Oklahoma Sooners Football Hot Links: Are the Sooners still College Football Playoff contenders?

OU Links:

• Oklahoma’s quest for the CFB Playoff is not completely over, but it got a whole lot tougher after the Iowa State loss. Bill Connelly projects which teams have the best chance of battling it out for the title in January.
• Was last week’s loss to Iowa State an anomaly? Vegas sort of thinks so. The Oklahoma Sooners are favored by 7.5 over Texas despite last week’s lackluster performance. If OU were to cover the spread, it would be its largest margin of victory in the series for OU since 2012.
• Yahoo Sports unanimously picked Baker Mayfield as the best quarterback of the first half of the season. When you look at virtually any measurable statistic, it’s hard to disagree.
• The outcome of Saturday’s Red River Shootout could hinge on OU’s ability to contain Texas wide receiver Collin Johnson. The Sooners have secondary has struggled mightily the last two games and will certainly have to be better this weekend.
• Oklahoma and Texas are trending in opposite directions ahead of the Red River Shootout. Texas has been firing on all cylinders after a slow start to the year while OU has not looked like CFB Playoff contenders in almost a month.

National Links:

• In case you haven’t been on Twitter in the last 48 hours, Florida announced that they will be sporting what are quite possible the worst uniforms of all-time against Texas A&M on Saturday. This was apparently the culmination of an 18-month design process. Our friends over at Good Bull Hunting took some guesses at what ideas got rejected in favor of this one.

• The Boston Red Sox have fired manager John Farrell following the team’s 3-1 series loss to the Houston Astros in the ALDS. I know at least one member of our staff who will have no shortage of hot takes on this decision...
• Finally, we have the most depressing sports story of the day. The US Men’s National Team failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup following a 2-1 loss to Trinidad and Tobago. There has been much frustration from fans regarding the USMNT’s lack of success in recent years, but this is a new low point. There is no shortage of blame to go around, but Kevin McCauley places most of it on poor coaching.

“STICK TO SPORTS!”

• Apparently an unsent text message counts as a valid will (at least according to an Australian court).
• A TON of Motown memorabilia — including over 600 original pressing 45’s and Berry Gordy’s personal piano - is currently up for auction.