What’s up, my good people?

When the Big 12 Championship Game was reinstituted for the 2017 season, the guarantee of a rematch was unavoidable given the conference’s round-robin schedule. We saw how that affected the slate. Bedlam was moved up from Thanksgiving weekend to the beginning of November. That appeared to be an effort to avoid an immediate rematch, but now it seems the philosophy behind that thinking has flipped.

Since there’s absolutely no way around a rematch in the title game, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to try and predict who the participants will be in a given year. If anything, an immediate rematch has its pros as well as it cons, so that’s a wash as far as reasonings go.

As of right now, it appears the top four teams in the league are the Oklahoma Sooners, Oklahoma State Cowboys, West Virginia Mountaineers and TCU Horned Frogs. On the last weekend of the regular season, OU plays WVU, and OSU plays TCU. The chances of an immediate rematch are there, but the league is no longer concerned with trying to avoid that.

Now let’s dive into some Hot Links! Alabama would be a two-touchdown favorite over Oklahoma if such a game were played today, OU-Texas is set for yet another morning kick, Texas is gearing up for some substantial stadium upgrades and more!

OU Links

• Lincoln Riley proves once again he’s dripping with sauce so hot you’re going to need a glass of milk.

• Through the Golden Nugget Sportsbook in Vegas, you can place a bet on the national championship game right now. Of course, you’ll be refunded if the matchup you bet on doesn’t come to fruition, but if it does, you could be way ahead of the game. Currently, if Alabama made the title game, they’d be a double-digit favorite over everybody, including Oklahoma at -14.5.
• From the mid-80s to the early 90s, linebackers coach Tim Kish coached at Army, so he understands the kind of players the Sooners are up against this weekend. Those guys from West Point don’t mess around.
• Reminder: class of 2019 four-star wing Jalen Hill out of Las Vegas will announce his verbal commitment this afternoon. Oklahoma is believed to be the favorite, but in-state UNLV is holding out hope to land the talented hoops star.

• Speaking of Sooner basketball, the season tips off in 50 days. Nobody is quite sure what to expect with so many new faces on the team, but anything better than the second half of last season would be a wonderful sight. Having said that, this could be a long season.

• In case you missed it, Oklahoma will play Texas at 11 a.m. (not a shock), and the game will be televised on FOX. Enjoy these next two kickoff times while you can, because this one starts bright and early. I guess we’re used to it — particularly with this one.
• Also, make sure you check out the latest episode of Oklahoma Breakdown. In this week’s podcast, Jack Shields and Matt Ravis preview the Army game with the Norman Transcript’s Tyler Palmateer and Against All Enemies writer Mitchell Northam. AAE is SB Nation’s blog covering the service academies, so you’ll definitely want to listen in on his intel. And just a heads-up, there’s NSFW language on the pod (but not too much).

Around the Sports World

• DKR is getting an upgrade to its south side. In a sport where keeping up with the Joneses often means going all-out on things like stadium and facility upgrades, these are the kinds of things that must be done. Still, I can’t help but wonder if that new concourse will help Texas win more than six games per year?

• Les Miles has been out of coaching for a little while, so what’s he been doing ever since? He’s a big time Hollywood actor now, of course. All kidding aside, he’s actually been dabbling in acting, and not just in funny commercial spots. No, like... actual full-length films.
• Speaking of the cinema, LeBron James is linking up with Ryan Coogler, the director of Marvel’s Black Panther, to make Space Jam 2. Now that intro song from the first movie is stuck in my head, and I’m okay with that.

• Following the devastating amounts of rain and high winds brought by Hurricane Florence last week, the North Carolina Tar Heels football team is donating money and resources towards hurricane relief efforts.
• Georgia State and Georgia Southern is a hotly-contested in-state Group of Five rivalry that hardly anybody knows about. Recently, State launched a promotion that gave away free tickets to home games, but when Southern fans caught wind of this, they took advantage of the deal and took a bunch of tickets for the annual rivalry game. After exploiting the system, State officials nixed the promo and voided any tickets that were acquired this way.
• I’m not sure if that hit him where I think it hit him, but judging by his immediate reaction, I suspect that it hit him where I think it hit him.

Stick to Sports!

• Today is National Pepperoni Pizza Day, and I’ll be honest, I didn’t even know this was a thing, but at the same time I can’t say I’m surprised. Anyways, on this glorious holiday, many popular and even some not-so-widespread pizza places have some excellent deals going on to celebrate all things pepperoni. Check out this list of many pizza place deals that you could hit up today to get your pep on.

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