Tramel's ScissorTales: Chad Weiberg keeps a calm hand on OSU amid conference realignment
Berry TramelWith much revelry, Chad Weiberg became OSU’s athletic director on July 1. And 20 days later, collegiate sports were turned upside down.
On July 21, the Houston Chronicle reported that OU and Texas were considering joining the Southeastern Conference, and within a few days, the deed was done. The Big 12 seemed imperiled.
Welcome to the job, Weiberg and OSU president Kayse Shrum, who also ascended to her post on July 1.
How crazy in Stillwater were those first few days of Big 12 uncertainty?
“Probably as you would imagine,” Weiberg said this week. “Something you’re not counting on doing. I didn’t find a file left over to flip through.”
Things have settled down. The Big 12 seems on the verge of surviving. Four schools – Brigham Young, Cincinnati, Houston and Central Florida – reportedly will receive invitations to the conference.
Weiberg is staying mum on conference realignment but was willing to chat about OSU’s mentality now and in the early days of conference anxiety.
“Early on, there was a lot of uncertainty,” Weiberg said. “Probably some worry.”
But Weiberg said the byproduct from fans has been resolve, “people who say we’ll come together, a make-this-work mentality.
“I’ve been trying to communicate to our fan base, what we needed them to do is what they’ve been doing.”
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Weiberg and Shrum are yearlings working together. Whatever the outcome, the trial by fire likely has quick-cemented a working relationship that should benefit the university for years to come.
“It’s been good to work with Kayse as I have,” Weiberg said. “We’ve shared a lot of time together. She’s been great to deal with. I’ve probably spent more time as a new AD with my president than some spend in a year.” Weiberg and Shrum have shared a message: control the things you can control.
"We are in a good position, because we’ve done things right over the last 15 years,” Weiberg said of the OSU athletic department, which has built tremendous facilities without taking on doubt.
“What will happen? Can’t predict. But if we continuing doing the things we can control, doing the right things, we’ll find that opportunity.”
Clearly, OSU’s biggest concerns are financial.
“We have to be really smart,” Weiberg said. “But we have been. We’re confident in our abilities to continue to compete. We have to work to find what that looks like, what that will be.
“Instead of cutting, find other sources of growing the revenue and continue to do the things we need to stay competitive.”
OSU’s coaches, Weiberg said, haven’t panicked. They’ve been supportive of the new regime and whatever path lies ahead. That’s the best mentality in a college sports world turned upside down.
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Tramel's Week 2 college football predictions
Welcome to college football’s I-AA Week.
There are 64 schools in the Power 5 Conferences. Twenty of those 64 teams play lower-division opponents this week.
That would be bad enough, if such a rash was only one week a year. But the season opened last week with 13 such games.
That’s 33 games in two weeks, Power 5 vs. Division I-AA.
Such a matchup came to our state last week with OSU-Missouri State. Now it comes again, with OU-Western Carolina.
Many coaches and administrators, led by Nick Saban, defend the scheduling by pointing out how it props up some of these programs financially. Division I-AA teams rarely get a $1 million payday, but still, $500,000 or $750,000 is a bonanza for programs with athletic budgets south of $15 million a year.
“It’s great for programs like this to be able to come play at a place like Oklahoma and the obvious benefits financially for those programs,” Lincoln Riley said.
OK. Agreed. I can’t on one side pop the superpowers for clamoring for as much as money as they can get, then pop them when they figure out a way to share the wealth.
And heck, this is not a good week to bashing mismatches. Montana upset Washington 13-7. Missouri State scared OSU before losing 23-16. Iowa State survived Northern Iowa 16-10.
But still. Alabama-Mercer awaits. Clemson-South Carolina State. OU-Western Carolina.
Television hates these games. Fans hate these games.
But players, I assume, don’t know the difference. At least the Power 5 players. And the I-AA players don’t consider it drudgery; they consider it an adventure.
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“I think it’s a great challenge,” said Western Carolina coach Kerwin Bell. “Like I told our kids earlier this week, listen, this is the ultimate challenge for all of us. Go see how you can put your talent up against some of the best in the country. Guys who are going to play and make a lot of money in the NFL.
“So if you think you’re a talented kid, man, this is a showcase for you. To go out and prove that you can go play, and play at a high level against a very good football team and good football players. Our kids are excited about that.”
The excitement should end soon after the 6 p.m. kickoff. Western Carolina is 3-8 and 3-9 the last two seasons it has played, and it’s not like the Catamounts were great before that. In 45 years of Southern Conference play, they never have won the championship.
What about OU’s side? Do the Sooners get anything out of this game other than playing young guys?
“I think it’s part of looking at your whole schedule and does it fit?” Riley said. “And I think this year, with the current playoff climate, the way the conference is, the rest of the non-conference schedule we have, we thought it made sense. I think it does make sense here.”
I don’t know what that all means, other than it’s an automatic victory.
I asked Riley what’s the difference between playing teams allowed to give out just 65 scholarships (Division I-AA) compared to the 85 of Division I-A.
“The differences typically to me a lot of times are depth, and then occasionally in the lines of scrimmage,” Riley said. “There’s still a lot of good players on the field. There’s a lot of good players in I-AA football and the coaches are just as good as they are at this level.
“So it’s another game for us. It’s a good opponent. We’re excited to play them. However the game plays out, I think our focus right now is whether we’re playing, doesn’t matter, an NFL team, a high school team, a I-AA, Division I. It doesn’t matter. We’ve got to play four quarters as a team. That’s job No. 1, 2 and 3 right now.”
Some more Power 5 vs. Division I-AA await. But this is the worst week. Let’s try to live through it.
Here are the predictions.
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Western Carolina at Oklahoma: Sooners 72-6. The current Southern Conference includes Samford, Virginia Military, Mercer, East Tennessee State, Furman, Wofford, the Citadel, Chattanooga and Western Carolina. OU’s only other game against that group was a 57-2 rout of Chattanooga in 2008.
Tulsa at Oklahoma State: Cowboys 31-13. The renewed series takes the next two seasons off, then resumes annually in 2024, through at least 2031.
Iowa at Iowa State: Hawkeyes 20-17. ESPN’s GameDay will air from Ames, and Kirk Herbstreit will stick around to call the game, which kicks off at 3:30 p.m. This will do wonders for the state’s profile – projected high temperature Saturday in Ames is 90 degrees. Not always frozen tundra.
Texas at Arkansas: Longhorns 38-20. Interesting. In the same year that the OU-Nebraska Game of the Century combatants will renew their series, same goes for the Big Shootout of 1969.
California at Texas Christian: Horned Frogs 33-14. TCU coach Gary Patterson can motivate his troops by telling them the elitist Californians didn’t want the Frogs in the Pac-12. Heck, it might even be true.
Kansas at Coastal Carolina: Chanticleers 40-17. Coastal’s 38-23 win in Lawrence last season ignited the Chanticleers’ special season. And that game wasn’t even scheduled to be played at KU; it was switched due to the Big 12’s Covid policies.
Long Island at West Virginia: Mountaineers 55-7. I didn’t even know LIU had a football team. I didn’t know until this year that Duquesne had a football team, and the mismatch against TCU was so bad, the teams agreed to shorten the second half. Hope that doesn’t happen here. Or maybe I hope it does.
Texas Southern at Baylor: Bears 42-7. I give Baylor a lot of credit. The Bears schedule too many mismatches, but they usually keep it within the state.
Southern Illinois at Kansas State: Wildcats 36-0. The Jack Hartman Bowl. The Oklahoma A&M quarterback from the 1940s went on to be quite the basketball coach, first at Southern Illinois (Walt Frazier, anyone?) and then at K-State.
Stephen F. Austin at Texas Tech: Red Raiders 48-20. This is quite an in-state road trip. It’s 506 miles from Nacogdoches in east Texas to Lubbock in west Texas, and that includes going through Dallas-Fort Worth.
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Missouri at Kentucky: Wildcats 24-21. The winner is the clear front-runner for finishing third in the East Division of the Southeastern Conference. Don’t laugh. That’s a decent desire when grouped with Georgia and Florida.
Texas A&M at Colorado: Aggies 36-17. This is hard to remember, but this series didn’t start until 1995, and CU has a 6-3 series lead in those Big 12 days. Conference realignment has been much kinder to the Aggies than the Buffaloes.
Pittsburgh at Tennessee: Volunteers 24-16. The Johnny Majors Classic. He coached Pitt twice, including to the 1976 national championship. In between, Majors coached Tennessee, his alma mater. In honor of Majors, who died in 2020 at age 85, Jackie Sherrill was serve as honorary Pitt captain. Sherrill was a Majors protégé and the coach who succeeded Majors at Pitt.
North Carolina State at Mississippi State: Wolfpack 31-21. Bulldogs were fortunate to escape Louisiana Tech’s upset bid last week. Meanwhile, N.C. State routed South Florida.
Alabama-Birmingham at Georgia: Bulldogs 37-7. UAB had the entire football world to itself last Wednesday, with a game against Jacksonville State. Now UAB has Georgia all to itself; there are no takers to join the brigade.
Vanderbilt at Colorado State: Rams 24-21. Both lost to a Division I-AA opponent last week -- in dominating fashion. South Dakota State spanked Colorado State 42-23, and East Tennessee State routed Vanderbilt 23-3.
South Carolina at East Carolina: Gamecocks 38-13. South Carolina coach Shane Beamer said he won’t reveal his starting quarterback until Saturday, but if it’s not former graduate assistant coach Zeb Noland, there could be rioting. Noland, literally part of the coaching staff three weeks ago, replaced the injured Luke Doty as the Gamecock start and shined against Eastern Illinois.
Florida at South Florida: Gators 49-13. Someone, and I have no idea who, sure screwed up the USF program. The Bulls, who were birthed in part by Lee Roy Selmon, were the mid-major equals of Central Florida not that long ago. Now UCF is headed for the Big 12, and South Florida is seemingly headed for oblivion, with no excitement that it’s got the Gators coming to town.
Alabama State at Auburn: Tigers 56-6. I wonder, if Oklahoma had a Division I-AA school, would the Sooners or Cowboys schedule it? You’d like to think so.
Mercer at Alabama: Crimson Tide 52-0. In related news, the Ethiopian army has sharpened its spears as the German tanks invade.
Austin Peay at Ole Miss: Rebels 49-14. Mississippi looked strong against Louisville, other than quarantined coach Lane Kiffin griping on an ESPN interview about the Big Ten officiating crew calling so many targeting penalties. If I was running the Big Ten, I’d let Ole Miss know it can use Sun Belt officials for its next neutral-site game.
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McNeese State at Louisiana State: Tigers 55-14. LSU is billed to be strong in odd-numbered years. But what was odd was UCLA running all over the Tigers last Saturday night.
Oregon at Ohio State: Buckeyes 38-24. Neither team dominated its opener – Ohio State beat Minnesota 45-31; the Ducks survived Fresno State 31-24.
Washington at Michigan: Wolverines 25-14. Ironic scheduling. A week after Montana’s upset of Washington, the Huskies visit the Wolverines, the other victim of the most famous I-AA victory in college football history. Back in 2007, Appalachian State took down Michigan.
Illinois at Virginia: Cavaliers 27-24. The Bret Bielema train lost its steam with a home loss to Texas-San Antonio. After beating Nebraska, Illinois seemed headed for a quality start.
Buffalo at Nebraska: Cornhuskers 32-14. Nebraska would be more worried had Buffalo not lost six transfers to Kansas, where coach Lance Leipold landed in the spring.
Rutgers at Syracuse: Scarlet Knights 31-20. Old Big East matchup. The Scarlet Knights and Orange played every season from 1980-2012.
Ball State at Penn State: Nittany Lions 39-7. Penn State deserves a Mid-American Conference break after a grueling win at Wisconsin’s Camp Randall Stadium.
Miami-Ohio at Minnesota: Gophers 48-14. Minnesota deserves a MAC break after chasing Ohio State all over Huntington Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.
Eastern Michigan at Wisconsin: Badgers 45-7. Wisconsin deserves a MAC break after a tug o’ war with Penn State.
Purdue at Connecticut: Boilermakers 51-7. Randy Edsall is out as the UConn coach after a dismal start to the season. Edsall, who coached the 2010 Huskies to a Fiesta Bowl matchup with the Sooners, then high-tailed it to Maryland, had a disastrous decade. Ineffective and fired at Maryland, then a 6-43 run back at UConn, complete with a nepotism lawsuit over Edsall hiring his son to the staff.
Youngstown State at Michigan State: Spartans 38-10. Spartans looked strong in opener against Northwestern. Not capable of winning the Big Ten East, but capable of a big upset in the division.
Indiana State at Northwestern: Wildcats 42-14. Northwestern did not look strong against Michigan State, but never get down on the Wildcats. Lots of good coaches in Northwestern history. Gary Barnett, Pappy Waldorf, Ara Parseghian, Randy Walker, Alex Agase, Lou Saban, John Pont. But Pat Fitzgerald (106 Northwestern wins) has more than twice as many victories than any of them.
Idaho at Indiana: Hoosiers 48-11. I knew Indiana played football. I knew Idaho played football. I never considered the possibility that Indiana and Idaho could play football against each other. Looks strange.
Howard at Maryland: Terrapins 52-16. Maryland should be 4-0 when October arrives, but then come Iowa and Ohio State.
Appalachian State at Miami: Mountaineers 31-28. Upset special. The Hurricanes looked listless against Alabama, which admittedly can happen to anybody, but will the U. be ready for the Appalachian State upstarts?
Middle Tennessee at Virginia Tech: Hokies 34-17. Justin Fuente is off to a good start in his job-saving challenge. It helps to have a great defensive line, and VPI seemed to have just that against North Carolina.
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Georgia State at North Carolina: Tar Heels 40-13. Wow. Mack Brown, 70, looked suddenly old on the UNC sideline last week, and that was even before kickoff.
Boston College at Massachusetts: Eagles 59-7. UMass plays UConn on October 9. I swear, it’ll be the game of the year.
North Carolina A&T at Duke: Blue Devils 31-14. Duke was upset by Charlotte last week. Could it happen again, against an in-state foe?
Eastern Kentucky at Louisville: Cardinals 57-14. Man, the ‘Ville looked lost against Ole Miss. The short week won’t help, but an Ohio Valley Conference opponent will.
Jacksonville State at Florida State: Seminoles 50-6. Both these teams had nationally-televised games last week on nights with no other football. Jacksonville State played UAB; Florida State played Notre Dame.
Kennesaw State at Georgia Tech: Yellow Jackets 41-7. The Ramblin’ Wreck is in the salvage yard after a 22-21 loss to Northern Illinois.
Norfolk State at Wake Forest: Demon Deacons 42-16. At some point this season, Wake will play a team not based in Norfolk, Virginia – the Deacons opened with a rout of Old Dominion.
South Carolina State at Clemson: Tigers 59-0. Clemson still looking for its first touchdown of the season, but it also hasn’t allowed an offensive touchdown this season. The latter is likely to hold.
Utah at Brigham Young: Utes 27-26. All you need to know about conference realignment is that this great rivalry wasn’t scheduled in 2014 and isn’t scheduled for 2024. The people who run college football will be held accountable when they stand before the football gods.
Stanford at Southern Cal: Trojans 45-10. Egads. The Cardinal looks like a mess. USC, on the other hand, might be rather decent.
Nevada-Las Vegas at Arizona State: Sun Devils 44-17. UNLV lost to Division I-AA opponent Eastern Washington.
San Diego State at Arizona: Aztecs 21-14. Strangest feeling over the weekend. Watching games late Saturday night, I flip over to CBS Sports Network. Halftime score – New Mexico State 10, San Diego State 0. The Aztecs rallied for a 28-10 victory, but what the heck was going on?
Hawaii at Oregon State: Beavers 28-19. I wonder if that OSU-Oregon State game is ever going to be rescheduled? The Beavers hosted the Cowboys in 2019, but the 2020 return trip was waylaid by Covid.
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Portland State at Washington State: Cougars 33-28. Rough year WSU. Coach Nick Rolovich refuses to get vaccinated, and then his Cougars lost to Utah State.
Toledo at Notre Dame: Fighting Irish 31-10. Give the Irish credit. This is their idea of an easy game, and while yes, the Rockets are in the MAC, they typically are no pushovers.
Western Kentucky at Army: Black Knights 25-14. After this game, the Cadets play UConn, Miami-Ohio and Ball State. They should be 5-0 when going to Wisconsin in mid-October.
Liberty at Troy: Flames 36-7. Someone I know in the national media, whose name I will protect because I’m not sure if he’s got unknown alliances or if he just had heat-stroke, tossed up Liberty as a possible Big 12 expansion candidate.
North Texas at Southern Methodist: Mustangs 48-28. The Mean Green beat SMU in 2014 and 2018, but in recent years, the Mustangs have rolled.
Memphis at Arkansas State: Tigers 35-32. Regional rivals who have played just 20 times, and just once since 2013. This ought to be an every-year thing.
Houston at Rice: Cougars 54-14. My idea for Big 12 scheduling, that the Big 12 ought to fortify its non-conference opponents and build a reputation as a league that will take on all comers? It starts with this. Games like OSU-Tulsa and Houston-Rice and UCF-USF? Those aren’t the middle opponent of a three-game non-conference schedule. You play those rivalries, plus two Power 5 opponents.
Air Force at Navy: Falcons 32-17. Man, what is up with the Midshipmen? We wrote off Navy’s 55-3, 2020-opening loss to Brigham Young as Covid-related. But now Navy has opened 2021 with a 49-7 loss to Marshall.
Temple at Akron: Owls 21-20. Zips vs. Owls. Hard to find a matchup with more fewer letters.
Murray State at Cincinnati: Bearcats 46-10. Come on, Cincy. We’re pulling for you now that you’re headed our way.
Bethune-Cookman at Central Florida: Knights 62-14. Same.
Morgan State at Tulane: Green Wave 51-14. Everybody’s pulling for Tulane, which temporarily has become America’s team, with its hearty performance at Owen Field, in the wake of Hurricane Ida.
Wyoming at Northern Illinois: Huskies 28-20. Cowboys narrowly escaped an upset against Montana State, while the Huskies indeed pulled off the upset against Georgia Tech.
New Mexico State at New Mexico: Lobos 26-24. Science is life. Everything gradually moves toward the mean. New Mexico State is getting a little better. New Mexico is getting a little worse.
Texas-El Paso at Boise State: Broncos 41-21. Boise State preps for its OSU showdown.
Cal Poly at Fresno State: Bulldogs 60-7. Fresno State is off to a rousing start. Big win over Connecticut, close loss at Oregon. The Bulldogs could emerge as the Mountain West favorite.
Idaho State at Nevada: Wolf Pack 45-10. Jay Norvell’s Nevadans beat California and sport the best NFL quarterback prospect I’ve seen, in Carson Strong.
North Dakota at Utah State: Aggies 27-24. Blake Anderson, late of Arkansas State, got a big win, at Washington State, in his Utah State debut.
Georgia Southern at Florida Atlantic: Owls 28-16. Mike Stoops’ task, coordinating the FAU defense, is a lot easier this week, after dealing with Florida last week.
South Alabama at Bowling Green: Jaguars 34-21. I’m picking Sun Belt games this year, courtesy of the Coastal Carolina/Louisiana-Lafayette/Appalachian State axis. But this game makes me rethink that policy.
Nicholls at Louisiana-Lafayette: Ragin’ Cajuns 52-14. If ULL is a fraud, then Texas’ win doesn’t look so great. But there’s no reason to think ULL is a fraud.
Texas State at Florida International: Bobcats 38-27. Jake Spavital’s Texas Staters played well against Baylor.
Last week: 47-15. Season: 51-16.
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Jon Cooper returns with Western Carolina
Western Carolina offensive line coach John Peacock died two weeks ago from Covid complications at the age of 32. So Catamounts coach Kerwin Bell needed a successor and quick.
Bell found Jon Cooper.
Bob Stoops’ rock-steady center from the 2006-08 OU teams will coach Western Carolina’s offensive line as the Catamounts play at Owen Field on Saturday.
“It’s funny. You hire him, and all of a sudden, in a couple of weeks, you’re playing his alma mater,” Bell said. “He was a great football player there. Had great success there as the starting center. So he’s looking forward to it, I call tell you. He wants to go in and do well against his former team.”
Cooper, from Fort Collins, Colorado, went unselected in the 2009 National Football League Draft but signed with Minnesota and played three years with the Vikings.
Cooper went into coaching and was an OU graduate assistant in 2013-14. He followed former Sooner offensive coordinator Josh Heupel to Utah State (2015), Missouri (2016-17) and Central Florida (2018-19), the latter where Heupel was head coach and Cooper was a full-time assistant for the first time.
Cooper moved on to Arkansas, where he coached tight ends last season. Razorback coach Sam Pittman fired Cooper after last season, but now Cooper has caught on with Western Carolina.
“I tell you what, I think he’s a perfect fit for what we needed,” Bell said. “A guy who has a lot of knowledge. A guy who’s really helped us in the run game and sort of got some things cleaned up we were looking to do with coach Peacock. But he’s sort of added to that and done a great job.
“Perfect fit, as far as personality. The kids have really bought in to what he’s doing. It was good to see that after coach Peacock had brought so much to the table and guys had really bought into him. Loved coach Peacock. But I think coach Cooper’s been the perfect hire and he’s done a tremendous job so far.”
The Catamounts lost to Eastern Kentucky 31-28 last Saturday. Now Cooper’s second game with Western Carolina will be back in Norman.
“He’s told us about the crowd and the sidelines, how narrow they are to the fans, how close the fans are to us,” Bell said. “Gave us some good insight. Yeah, he’s ready to go.
“Now we gotta go out Saturday against his former team. I know he’s going to be juiced up, and I think our line will perform well for him, knowing the situation."
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Mailbag: College football heat
On the Sports Animal, Al Eschbach and I got into a discussion Tuesday about hot-weather football games. I told him the hottest games I can remember were back-to-back days in September 2000. OU hosted Texas-El Paso, with a temperature of 106 degrees. The next day, in Irving, Texas, the Dallas Cowboys hosted the Philadelphia Eagles, with a temperature of 107. That prompted a reader memory.
Dan: “In the summer of 1970, I was part of the crew that installed the first artificial turf on Owen Field. One inch cement, one inch rubber, glue and non-breathing Tartan Turf. A comedian I like told this story. ‘A man wanted to prove he could withstand a cat 3 hurricane. So when Hurricane Irene hit Corpus Christi, he went and strapped himself to a palm tree on the beach. He learned a lesson. “It’s not how hard the wind is blowing, it’s what the wind is blowing.” If you get hit by a Volvo, it doesn’t matter how many situps you did that morning.’ Same with artificial turfs.”
Tramel: I remember OU’s old Tartan Turf. And it was an atrocity. A fast track, to be sure, but the heat indeed bubbled up from the turf. I’ve had a player tell me he could feel the heat up to his knees on the Cotton Bowl’s old Tartan Turf.
Grass apparently absorbs heat. Fake grass intensifies the heat.
The artificial turfs of today are much better than those old carpets, which were almost green concrete, known for skin burns and excruciating heat. OU long ago went back to real grass. I think the players are pleased.
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Take a Ride on the Reading: Superfan
We go off the literary tracks a little bit today with Superfan, a 1972 football parody by Mad Magazine’s Jack Davis and Nick Meglin. And yes, it’s a comic book. A 176-page comic book, in full book form, but a compilation of Meglin’s words and Davis’ drawings, drawn from Mad.
Mad Magazine was a sensation half a century ago, as a satire on all things American, from politics to society to sports. It published from 1952 through 2018 but now exists on scaled-down subscriptions with mostly re-used material.
But in 1973-74, Mad Magazine’s circulation was more than two million per magazine. And Superfan, a mock of the National Football League, was part of that.
Superfan was prophetic, trending into the eventual myriad playoff possibilities and officiating scandals and television overreach.
Superfan was making fun of pro football, and 50 years later, we see that some slapstick becomes reality.
Superfan still can occasionally be found on Amazon. Young football fans will enjoy the format. Old football fans will enjoy the wisdom.
Berry Tramel: Berry can be reached at 405-760-8080 or at btramel@oklahoman.com. He can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including FM-98.1. Support his work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.