Matt and Ben

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Good Luck Tonight Sooners!

Human Element is the Bug...

Article from the Fort Worth Star Telegram...

Human Element is the Bug in the BCS System

In the eternal struggle of man versus machine, man failed miserably Sunday. That's not to say that the right team won't be playing in the Big 12 Championship Game on Saturday. The Oklahoma Sooners argued their case eloquently.

They said nothing.

No rented planes circling over Austin. No phone-ins from Bob Stoops in the middle of Mack Brown's Thanksgiving dinner. Just football. Just a 61-41 victory in hostile environs over a No.11-ranked archrival.

The Sooners' decisive win Saturday over Oklahoma State was as significant a road victory as any team in the Big 12 Conference achieved this season.

There's your tiebreaker.

As myopic Texas fans - and their head coach - conveniently decline to acknowledge, there was a three-way knot, not a two-team tie, atop the Big12 South standings.

Why should a single game played Oct. 11 decide everything? Why not a gameplayed Nov. 1?

Yet, over and over again over the past two weeks, Brown had filibustered for voters not to forget his Texas team's October victory over the Sooners.

Never mind, he seemed to say, that just one week ago Oklahoma took aparta then-undefeated, No. 2-ranked Texas Tech team by 44 points - the sameTech team that beat Texas on Nov. 1.

Never mind that the Sooners' season ledger included nonconference victories over TCU and BCS-bowl-bound Cincinnati.

Longhorns fans countered by trumpeting their Oct. 18 - what is it about October? - win over the Missouri Tigers.

Oh, right. The team that Kansas beat.

In the end, what could Brown have done for me?

He could have just shut up and allowed his team's memorable 11-1 season do the talking for all of Longhorns, Inc.

Instead, Brown began to show up on TV more than that Geico lizard. The poor-taste clincher came Saturday night when he agreed to be interviewed in the middle of the Oklahoma-Oklahoma State telecast.

Why didn't Oklahoma do that, Stoops was asked Sunday?

"I was asked to be on the Texas game Thursday," the OU coach said, "and I said no. I didn't want to do it. I didn't think it was right."

Stay classy, Austin, Stoops was saying, without mentioning any names.

But as Stoops and the Sooners saw, Brown's politicking for his teamworked. The Longhorns gained ground in both of the human polls.

Go figure. Texas, playing at home, defeated a vastly disappointing TexasA&M team 49-9 in a game that Colt McCoy was still quarterbacking in thefourth quarter.

Oklahoma, meanwhile, playing on the road, knocked off the No. 11 team in the nation - and yet lost ground in the human polls to the Texas poor-uscampaign.

"It was the campaigning. I don't think there's any question," said JerryPalm, whose CollegeBCS.com Web site is the bible for all things BCS.

For all the whining, in other words, about computers and formulas and BCSrules, the human element continues to be the bug in the equation. The same thing happened in 2004 when writers and coaches, after Brown again had politicked all week, leapfrogged Texas over Cal in the final poll and sentthe Longhorns to the Rose Bowl.

Everyone seems to complain about the so-called "BCS computers," but as Stoops said, "They don't have agendas. They don't have loyalties. They don't have opinions. They don't have all the bias that everyone else does.

"And if you say no one else does, I don't think you're being truthful."

When the numbers were finally added, Stoops thinks that the strength ofOklahoma's schedule likely was the determining factor that will send his team to Kansas City next weekend.

It's probably not going to make TCU feel any better, but the Horned Frogsmight well have sent the Sooners to the national championship game.

"For people to continue to want to play out-of-conference games that people want to watch and go to and be excited about," Stoops said, "therehas to be an incentive. Otherwise, just schedule four wins and move on downthe road. You could almost schedule a bowl game by that."

If Texas wants to blame anyone today, it needs to blame the guy that scheduled Florida Atlantic, UTEP, Arkansas and Rice. Similar cream-puffscheduling cost undefeated Auburn a title game shot in 2004.

This time, fortunately, the six BCS formula computers cut through the rhetoric.

They judged the football, not the filibuster. And Oklahoma came out the winner in more ways than one.

GIL LeBRETON

Christmas Bells are Ringing

Little bell ringers, they are everywhere!

It seems, this time of year, one cannot walk into a retail store without being accosted by these people. You know the ones, those delightful people who scowl at you and say “Merry Christmas!” or “Happy Holidays!” under their breath if you fail to drop your spare coins or dollars into their collection plate. Yet never do these ringers tell you of the Salvation Army blatant anti-gay and anti-lesbian views. They openly discriminate against gay and lesbian people. They have given large donations to political action groups who oppose gay and lesbian rights and marriage. So much for using the funds they collect to help people. They are giving money to support political activities. I wonder how many people they could have fed or clothed with the money they donated to various political groups? No, they are not helping people they are in fact hurting part of our society. I won’t go into all the details here, it’s very easy to find an evenings worth of reading by just going to google and typing in “Salvation Army gay”. You will find a plethora of pages to occupy your time.

Soulforce has place this flyer on their website. Consider printing these out and dropping them into they Salvation Army collection plates this season.

Thankful

Well, it’s that time of year again. The holidays are here. As I sit here at my keyboard typing, partially because it’s time – 8 months it’s overdue and partially because I’m tired of being bitched at for not updating my blog, I am reminded how truly lucky we are. Even as the economy is in a mess, we are still the luckiest people in the world. Especially us. By us I mean my family. My family extends far beyond the people to whom I am biologically related to. It is of course, my parents, brother and his family. But equally important are those here in OKC that share relationships just as profound. Each of you, please take a few minutes to think of all the things your have in your lives to be thankful for. Jobs, food, shelter, loved ones. Please, as well, think of those here as well as elsewhere in the world who are unemployed, hungry, on the streets and alone. I can’t even begin to list all the important people in my life, but you all know who you are. I love you all and you are what I am most thankful for this season!

Randy Pausch Lecture: Really Acheiving Your Childhood Dreams

Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch, who is dying from pancreatic cancer, gave his last lecture at the university Sept. 18, 2007.

I realize it is a bit lengthy at 76 minutes, but PLEASE take the time to watch it. It will be time well spent!




If you can't spare and hour for the entire lecture, here is a link to a shorter version.

2007 In Review

Wow! What a year 2007 was! It seemed to fly by in a blur! For me 2007 was a year of extremes. Lots of highs and lots of lows. Lots of good times, lots of bad times. But, all in all, I can't say it was a bad year. 2007 saw the closing of some doors as well as the opening of others. Chapters ended while new ones began.

Looking back, here are a few things from 2007:

• Oklahoma turned 100 years old.
  
• Miss Oklahoma won Miss America.
  
• T. R. Knight, David Hyde Pierce, Jodie Foster, Neil Patrick Harris and Lance Bass all came out in 2007.
  
• We had a crazy ice storm knocking out power to over 600,000 people!
  
• Bruce's son started college.
  
• Kim's hair finally grew into a mullet.
  
• Lucas got a job, oh, hell, who am I kidding...Lucas didn't get a job.
  
• Heath went off the deep end and walked out of his job.
  
• I got a new roommate, then another and a little dog too.
• Bruce reopened the 4th street nano-brewery.
  
• Heath started a nano-brewery.
  
• The Phoenix Rising got renamed The Bird.
  
• Jenny got her Cole back.
  
• Charles self-diagnosed himself and consequently he couldn't eat wheat for 8 months...only to find out he had a bacterial infection, treatable with ten days of antibiotics.
  
• Mack caught on fire and it took TWO firemen to put him out.
  
• Timmy was reported as a missing person in Japan - by his mother.
  
• Lucas gave birth to http://www.hypeful.com/.
  
• People got up from The Park and walked across the street to The Bird.
  
• Angles was sold and reopened....it's still dead.
  
• The Hollywood Hotel was closed and torn down, there are just as many people there now as when it was open.

So, here's to 2007 and looking forward to 2008!!