Happy Thursday Halloween, friends and fans!

Oklahoma Sooners QB Jalen Hurts was named one of 10 finalists for the 2019 Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award. The annual honor is given to the nation’s top senior or fourth-year quarterback who best exemplifies the prestige of the position on and off the field.

Since the award’s inception back in 1987, the only OU QB to receive the Unitas has been 2003 Heisman Trophy winner Jason White in 2004. If Hurts is able to continue making winning plays and leads the Sooners to a fifth straight Big 12 Championship, he’ll have as good of a chance as anybody to bring home this particular hardware.

Now for today’s spooky edition of Hot Links! Oklahoma’s trash talking needs some work, Kyler Murray is a chess man, Bama and FSU schedule a home-and-home and more!

OU Links

• From the sports analytics department over at FiveThirtyEight, Oklahoma currently has the fifth-best odds of making the College Football Playoff, and an 88% chance of making the CFP upon winning out. Not a slam dunk, but not a bad place to be.
• The Athletic’s Jason Kersey recently wrote a piece on why the lack of carries for OU’s running backs is not an anomaly but rather a trend. Before the Manhattan head scratcher, the formula was working relatively well, but it became a glaring issue under the spotlight of a major upset. To read this and other excellent content by Kersey and his counterparts, do yourself a solid and subscribe to The Athletic.
• According to some of the Kansas State players, the Sooners weren’t able to back up their trash talk during the game from last Saturday (obviously). Hey now, a heaping helping of humble pie can do everybody some good, writes Brayden Conover from SoonersWire.
• Kyler Murray’s natural athletic ability makes him different than most other quarterbacks in the NFL, but his mind is what truly makes him special. Growing up, the game of chess helped him sharpen the strategic sector of his thought processes, and provided him with a new lens in which to study the game of football.

• Speaking of K1, he’s is having a ball in his rookie season with the Arizona Cardinals. Check him out here as he dishes on how he likes to attack Cover 2.

• With the Cleveland Browns now sitting at 2-5, Baker Mayfield is under the biggest and brightest microscope of his young career. Recently he became upset with a reporter’s questions and soon thereafter walked away. The QB later explained himself on Twitter.

• Check out all the costumes and smiling faces from this year’s BOOmer Fest! I spy Ricky Bobby and Jackie Moon, which is more than cool. There are even more pics in the gallery behind the link.

• In case you missed it, take a look at my breakdown of the remaining CFP contenders and what ideally needs to happen to open up a clear path to the playoff for Oklahoma.

Around the Sports World

• Well, the Washington Nationals went out there and did the darn thing. Improbably, the road team won each of the seven games during the 2019 World Series, including the Nats’ 6-2 victory in Houston. Check out radio play-by-play man Charlie Slowes’ call during the final out. Awesome stuff.

• Golden State Warriors point guard and two-time MVP Steph Curry broke more than his fall with his left hand during Wednesday night’s loss to the Phoenix Suns. This might keep the All-Star out for quite some time.

• The Kansas City Royals have officially hired Mike Matheny as their next team manager. He’s the 17th full-time skipper in K.C. history.
• The Alabama Crimson Tide and Florida State Seminoles have scheduled a home-and-home for the 2025 and 2026 seasons. The ‘Noles will host the first meeting in Tallahassee, then the series will shift to the Bama side in Tuscaloosa for the following year.

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