As we all know, and I have written about at length, Iowa State-Oklahoma is among the most lopsided in-conference series in college football. While rehashing schedules, I stumbled upon another discouraging fact: In the past four years, Oklahoma has lost nine games in the regular season — and four of them came right before Iowa State.
- 2014: Lost to Kansas State on a blocked PAT and missed field goal, then a bye
- 2013: Lost to Baylor
- 2012: Lost to Notre Dame
- 2011: Lost to Baylor
This year seemed ripe for some longtime streaks to fall, but streaks like these are built on both skill and (bad) luck. Florida, which has already suffered a transitive 76-13 loss to Georgia before this Saturday’s game, needed a delay-of-game non-call to beat Kentucky in triple overtime. Michigan is not having a WOW Experience this year, but Indiana is down to a third-string quarterback.* Those two also play Saturday. In other words: Help us, Maryland-Penn State, you’re our only hope. (Also, I want to get rid of that wasn’t-conference-but-is-now asterisk on the streak chart.)
This year will be the first even-numbered year that Bob Stoops won’t win a conference championship at Oklahoma.
*Indiana has a transitive victory over Florida this year. No, I can’t explain Missouri’s season either.
UPDATE: Hey, Colorado, that’s OUR shtick!
It’s hard to tell sometimes what brand of misery is worse — getting beat like a drum week in and week out or playing competitively but knowing deep down there’s going to be some soul-crushing debacle waiting at the end of the game.