Does Landry present a safe and comfortable feeling returning for a 4th year running the Sooner offense?  Sure, he has been the one behind center since Bradford went down way back in 2009.  Jones had also shown improvements every year as a starter and going into the 2011 season he had all the big wigs convinced this was his big breakout year being a preseason Heisman front runner and leading the #1 team in the AP polls.  The only problem was that Landry stopped improving this past year and was out performed by red-shirt freshman QB Blake Bell.  If anything, Landry appeared to regress from the 2010 season.  After his go to target in Ryan Broyles went down with an ACL tear, he looked absolutely clueless throwing only one TD pass the rest of the year.  His mobility rivals that of Jason White's after 3 knee surgeries, except Landry has had no such surgeries and his decision making and accuracy are not even in the same ballpark as the 2003 Heisman trophy winner.

But Blake Bell has only ran the Belldozer formation and that won't work running every down, it's only useful in goal line and short yardage situations, you say?  I say with a little tweaking to the offense that Mr. Bell can be the stud QB they recruited him to be.  Sure he can run the ball very well, that's already been proven.  But we have yet to really see him unleash a deep ball or given a chance to run a half way normal offense.  The only pass attempts we've seen from him have come from the goal line with barely any room to work.

Blake Bell has the potential to be a better version of Tim Tebow.  While Tebow may have honed the craft of scrambling and elusiveness, I have no doubt that Bell can throw the ball better and isn't too far behind on carrying the ball.  Give him the right circumstances and opportunity and there is no telling how far Blake Bell can take this young Oklahoma squad.  We've seen Landry for 3 straight years, we know what he brings to the table.  Are we so spoiled that the opportunity for a Big 12 championship and BCS bowl game is not enough?  Maybe I am.  Maybe the thought of having no real legitimate shot at a national championship with Landry under center eats away at me.  The unknown possibilities of Blake Bell excite me.  The known limitations of Landry do not.

Is it unreasonable to expect Blake Bell to come in and lead the Sooners to a national championship game in his first season as a starter?  Absolutely.  While it may take him a season to fully acclimate and adjust to the offense around him, I feel much better about his odds in 2013 leading the Sooners with a year experience behind him than I do with another so-so year with Landry and then Bell finally getting his first opportunity going into his red-shirt junior year.  Send Landry to the pros and let Bell have the reigns for the next 2-3 years.  That excites me for next year and beyond.  Landry may have a serviceable career in the NFL under the right circumstances backing up somewhere, but I feel his time at Oklahoma should come to a close.  Now it's just up Landry to decide the fate of Sooner football for the next few years.

Has Stoops lost this group? I think partly, yes. I think these players are upset with the coaching staff. Here's my first example.

Justin McCay – 5 star rivals recuit – WR – 6'3" – 215 lbs. He's never played one snap as a sooner. Played in the Army All-American game out of high school. One of the most highly touted receivers in the country. Yet, not good enough to beat out playing time from "Pan Hands Miller"? I don't buy that. I think it's something more than that. Broyles went down. Jaz Reynolds went down. Why didn't the coaching staff play McCay? I don't get it. Sure, Kameel Jackson is going to make a very solid receiver for OU, but why not try McCay. His redshirt year is over. No sense in shelving him for a whole year again. At least let us see what he's got. 

Torrea Peterson – 4 star rivals recruit – DT. Has OU ever been this thin up front? JaMarkus MacFarland and Stacy McGee did well. No doubt. But why didn't OU get to see this beast most thought he would be? OU has been notorious over the years for swapping in and out defensive lineman. This year, the Sooners ran MacFarland and McGee into the dirt. Hardly any substitutions were made up front. It was baffling. Now, rumors speculate he's leaving as well.

These are just two examples of players leaving. Rumors are swirling that there are up to 15 players applying for a transfer, which would be a mind-boggling number. Also, Ronnell Lewis is most likely going to the NFL. Personally, I think he's super raw, but kudos to him for being able to take care of his family now. Some have speculated that he's never really been happy at OU. He could have been a monster at linebacker, but the coaches insisted he play at defensive end. Not sure what that was all about. 

There can be a million reasons why this is happening. My guess, "OU is full of a team of characters, not a team OF character" – Chris B. Callahan.

Stoops and the staff has always prided themselves with being a team of prestige, graciousness, gratitude, integrity and loyalty. I think this year was different. It seemed at the first of the season, the players were dedicating this season to their fallen teammate, Austin Box. I don't know if that kind of went away, or after their first loss to Tech, it kind of killed that mojo. It did seem this year that it was all about the name on the back of the jersey instead of the name on the front. Maybe OU should go back to the season of 2005 where all the name were taken off the back of the jerseys. Maybe I'm over thinking and maybe I'm not giving enough credit to the staff. There was just something missing from this season. The swagger left the team after OU/Texas completely. A 55-17 drubbing of your arch rival and you tank? I don't get it. I hope to get a lot of responses to this. Maybe someone can enlighten me on what exactly is going on in Norman. I can guarantee you this. If there's no changes made with the staff, players and overall persona, Oklahoma will never get to number 8 in our lifetime. 

2005 was definitely a bad year. They lost 2 of the first 3 games including a home loss to TCU. They were pounded by Texas and a late season loss to Tech sealed a disappointing season. And yet, they won 6 of their last 7. They won their bowl game and finished strong with an 8-4 record. It was a bad year but not totally unexpected as we were breaking in a new quarterback and we had lost a lot of seniors. No one expected much from the Sooners. They started off at #7 but most people agreed it was a rebuilding year.

2009 is the only other season to rival 2012 in disappointment. In fact, it was similar in a number of ways. It started with very high expectations with Sam Bradford choosing to come back for one more year. The Sooners were ranked #3 in the pre-season. But the injuries bit them early and hurt. All-American TE Jermaine Gresham went down before the season started and Bradford went down in the first half of the first game. The Sooners went on to start the season at 3-3 including heartbreaking losses to BYU, Miami, and Texas by a combined FIVE points! A loss to Nebraska was painful and then came the OU nemesis, Texas Tech, to bite them again. This gave Stoops only his second 5 loss team during his tenure. The Sooners did finish by beating OSU and winning their bowl game but they only won one game on the road that year. This was a very disappointing season . . . without a doubt. But losing a quarterback that would go on to become the #1 overall pick in the NFL draft gave a plausible reason for this disappointment.

The 2012 season started with a pre-season ranking at #1 and talk by Stoops and the players that this was the year for National Title #8. The team was featured on ESPNU All-Access and they came across as tough and confident. Little did we know at that time that they talked a lot better than they played. The Sooners got off to a decent start winning 6 in a row with the high point being a dominating victory over Texas. Everyone could see that OU was not quite as dominant as had been expected. What was wrong? They were still winning right? And yet something was there. And then came the shocking loss to Tech . . . at home . . . snapping the longest home winning streak in the nation. This is the same Tech team that would not win another game the rest of the year, losing the next 5 in a row. This one game seemed to spell doom for both teams in an odd way. The Sooners bounced back with 2 impressive victories over a good K-State team and a decent A&M squad. Injuries once again hit the Sooners hard taking down their starting RB and arguably the best receiver in college football. The loss of Broyles probably had a bigger impact than any as Landry didn’t throw another TD pass the rest of the season. And then the defense let their guard down again against a Baylor team that had never beaten the Sooners before. Another embarrassing loss left the Sooners reeling. And then we know what happened in Stillwater. The worst loss by the Sooners in bedlam history since 1945.

If the Sooners win their bowl game against a very beatable Iowa team then they will end up 10-3 and salvage a little dignity. But they have to win the bowl game to most likely avoid ending up as the lowest ranked AP pre-season #1 in history. As it is, even with a win, they will most likely be the lowest ranked in 50 years.

Is this the worst year in the Stoop’s era? Probably not.

But there is good reason to call it the most disappointing.

The reason? Expectations.

By who? By Stoops himself. 

First off, while the season may not technically be over yet, it is already a huge failure.  From the preseason #1 ranking to the defensive "sharks" the players hyped themselves as, they are nothing more than fool's gold.  Try to digest this little nugget: the Sooners finished behind Baylor in the Big 12 standings.  Yes, the same Baylor team who had never beaten the Sooners in their entire history finished ahead of them in the Big 12.  Not only will they end the season no where near their preseason projections, but they will finish in a humbling 4th place in their own conference which they have dominated over the past decade and didn't even require a conference championship game for the first time this season.

The real kicker?  All the Sooners had to do was beat OSU and they would have lucked into yet another Big 12 title and right into the Fiesta bowl.  Instead, they get slaughtered in Stillwater and drop down to 4th place in the Big 12 and a comfortable spot in the ole Insight.com Bowl.  I half wish Stoops would decline the invite and just take us into the offseason. This season is over and a 100-0 win over Iowa isn't going to make it any better.

So where does the blunt of the blame lie?  Well it's hard to pinpoint one specific place to lay all the blame when so many contributing factors were at play.  Let's break it down piece by piece shall we.

The coaches.  The sooner coaching staff failed this team in so many ways that it's hard to fit them all in one paragraph.  They allowed this team to feel a sense of entitlement and never brought them back down to reality throughout the course of the season.  Venables has failed to make the necessary changes in the secondary, be it different schemes or players, and has allowed them to continually get burned over and over by the same plays.  Heupel has failed to really get a grasp on the play calling and never even attempted to give the run game a chance, especially in Stillwater.  Stoops has failed to do anything about repeated special teams issues and instead of recognizing his assistant coaches failing and doing something about it he has let them get away with murder.

The Secondary.  The defensive unit as whole has not be horrible this season, but there is one glaring weakness.  The secondary.  The secondary unit has cost the Sooners time and time again and after a certain point of blaming the coaches, you have to look at the players and hold them accountable.  What was once thought to be one of the strong points on the team has done a 180 and turned into one of the biggest weaknesses.  OSU has one of the most high powered offenses in the nation.  They are going to score points.  I get that.  What I don't get is how Texas Tech and Baylor were allowed to shred our secondary and then here we are the very last game of the regular season with the exact same problems.  That's just plain unacceptable.

The offense.  After going off and proclaiming that Mr. Jones, for all his faults, has stepped up for the Sooners in big games…he falls flat on his face.  Perhaps one of Landry Jones' worst games to date, he single handedly gave the opposition more points than he earned for his own team.  The wide receivers weren't much help either.  Landry had a pitiful game, but on the rare occasion he did make a good pass, it seemed like the ball was slipping right through the hands of every receiver on the field.  Clearly Ryan Broyles presence was missed, but even a healthy Broyles wouldn't have saved this broken group of receivers.  Going up against one of the worst defenses in not only the Big 12, but the entire nation, and the Sooners could manage only a banked in FG before half and a Belldozer TD during cleanup duty.  That is simply embarrassing.  We knew the defense was broken, but who knew the offense was broken as well?

All this leads to quite a bit of frustration in Sooner land and I, for one, am not nearly as optimistic for next years outlook as I was before.  Landry Jones has done some great things in his career at OU, but I pray every night that he chooses to enter the NFL draft next year.  For all his great qualities, he just doesn't have that "it" factor that gives you supreme confidence in him when the game is on the line.  Sure, he has delivered on a few occasions, but he's also flopped on numerous occasions too and that instability drives me insane.  

Bring on the Blake Bell era.  This is the University of Oklahoma, people.  Why are we still running a gimmicky high paced, spread offense and throwing the ball 100 times a game?  Let's get our big boys in the trenches and take a page from the almighty SEC and run the ball.  The spread has worked against other inferior Big 12 opponents, but it never works against great defenses.  It's time for a change of philosophy in Norman.  It's time to start recruiting defensive players first and focusing on establishing a solid run game.  Let Blake Bell and Dom Whaley pound the rock and let our superior athletes do what they were recruited to do.  Schools with lesser talent run the gimmicky spread offense because they have to.  Oklahoma does not have to.

It's time for a change, Bob.  You can no longer say "Well we won the Big 12."  You didn't win anything this year and you haven't done much more than beat up on the other Big 12 schools in the recent past either.  Get out of your hard headed ways and admit it's time for a change.  Change up the offense.  Change up the defense.  We need some change or we will be stuck with this same good but not great team every single year no matter how many 5 star recruits you bring in.  The Belldozer formation was creative and worked wonders.  We need more thinking outside the box like that if hope for #8 in the near future is to be had.  I am tired of the high preseason hype for the Sooners and the eventual let down at some point during every season.  Bob, I'm pleading with you, make some changes.