Relax, take a deep breath and tell yourself that the Big 12 Championship is still up for grabs and Oklahoma is still sitting pretty. Coming into the season most logical Sooner fans saw an 11-1 or 10-2 finish to the regular season. Then came the blowout wins and we all got caught up in the hype.
Oklahoma's loss to Colorado was a reality check as to the current state of Sooner football. They are young, talented and have a lot of room to improve. The two things that killed Oklahoma today were fundamentals and attitude. Dumb penalties, careless mistakes with the football and breakdowns in blocking and in the secondary cost the Sooners a conference road game.
Not to take away from Colorado's grittiness or the victory that they clearly earned over Oklahoma but the Sooners gave this game away. As young teams are prone to do the Sooners set the cruise control thinking that they could coast to another victory after Allen Patrick's third quarter touchdown put them up 24-7. Mentally the Sooners were not in this game during the first and fourth quarters and it resulted in dropped passes, blocking breakdowns and a crucial muffed punt that set the Buffaloes up for the game tying touchdown.
Sam Bradford finally came back down to earth and looked like a freshman today but he did it with some help. Joe Jon Finley, Juaquin Iglesias and DeMarco Murray all dropped passes. Iglesias also made a lazy effort at catching a pass resulting in a tip and Bradford's first pick.
A road loss in the Big 12 is acceptable but for a team the caliber of Oklahoma to lose a game that they should have won because of lethargic play is unbelievable. Attitude is everything and while Sooners showed no grit or nastiness Colorado did and it paid off huge for them.
So where do we go from here? Like I said earlier the Big 12 is still up for grabs. If the Sooners take care of business from here out the'll be in San Antonio on the first Saturday in December. To do that they must identify their mistakes and improve on them beginning next Saturday with Texas who was exposed at home against Kansas State.
Call me crazy. Call me paranoid. Call me anything you want but even with OU and Texas going down I refuse to believe that the north is going to win the conference because the south just has better talent. What that means is that the race is on, between Oklahoma and Texas, to improve before Saturday and the loser is going to be 0-2 in conference.