatever you need. The Longhorns have nothing to lose and would love nothing more than to play spoiler to their arch rivals playoff hopes. The Sooners have to win and even that may not be enough to get them into the playoffs. They need to look good doing it. This, coupled with their historically awful defense, means the Sooner offense is going to be petal to the metal all day. There is no such thing as scoring too many points.

OFFENSE

I envision a greedy and aggressive Texas defense getting abused by misdirection and quick strikes. Murray will pick his spots to make some big gains. Marquise Brown might get 200 yards again.

The key, as always, is to not fumble the football. Murray might throw a pick and you have to live with that. But the fumbles are killers.

If Kennedy Brooks is remotely close to his usual self that bodes well for the Sooners. If Lee Morris and/or CeeDee Lamb are prominently involved that bodes well for the Sooners.

For OPOG I'm picking Kyler Murray the rest of the way. I think he deserves the Heisman. Nobody means more to their team. No team playing today needs their best player to perform more than the Sooners need him.

DEFENSE

We live in a world where a defense can give up 700 yards and still say it deserves much credit for a victory. Such was the case for this beleaguered unit last week against West Virginia. Texas has a few impact players on offense but are nowhere near as dynamic as WV.

The key to me is rocking Sam Ehlinger's world. So help me God if he has repeated success with that stupid draw play the Longhorns torched us on in October.  I'd love to see the Sooners commit to shadowing Ehlinger  and blitzing early and often from different positions all the time. Take chances. If your defense is shit and sitting back is ineffective, then why not? Speaking of nothing to lose...

For DPOG I'm going Caleb Kelly. For some reason I believe Ruffin McNeill is on the same page as me and will have the LB's shadowing Ehlinger and trying to light him up. He's as capable as any and frankly is due for some personal redemption.

THE SCORE

I like the Sooners here 56-49. It'll be two teams who hate each other slugging it out and the nation's best offense coming through yet again.

Boomer to the motherfuckin Sooner