Oklahoma Sooners Football: Bummed out? Watch Barry Switzer’s Dunkin’ Donuts commercials from 2009

Well, last night sucked. So does today. In addition to finding a way to kill a lingering hangover, you’ll need to find a way to cope with the fact that the Oklahoma Sooners won’t be playing for a national championship next Monday. You’re mad at Mike Stoops and you’re sad that the career of Baker Mayfield had to end in heartbreaking fashion.

I covered some potential coping mechanisms following last season’s loss to Houston, but one of the best ways to take your mind off of something that angers or saddens you is to find a way to laugh. These old Dunkin’ Donuts commercials featuring legendary OU football coach Barry Switzer should do the trick.

Is it a little weird that I’m doing a post highlighting a set of commercials that aired nearly a decade ago? Sure, and it turns out that my predecessor, Matt Hofeld, actually wrote about them back when they first came out. However, I don’t remember seeing them when they first aired. 2009 went down during the middle of my time at OU and is therefore a bit hazy. Anyway, I’m experiencing these things right now and you’re going to experience them with me, dammit!

Some quick thoughts/observations:

• The guy who plays Jared (Donald) on Silicon Valley is in the first one. Barry Switzer has helped launch many a successful career, and we can include this guy — Zach Woods — on that list.
• Barry Switzer teaching (coaching) yoga was an incredibly hilarious idea on the part of whoever wrote these commercials. “Everybody do the cannonball!”.
• I googled ‘Latvian Gambit’. Here’s what I found.
• I love how they have him dressed. These look like shirts, pants and jackets that he (and pretty much every coach during his heyday) absolutely would have worn while barking at players back in the day, which adds to the comedic element of the whole thing.
• Barry is hilarious. Anyone who has come across him can tell you how funny he can be in person, but that doesn’t always translate to a scripted format like this. However, he definitely knocked it out of the park in these things.