Happy Hump Day, friends and fans!

On Tuesday night’s College Football Playoff rankings reveal show, ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit presented an argument that could leave a 12-1 Oklahoma Sooners team with a Big 12 Championship on the outside looking in compared to all other Power Five conference champs. Is it possible? Sure, but as OU Insider’s Joey Helmer writes, the biggest games and opportunities still await the Crimson & Cream.

Oregon and Utah both opened ahead of Oklahoma in the CFP top 25, but keep in mind that not only are both Pac-12 schools 8-1 compared to the Sooners’ 7-1, OU’s loss was also the most recent. The BYE week didn’t help in that regard either, so for now I have no problem with the order of the three. Wins matter, too, and so far there haven’t been any that overwhelm the committee.

This Saturday the script will flip. The Ducks and the Utes are both off, while the Sooners are back in action against a respected Iowa State squad. Win that, and Oklahoma has a slightly better argument to move up. If not, then the next week will provide an even better opportunity at (currently) No. 12 Baylor.

Now on to today’s Hot Links! The Cyclones are familiar with the challenges that await them in Norman, an OU student hits one from half-court, P.J. Fleck will continue to row the boat in ‘Sota and more!

OU Links

• Oklahoma’s true road game winning streak came to an end last month in the Little Apple, but another impressive streak still survives today — OU’s 17-game win streak in the month of November. Championship November has become a bit of a thing around these parts, and for good reason. Marquee wins include: at Baylor in 2015, the nail-biter against TCU in 2015, the beatdown in Stillwater to claim the 2015 Big 12 crown, the snowy 2016 victory in Morgantown, the 2017 shootout in Stillwater, the home victory over No. 8 TCU the following week and finally... Kyler Murray’s heroic effort in Morgantown this past season.
• After last night’s CFP rankings reveal, the Sooners have appeared in the poll a grand total of 29 out of 31 possible weeks since the era of the College Football Playoff began in 2014. Not bad.

• Iowa State’s Matt Campbell is quite familiar with Lincoln Riley and the Sooners after two hard-fought, competitive matchups in 2017 and 2018. In these head-to-head matchups, the road team won both times, and including this year, Oklahoma will have started a different Heisman caliber QB each time.
• An OU student won free tuition for a year upon making this heave from half-court during halftime of the Oklahoma men’s basketball season opener against UTSA. His nonchalant attitude after draining the shot was a dead giveaway that this guy knew it was money from the moment it left his fingertips.

• Don’t forget to check out the latest Blatant Homerism Podcast with Allen and The Skinny’s gambling picks for college football’s Week 11 slate. One of the season’s biggest games is going down in Tuscaloosa, and there are plenty of others that could shake up the landscape of the CFP race.

Around the Sports World

• The Oklahoma State men’s basketball program has landed the verbal commitment of five-star guard Cade Cunningham. The No. 2 overall prospect in the class of 2020 is a massive recruiting win for Mike Boynton and the Cowboys.
• On Tuesday it was announced that TCU Horned Frogs grad transfer QB Alex Delton has left the football program after losing his job to true freshman Max Duggan.
• The Minnesota Golden Gophers have extended head coach P.J. Fleck’s contract to 2026, with 65% guaranteed salary. Fleck’s name was rumored to be near the top of Florida State’s coaching search before news of this extension broke.

• Indiana Hoosiers starting QB Michael Penix Jr. has been ruled out for the remainder of the season after suffering a sternoclavicular injury earlier this week. The first-year signal caller helped IU jump out to a surprising 7-2 start before going down.
• There’s going to be a new No. 1 team in college basketball next week after Kentucky’s Tyrese Maxey effectively sunk Michigan State with this absurdly deep three in the final minute. Awesome stuff.

Stick to Sports!

• At the beginning of this decade, writers and the media made their predictions of what the gaming world would look like by 2020. With less than two months until the start of a new decade, how have those prognostications aged? Some were way too expectant, while others were fairly spot on.

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