Happy Monday, friends and fans!

Eric Bailey of the Tulsa World passed along the early line for the Oklahoma Sooners’ upcoming showdown against the Texas Longhorns, and according to BetOnline.ag, OU opened this week as a 10-point favorite over its Red River rival.

If that sounds like a lot, it is. Oklahoma has only covered the spread in three of the five games it has played this season, and OU-Texas has a recent history of the favorite having a tougher time than the experts predicts.

Sooners Wire’s Kegan Reneau broke down the Sooners’ last six October meetings with the Longhorns. Oklahoma went 0-6 in that stretch against the spread, and lost three of those games (‘13, ‘15, ‘18) outright.

If you’re the gambling type, or simply want to ground your expectations in the realm of reality, you’d be much better off planning for this one to be closer than the opening line suggests. In fact, betting on this particular rivalry game is usually a difficult task either way. That said, the 10-point spread will undoubtedly drop as the game inches closer, but even if it lands somewhere around seven or eight by kickoff, I’m going to expect a tighter margin and hope for a surprise.

Now onto this week’s Monday edition of Hot Links! Tom Herman once tried to sign Jalen Hurts as a Cougar, Kyler Murray wins his first NFL game, Washington cans Jay Gruden and more!

OU Links

• The Seed Sower is in full OU-Texas swing, and he’s not afraid to @ Sam Ehlinger about where he stands on throwing the horns down. Ehlinger of course, was notabley soft about the whole thing after UT’s 2018 loss to West Virginia.

• Check out this immaculate 8-bit Nintendo version of the Pride’s rendition of “Oklahoma!” that’ll make you wish you still had that lime green Game Boy from back in the day. If that tickles your fancy, you can download this tune through this SoundCloud link

• UPDATE: He has now added a version of “Boomer Sooner”.

• Alex Grinch has reshaped Oklahoma’s defense into a more productive group, but the greatest challenge of the season awaits in Dallas this weekend. The Norman Transcript’s Tyler Palmateer has more.
• Texas coach Tom Herman once recruited Jalen Hurts out of high school back when he was at Houston. Now both of them are in completely different spots than they were all those years ago. College football sure has a funny way of reuniting old faces in new places.
• Toby Rowland, the voice of OU Football, brings you the way-too-early forecast for the big one in Big D! Looks like absolutely perfect football weather to me, and I think I speak for everyone when I say I can hardly wait to watch this one kick off.

• Oklahoma’s game against West Virginia on Oct. 19 is officially scheduled for an 11 a.m. CT kickoff on FOX. It’ll be the fourth consecutive morning start for the Sooners. I suppose the Big 12 doesn’t care if its most attention-grabbing program receives a primetime slot or not.

• Kyler Murray logged the first regular season win of his NFL career on Sunday as he led the Arizona Cardinals to victory over the Cincinnati Bengals. He’s starting to do things on offense that he did with the Sooners, and that’s scary for the rest of the league.

• Former Oklahoma Softball pitching great Keilani Ricketts has been chosen as an alternate on the 2020 USA Softball Women’s Olympic roster. While at OU, Ricketts was named a four-time All-American, national player of the year, and won a national championship. Boomer!

• In other former Sooner news, Baltimore Ravens safety Tony Jefferson suffered a torn ACL against the Pittsburgh Steelers and will miss the remainder of the 2019 season.

Around the Sports World

• The Washington Redskins have fired head coach Jay Gruden after an 0-5 start to the 2019 season. Since Gruden’s tenure began in 2014, the D.C. franchise has gone 35-49-1 with one postseason appearance in 2015. Bill Callahan will now be elevated to head coach on an interim basis.
• Kansas Jayhawks offensive coordinator Les Koenning has been fired, and offensive analyst Brent Dearmon has been promoted to OC in his place.
• The Toronto Raptors have signed PG Kyle Lowry to a one-year, $31 million contract extension. That’s a handsome payment, but it’s been well-earned by the five-time NBA All-Star.

• Blast from the past Scoops Callahan strikes again following the Green Bay Packers’ win over the Dallas Cowboys. Aaron Rodgers has no idea what the hell he’s talking about, and quite frankly, neither do I.

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